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EU financial integration : is there a 'Core Europe'? ; evidence from a cluster-based approach
(2005)
Numerous recent studies, e.g. EU Commission (2004a), Baele et al. (2004), Adam et al.(2002), and the research pooled in ECB-CFS (2005), Gaspar, Hartmann, and Sleijpen(2003), have documented progress in EU financial integration from a micro-level view.This paper contributes to this research by identifying groups of financially integratedcountries from a holistic, macro-level view. It calculates cross-sectional dispersions, andinnovates by applying an inter-temporal cluster analysis to eight euro area countries for the period 1995-2002. The indicators employed represent the money, government bond and credit markets. Our results show that euro countries were divided into two stable groups of financially more closely integrated countries in the pre-EMU period. Back then, geographic proximity and country size might have played a role. This situation has changed remarkably with the euro's introduction. EMU has led to a shake-up both in the number and composition of groups. The evidence puts a question mark behin d using Germany as a benchmark in the post-EMU period. The ¯ndings suggest as well that ¯nancial integration takes place in waves. Stable periods and periods of intense transition alternate. Based on the notion of 'maximum similarity', the results suggest that there exist 'maximum similarity barriers'. It takes extraordinary events, such as EMU, to push the degree of ¯nancial integration beyond these barriers. The research encourages policymakers to move forward courageously in the post-FSAP era, and provides comfort that the substantial di®erences between the current and potentially new euro states can be overcome. The analysis could be extended to the new EU member countries, to the global level, and to additional indicators.
This study provides a graphic overview on core legislation in the area of economic and financial services. The presentation essentially covers the areas within the responsibility of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON); hence it starts with core ECON areas but also displays neighbouring areas of other Committees' competences which are closely connected to and impacting on ECON's work. It shows legislation in force, proposals and other relevant provisions on banking, securities markets and investment firms, market infrastructure, insurance and occupational pensions, payment services, consumer protection in financial services, the European System of Financial Supervision, European Monetary Union, euro bills and coins and statistics, competition, taxation, commerce and company law, accounting and auditing. Moreover, it notes selected provisions that might become relevant in the upcoming Article 50 TEU negotiations.
In this study prepared for the ECON Committee of the European Parliament, Gellings, Jungbluth and Langenbucher present a graphic overview on core legislation in the area of economic and financial services in Europe. The mapping overview can serve as background for further deliberations. The study covers legislation in force, proposals and other relevant provisions in fourteen policy areas, i.e. banking, securities markets and investment firms, market infrastructure, insurance and occupational pensions, payment services, consumer protection in financial services, the European System of Financial Supervision, European Monetary Union, Euro bills and Coins and statistics, competition, taxation, commerce and company law, accounting and auditing.
The global financial crisis (as well as the European sovereign debt crisis) has led to a substantial redesign of rules and institutions – aiming in particular at underwriting financial stability. At the same time, the crisis generated a renewed interest in properly appraising systemic financial vulnerabilities. Employing most recent data and applying a variety of largely only recently developed methods we provide an assessment of indicators of financial stability within the Euro Area. Taking a “functional” approach, we analyze comprehensively all financial intermediary activities, regardless of the institutional roof – banks or non-bank (shadow) banks – under which they are conducted. Our results reveal a declining role of banks (and a commensurate increase in non-bank banking). These structural shifts (between institutions) are coincident with regulatory and supervisory reforms (implemented or firmly anticipated) as well as a non-standard monetary policy environment. They might, unintendedly, actually imply a rise in systemic risk. Overall, however, our analyses suggest that financial imbalances have been reduced over the course of recent years. Hence, the financial intermediation sector has become more resilient. Nonetheless, existing (equity) buffers would probably not suffice to face substantial volatility shocks.
Euro area shadow banking activities in a low-interest-rate environment: a flow-of-funds perspective
(2016)
Very low policy rates as well as the substantial redesign of rules and supervisory institutions have changed background conditions for the Euro Area’s financial intermediary sector substantially. Both policy initiatives have been targeted at improving societal welfare. And their potential side effects (or costs) have been discussed intensively, in academic as well as policy circles. Very low policy rates (and correspondingly low market rates) are likely to whet investors’ risk taking incentives. Concurrently, the tightened regulatory framework, in particular for banks, increases the comparative attractiveness of the less regulated, so-called shadow banking sector. Employing flow-of-funds data for the Euro Area’s non-bank banking sector we take stock of recent developments in this part of the financial sector. In addition, we examine to which extent low interest rates have had an impact on investment behavior. Our results reveal a declining role of banks (and, simultaneously, an increase in non-bank banking). Overall intermediation activity, hence, has remained roughly at the same level. Moreover, our findings also suggest that non-bank banks have tended to take positions in riskier assets (particularly in equities). In line with this observation, balance-sheet based risk measures indicate a rise in sector-specific risks in the non-bank banking sector (when narrowly defined).
Euro crash risk
(2015)
Using fiscal reaction functions for 3a panel of actual euro-area countries the paper investigates whether euro membership has reduced the responsiveness of countries to increases in the level of inherited debt compared to the period prior to succession to the euro. While we find some evidence for such a loss in prudence, the results are not robust to changes in the specification, as for example an exclusion of Greece from the panel. This suggests that the current debt problems may result to a large extent from pre-existing debt levels prior to entry or from a larger need for fiscal prudence in a common currency, while an adverse change in the fiscal reaction functions for most countries does not apply.
The paper uses fiscal reaction functions for a panel of euro-area countries to investigate whether euro membership has reduced the responsiveness of countries to shocks in the level of inherited debt compared to the period prior to succession to the euro. While we find some evidence for such a loss in prudence, the results are not robust to changes in the specification, such as an exclusion of Greece from the panel. This suggests that the current debt problems may result to a large extent from preexisting debt levels prior to entry or from a larger need for fiscal prudence in a common currency, while an adverse change in the fiscal reaction functions for most countries does not apply.
Euro nicht gefährdet
(2017)
Europa - wohin?
(2011)
Gemäß der Krönungstheorie der europäischen Währungsunion wurde der Euro eingeführt, um die Notwendigkeit gemeinsamen Regierens in der Europäischen Union allen vor Augen zu führen und so ein geordnetes Vorrücken zur europäischen Integration zu ermöglichen. In der gegenwärtigen Phase scheint indes politischer Opportunismus die Integration zu bestimmen.
Ein Freibrief für die Notenbank bedeutet, genau genommen, die Bankrotterklärung des demokratischen Verfassungsstaates vor technokratischen Beliebigkeiten, schreibt Helmut Siekmann in diesem Namensbeitrag. Er betont, dass die Europäische Union eine unverzichtbare Einrichtung ist und ein echter Bundesstaat sein sollte. Sie sei aber im Wesentlichen (nur) ein Rechtskonstrukt, weshalb es umso wichtiger sei, dass die rechtlichen Regeln, auf denen sie beruht, genauestens beachtet werden.
In dieser Notiz wird ein neues Konzept für eine europäische Einlagensicherung vorgeschlagen, welches den starken politischen Vorbehalten Rechnung trägt, die gegen eine Vergemeinschaftung der Haftung für Bankeinlagen bestehen. Das skizzierte drei-stufige Einlagensicherungsmodell führt existierende nationale Einlagensicherungseinrichtungen weiter, bietet einen europäischen Verlustausgleich und verhindert eine exzessive Risikoübernahme zu Lasten der internationalen Gemeinschaft.
This chapter discusses whether and how 'new quantitative trade models' (NQTMs) can be fruitfully applied to quantify the welfare effects of trade liberalization, thus shedding light on the trade-related effects of further European integration. On the one hand, it argues that NQTMs have indeed the potential of being used to supplement traditional 'computable general equilibrium' (CGE) analysis thanks to their tight connection between theory and data, appealing micro-theoretical foundations, and enhanced attention to the estimation of structural parameters. On the other hand, further work is still needed in order to fully exploit such potential.
The SVB case is a wake-up call for Europe’s regulators as it demonstrates the destructive power of a bank-run: it undermines the role of loss absorbing capital, elbowing governments to bailout affected banks. Many types of bank management weaknesses, like excessive duration risk, may raise concerns of bank losses – but to serve as a run-trigger, there needs to be a large enough group of bank depositors that fails to be fully covered by a deposit insurance scheme. Latent run-risk is the root cause of inefficient liquidations, and we argue that a run on SVB assets could have been avoided altogether by a more thoughtful deposit insurance scheme, sharply distinguishing between loss absorbing capital (equity plus bail-in debt) and other liabilities which are deemed not to be bail-inable, namely demand deposits. These evidence-based insights have direct implications for Europe’s banking regulation, suggesting a minimum and a maximum for a banks’ loss absorption capacity.
Asset-backed securitisation (ABS) is an asset funding technique that involves the issuance of structured claims on the cash flow performance of a designated pool of underlying receivables. Efficient risk management and asset allocation in this growing segment of fixed income markets requires both investors and issuers to thoroughly understand the longitudinal properties of spread prices. We present a multi-factor GARCH process in order to model the heteroskedasticity of secondary market spreads for valuation and forecasting purposes. In particular, accounting for the variance of errors is instrumental in deriving more accurate estimators of time-varying forecast confidence intervals. On the basis of CDO, MBS and Pfandbrief transactions as the most important asset classes of off-balance sheet and on-balance sheet securitisation in Europe we find that expected spread changes for these asset classes tends to be level stationary with model estimates indicating asymmetric mean reversion. Furthermore, spread volatility (conditional variance) is found to follow an asymmetric stochastic process contingent on the value of past residuals. This ABS spread behaviour implies negative investor sentiment during cyclical downturns, which is likely to escape stationary approximation the longer this market situation lasts.
Evaluating the quality of credit portfolio risk models is an important issue for both banks and regulators. Lopez and Saidenberg (2000) suggest cross-sectional resampling techniques in order to make efficient use of available data. We show that their proposal disregards cross-sectional dependence in resampled portfolios, which renders standard statistical inference invalid. We proceed by suggesting the Berkowitz (1999) procedure, which relies on standard likelihood ratio tests performed on transformed default data. We simulate the power of this approach in various settings including one in which the test is extended to incorporate cross-sectional information. To compare the predictive ability of alternative models, we propose to use either Bonferroni bounds or the likelihood-ratio of the two models. Monte Carlo simulations show that a default history of ten years can be sufficient to resolve uncertainties currently present in credit risk modeling.
Evaluating the quality of credit portfolio risk models is an important question for both banks and regulators. Lopez and Saidenberg (2000) suggest cross-sectional resampling techniques in order to make efficient use of available data and to produce measures of forecast accuracy. We first show that their proposal disregards crosssectional dependence in simulated subportfolios, which renders standard statistical inference invalid. We proceed by suggesting another evaluation methodology which draws on the concept of likelihood ratio tests. Specifically, we compare the predictive quality of alternative models by comparing the probabilities that observed data have been generated by these models. The distribution of the test statistic can be derived through Monte Carlo simulation. To exploit differences in cross-sectional predictions of alternative models, the test can be based on a linear combination of subportfolio statistics. In the construction of the test, the weight of a subportfolio depends on the difference in the loss distributions which alternative models predict for this particular portfolio. This makes efficient use of the data, and reduces computational burden. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that the power of the tests is satisfactory.
JEL classification: G2; G28; C52
We compare the cost effectiveness of two pronatalist policies:
(a) child allowances; and
(b) daycare subsidies.
We pay special attention to estimating how intended fertility (fertility before children are born) responds to these policies. We use two evaluation tools:
(i) a dynamic model on fertility, labor supply, outsourced childcare time, parental time, asset accumulation and consumption; and
(ii) randomized vignette-survey policy experiments.
We implement both tools in the United States and Germany, finding consistent evidence that daycare subsidies are more cost effective. Nevertheless, the required public expenditure to increase fertility to the replacement level might be viewed as prohibitively high.
Under a new Basel capital accord, bank regulators might use quantitative measures when evaluating the eligibility of internal credit rating systems for the internal ratings based approach. Based on data from Deutsche Bundesbank and using a simulation approach, we find that it is possible to identify strongly inferior rating systems out-of time based on statistics that measure either the quality of ranking borrowers from good to bad, or the quality of individual default probability forecasts. Banks do not significantly improve system quality if they use credit scores instead of ratings, or logistic regression default probability estimates instead of historical data. Banks that are not able to discriminate between high- and low-risk borrowers increase their average capital requirements due to the concavity of the capital requirements function.
This paper investigates the accuracy of point and density forecasts of four DSGE models for inflation, output growth and the federal funds rate. Model parameters are estimated and forecasts are derived successively from historical U.S. data vintages synchronized with the Fed’s Greenbook projections. Point forecasts of some models are of similar accuracy as the forecasts of nonstructural large dataset methods. Despite their common underlying New Keynesian modeling philosophy, forecasts of different DSGE models turn out to be quite distinct. Weighted forecasts are more precise than forecasts from individual models. The accuracy of a simple average of DSGE model forecasts is comparable to Greenbook projections for medium term horizons. Comparing density forecasts of DSGE models with the actual distribution of observations shows that the models overestimate uncertainty around point forecasts.
This paper investigates the accuracy of point and density forecasts of four DSGE models for inflation, output growth and the federal funds rate. Model parameters are estimated and forecasts are derived successively from historical U.S. data vintages synchronized with the Fed’s Greenbook projections. Point forecasts of some models are of similar accuracy as the forecasts of nonstructural large dataset methods. Despite their common underlying New Keynesian modeling philosophy, forecasts of different DSGE models turn out to be quite distinct. Weighted forecasts are more precise than forecasts from individual models. The accuracy of a simple average of DSGE model forecasts is comparable to Greenbook projections for medium term horizons. Comparing density forecasts of DSGE models with the actual distribution of observations shows that the models overestimate uncertainty around point forecasts.
This paper investigates the accuracy of forecasts from four DSGE models for inflation, output growth and the federal funds rate using a real-time dataset synchronized with the Fed’s Greenbook projections. Conditioning the model forecasts on the Greenbook nowcasts leads to forecasts that are as accurate as the Greenbook projections for output growth and the federal funds rate. Only for inflation the model forecasts are dominated by the Greenbook projections. A comparison with forecasts from Bayesian VARs shows that the economic structure of the DSGE models which is useful for the interpretation of forecasts does not lower the accuracy of forecasts. Combining forecasts of several DSGE models increases precision in comparison to individual model forecasts. Comparing density forecasts with the actual distribution of observations shows that DSGE models overestimate uncertainty around point forecasts.
This paper evaluates the effects of Public Sponsored Training in East Germany in the context of reiterated treatments. Selection bias based on observed characteristics is corrected for by applying kernel matching based on the propensity score. We control for further selection and the presence of Ashenfelter's Dip before the program with conditional difference-in-differences estimators. Training as a first treatment shows insignificant effects on the transition rates. The effect of program sequences and the incremental effect of a second program on the reemployment probability are insignificant. However, the incremental effect on the probability to remain employed is slightly positive. JEL - Klassifikation: H43 , C23 , J6 , J64 , C14
We develop a novel empirical approach to identify the effectiveness of policies against a pandemic. The essence of our approach is the insight that epidemic dynamics are best tracked over stages, rather than over time. We use a normalization procedure that makes the pre-policy paths of the epidemic identical across regions. The procedure uncovers regional variation in the stage of the epidemic at the time of policy implementation. This variation delivers clean identification of the policy effect based on the epidemic path of a leading region that serves as a counterfactual for other regions. We apply our method to evaluate the effectiveness of the nationwide stay-home policy enacted in Spain against the Covid-19 pandemic. We find that the policy saved 15.9% of lives relative to the number of deaths that would have occurred had it not been for the policy intervention. Its effectiveness evolves with the epidemic and is larger when implemented at earlier stages.
Innovations are a key factor to ensure the competitiveness of establishments as well as to enhance the growth and wealth of nations. But more than any other economic activity, decisions about innovations are plagued by failures of the market mechanism. As a response, public instruments have been implemented to stimulate private innovation activities. The effectiveness of these measures, however, is ambiguous and calls for an empirical evaluation. In this paper we make use of the IAB Establishment Panel and apply various microeconometric methods to estimate the effect of public measures on innovation activities of German establishments. We find that neglecting sample selection due to observable as well as to unobservable characteristics leads to an overestimation of the treatment effect and that there are considerable differences with regard to size class and betweenWest and East German establishments.
In dieser Studie werden die Wirkungen von Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen (ABM) in Deutschland auf die individuellen Eingliederungswahrscheinlichkeiten der Teilnehmer in reguläre Beschäftigung evaluiert. Für die Untersuchung wird ein umfangreicher und informativer Datensatz aus den Datenquellen der Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) verwendet, der es ermöglicht, die Wirkungen der Programme differenziert nach individuellen Unterschieden der Teilnehmer und mit Berücksichtigung der heterogenen Arbeitsmarktstruktur zu untersuchen. Der Datensatz enthält Informationen zu allen Teilnehmern in ABM, die ihre Maßnahmen im Februar 2000 begonnen haben, und zu einer Kontrollgruppe von Nichtteilnehmern, die im Januar 2000 arbeitslos waren und im Februar 2000 nicht in die Programme eingetreten sind. Mit Hilfe der Informationen der Beschäftigtenstatistik ist es hierbei erstmals möglich, den Abgang in reguläre Beschäftigung auf Grundlage administrativer Daten zu untersuchen. Der vorliegende Verbleibszeitraum reicht bis Dezember 2002. Unter Verwendung von Matching-Methoden auf dem Ansatz potenzieller Ergebnisse werden die Effekte von ABM mit regionaler Unterscheidung und für besondere Problem- und Zielgruppen des Arbeitsmarktes geschätzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zwar deutliche Unterschiede in den Effekten für Subgruppen, insgesamt weisen die empirischen Befunde jedoch darauf hin, dass das Ziel der Eingliederung in reguläre ungeförderte Beschäftigung durch ABM weitgehend nicht realisiert werden konnte. JEL: C40 , C13 , J64 , H43 , J68
In dieser Studie werden die Wirkungen von Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen (ABM) in Deutschland auf die individuellen Eingliederungswahrscheinlichkeiten der Teilnehmer in reguläre Beschäftigung evaluiert. Für die Untersuchung wird ein umfangreicher und informativer Datensatz aus den Datenquellen der Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) verwendet, der es ermöglicht, die Wirkungen der Programme differenziert nach individuellen Unterschieden der Teilnehmer und mit Berücksichtigung der heterogenen Arbeitsmarktstruktur zu untersuchen. Der Datensatz enthält Informationen zu allen Teilnehmern in ABM, die ihre Maßnahmen im Februar 2000 begonnen haben, und zu einer Kontrollgruppe von Nichtteilnehmern, die im Januar 2000 arbeitslos waren und im Februar 2000 nicht in die Programme eingetreten sind. Mit Hilfe der Informationen der Beschäftigtenstatistik ist es hierbei erstmals möglich, den Abgang in reguläre Beschäftigung auf Grundlage administrativer Daten zu untersuchen. Der vorliegende Verbleibszeitraum reicht bis Dezember 2002. Unter Verwendung von Matching-Methoden auf dem Ansatz potenzieller Ergebnisse werden die Effekte von ABM mit regionaler Unterscheidung und für besondere Problem- und Zielgruppen des Arbeitsmarktes geschätzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zwar deutliche Unterschiede in den Effekten für Subgruppen, insgesamt weisen die empirischen Befunde jedoch darauf hin, dass das Ziel der Eingliederung in reguläre ungeförderte Beschäftigung durch ABM weitgehend nicht realisiert werden konnte. JEL: C40 , C13 , J64 , H43 , J68
Persistently high unemployment, tight government budgets and the growing scepticism regarding the effects of active labour market policies (ALMP) are the basis for a growing interest in evaluating these measures. This paper intends to explain the need for evaluation on the micro- and macroeconomic level, introduce the fundamental evaluation problem and solutions to it, give an overview of the newer developments in evaluation literature and finally take a look on empirical estimations of ALMP effects. JEL Classification: C14, C33, H43, J64, J68
We develop a methodology to identify and rank “systemically important financial institutions” (SIFIs). Our approach is consistent with that followed by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) but, unlike the latter, it is free of judgment and it is based entirely on publicly available data, thus filling the gap between the official views of the regulator and those that market participants can form with their own information set. We apply the methodology to annual data on three samples of banks (global, EU and euro area) for the years 2007-2012. We examine the evolution of the SIFIs over time and document the shifs in the relative weights of the major geographic areas. We also discuss the implication of the 2013 update of the identification methodology proposed by the FSB.
Prior studies indicate the protective role of Ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation in human health, mediated by vitamin D synthesis. In this observational study, we empirically outline a negative association of UVB radiation as measured by ultraviolet index (UVI) with the number of COVID-19 deaths. We apply a fixed-effect log-linear regression model to a panel dataset of 152 countries over 108 days (n = 6524). We use the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths and case-fatality rate (CFR) as the main dependent variables and isolate the UVI effect from potential confounding factors. After controlling for time-constant and time-varying factors, we find that a permanent unit increase in UVI is associated with a 1.2 percentage points decline in daily growth rates of cumulative COVID-19 deaths [p < 0.01] and a 1.0 percentage points decline in the CFR daily growth rate [p < 0.05]. These results represent a significant percentage reduction in terms of daily growth rates of cumulative COVID-19 deaths (− 12%) and CFR (− 38%). We find a significant negative association between UVI and COVID-19 deaths, indicating evidence of the protective role of UVB in mitigating COVID-19 deaths. If confirmed via clinical studies, then the possibility of mitigating COVID-19 deaths via sensible sunlight exposure or vitamin D intervention would be very attractive.
The use of evidence and economic analysis in policymaking is on the rise, and accounting standard setting and financial regulation are no exception. This article discusses the promise of evidence-based policymaking in accounting and financial markets as well as the challenges and opportunities for research supporting this endeavor. In principle, using sound theory and robust empirical evidence should lead to better policies and regulations. But despite its obvious appeal and substantial promise, evidence-based policymaking is easier demanded than done. It faces many challenges related to the difficulty of providing relevant causal evidence, lack of data, the reliability of published research, and the transmission of research findings. Overcoming these challenges requires substantial infrastructure investments for generating and disseminating relevant research. To illustrate this point, I draw parallels to the rise of evidence-based medicine. The article provides several concrete suggestions for the research process and the aggregation of research findings if scientific evidence is to inform policymaking. I discuss how policymakers can foster and support policy-relevant research, chiefly by providing and generating data. The article also points to potential pitfalls when research becomes increasingly policy-oriented.
Die Quantenspieltheorie stellt eine mathematische und konzeptuelle Erweiterung der klassischen Spieltheorie dar. Der Raum aller denkbaren Entscheidungswege der Spieler wird vom rein reellen, messbaren Raum in den Raum der komplexen Zahlen (reelle und imaginäre Zahlen) ausgedehnt. Durch das Konzept der möglichen quantentheoretischen Verschränkung der Entscheidungswege im imaginären Raum aller denkbaren Quantenstrategien können gemeinsame, durch kulturelle oder moralische Normen entstandene Denkrichtungen mit einbezogen werden. Ist die Strategienverschränkung der Spieler im imaginären Raum der denkbaren Entscheidungswege nur genügend groß, so können zusätzliche Nash-Gleichgewichte auftreten und zuvor existente dominante Strategien sich auflösen. Die der evolutionären Entwicklung zugrundeliegende Replikatordynamik besitzt in der evolutionären Quantenspieltheorie eine komplexere Struktur und die jeweiligen evolutionär stabilen Strategien können sich, abhängig vom Maß der Verschränkung, abändern. Neben einer detaillierten Darstellung der evolutionären Quantenspieltheorie werden in dieser Dissertation mehrere Anwendungsbeispiele besprochen. So wird durch eine quantentheoretische Erweiterung die aktuelle Finanzkrise mittels eines Anti-Koordinationsspiels beleuchtet, das unterschiedliche Publikationsverhalten von Wissenschaftlern erklärt und erste Ansätze einer experimentellen Bestätigung der Theorie dargestellt.
For the academic audience, this paper presents the outcome of a well-identified, large change in the monetary policy rule from the lens of a standard New Keynesian model and asks whether the model properly captures the effects. For policymakers, it presents a cautionary tale of the dismal effects of ignoring basic macroeconomics. The Turkish monetary policy experiment of the past decade, stemming from a belief of the government that higher interest rates cause higher inflation, provides an unfortunately clean exogenous variance in the policy rule. The mandate to keep rates low, and the frequent policymaker turnover orchestrated by the government to enforce this, led to the Taylor principle not being satisfied and eventually a negative coeffcient on inflation in the policy rule. In such an environment, was the exchange rate still a random walk? Was inflation anchored? Does the “standard model”” suffice to explain the broad contours of macroeconomic outcomes in an emerging economy with large identifying variance in the policy rule? There are no surprises for students of open-economy macroeconomics; the answers are no, no, and yes.
We investigate the suggested substitutive relation between executive compensation and the disciplinary threat of takeover imposed by the market for corporate control. We complement other empirical studies on managerial compensation and corporate control mechanisms in three distinct ways. First, we concentrate on firms in the oil industry for which agency problems were especially severe in the 1980s. Due to the extensive generation of excess cash flow, product and factor market discipline was ineffective. Second, we obtain a unique data set drawn directly from proxy statements which accounts not only for salary and bonus but for the value of all stock-market based compensation held in the portfolio of a CEO. Our data set consists of 51 firms in the U.S. oil industry from 1977 to 1994. Third, we employ ex ante measures of the threat of takeover at the individual firm level which are superior to ex post measures like actual takeover occurrence or past incidence of takeovers in an industry. Results show that annual compensation and, to a much higher degree, stock-based managerial compensation increase after a firm becomes protected from a hostile takeover. However, clear-cut evidence that CEOs of protected firms receive higher compensation than those of firms considered susceptible to a takeover cannot be found.
We develop a model of managerial compensation structure and asset risk choice. The model provides predictions about how inside debt features affect the relation between credit spreads and compensation components. First, inside debt reduces credit spreads only if it is unsecured. Second, inside debt exerts important indirect effects on the role of equity incentives: When inside debt is large and unsecured, equity incentives increase credit spreads; When inside debt is small or secured, this effect is weakened or reversed. We test our model on a sample of U.S. public firms with traded CDS contracts, finding evidence supportive of our predictions. To alleviate endogeneity concerns, we also show that our results are robust to using an instrumental variable approach.
Exit strategies
(2014)
We study alternative scenarios for exiting the post-crisis fiscal and monetary accommodation using a macromodel where banks choose their capital structure and are subject to runs. Under a Taylor rule, the post-crisis interest rate hits the zero lower bound (ZLB) and remains there for several years. In that condition, pre-announced and fast fiscal consolidations dominate - based on output and inflation performance and bank stability - alternative strategies incorporating various degrees of gradualism and surprise. We also examine an alternative monetary strategy in which the interest rate does not reach the ZLB; the benefits from fiscal consolidation persist, but are more nuanced.
Expectations on others
(2017)
This paper explores the interplay of feature-based explainable AI (XAI) tech- niques, information processing, and human beliefs. Using a novel experimental protocol, we study the impact of providing users with explanations about how an AI system weighs inputted information to produce individual predictions (LIME) on users’ weighting of information and beliefs about the task-relevance of information. On the one hand, we find that feature-based explanations cause users to alter their mental weighting of available information according to observed explanations. On the other hand, explanations lead to asymmetric belief adjustments that we inter- pret as a manifestation of the confirmation bias. Trust in the prediction accuracy plays an important moderating role for XAI-enabled belief adjustments. Our results show that feature-based XAI does not only superficially influence decisions but re- ally change internal cognitive processes, bearing the potential to manipulate human beliefs and reinforce stereotypes. Hence, the current regulatory efforts that aim at enhancing algorithmic transparency may benefit from going hand in hand with measures ensuring the exclusion of sensitive personal information in XAI systems. Overall, our findings put assertions that XAI is the silver bullet solving all of AI systems’ (black box) problems into perspective.
When requesting a web-based service, users often fail in setting the website’s privacy settings according to their self privacy preferences. Being overwhelmed by the choice of preferences, a lack of knowledge of related technologies or unawareness of the own privacy preferences are just some reasons why users tend to struggle. To address all these problems, privacy setting prediction tools are particularly well-suited. Such tools aim to lower the burden to set privacy preferences according to owners’ privacy preferences. To be in line with the increased demand for explainability and interpretability by regulatory obligations – such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe – in this paper an explainable model for default privacy setting prediction is introduced. Compared to the previous work we present an improved feature selection, increased interpretability of each step in model design and enhanced evaluation metrics to better identify weaknesses in the model’s design before it goes into production. As a result, we aim to provide an explainable and transparent tool for default privacy setting prediction which users easily understand and are therefore more likely to use.
A number of recent studies have concluded that consumer spending patterns over the month are closely linked to the timing of income receipt. This correlation is interpreted as evidence of hyperbolic discounting. I re-examine patterns of spending in the diary sample of the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey, incorporating information on the timing of the main consumption commitment for most households - their monthly rent or mortgage payment. I find that non-durable and food spending increase with 30-48% on the day housing payments are made, with smaller increases in the days after. Moreover, households with weekly, biweekly and monthly income streams but the same timing of rent/mortgage payments have very similar consumption patterns. Exploiting variation in income, I find that households with extra liquidity decrease non-durable spending around housing payments, especially those households with a large budget share of housing.
Market risks account for an integral part of life insurers' risk profiles. This paper explores the market risk sensitivities of insurers in two large life insurance markets, namely the U.S. and Europe. Based on panel regression models and daily market data from 2012 to 2018, we analyze the reaction of insurers' stock returns to changes in interest rates and CDS spreads of sovereign counterparties. We find that the influence of interest rate movements on stock returns is more than 50% larger for U.S. than for European life insurers. Falling interest rates reduce stock returns in particular for less solvent firms, insurers with a high share of life insurance reserves and unit-linked insurers. Moreover, life insurers' sensitivity to interest rate changes is seven times larger than their sensitivity towards CDS spreads. Only European insurers significantly suffer from rising CDS spreads, whereas U.S. insurers are immunized against increasing sovereign default probabilities.
Market risks account for an integral part of insurers' risk profiles. We explore market risk sensitivities of insurers in the United States and Europe. Based on panel regression models and daily market data from 2012 to 2018, we find that sensitivities are particularly driven by insurers' product portfolio. The influence of interest rate movements on stock returns is 60% larger for US than for European life insurers. For the former, interest rate risk is a dominant market risk with an effect that is five times larger than through corporate credit risk. For European life insurers, the sensitivity to interest rate changes is only 44% larger than toward credit default swap of government bonds, underlining the relevance of sovereign credit risk.
We survey a representative sample of US households to study how exposure to the COVID-19 stock market crash a↵ects expectations and planned behavior. Wealth shocks are associated with upward adjustments of expectations about retirement age, desired working hours, and household debt, but have only small e↵ects on expected spending. We provide correlational and experimental evidence that beliefs about the duration of the stock market recovery shape households’ expectations about their own wealth and their planned investment decisions and labor market activity. Our findings shed light on the implications of household exposure to stock market crashes for expectation formation.
Chen and Zadrozny (1998) developed the linear extended Yule-Walker (XYW) method for determining the parameters of a vector autoregressive (VAR) model with available covariances of mixed-frequency observations on the variables of the model. If the parameters are determined uniquely for available population covariances, then, the VAR model is identified. The present paper extends the original XYW method to an extended XYW method for determining all ARMA parameters of a vector autoregressive moving-average (VARMA) model with available covariances of single- or mixed-frequency observations on the variables of the model. The paper proves that under conditions of stationarity, regularity, miniphaseness, controllability, observability, and diagonalizability on the parameters of the model, the parameters are determined uniquely with available population covariances of single- or mixed-frequency observations on the variables of the model, so that the VARMA model is identified with the single- or mixed-frequency covariances.
In a parsimonious regime switching model, we find strong evidence that expected consumption growth varies over time. Adding inflation as a second variable, we uncover two states in which expected consumption growth is low, one with high and one with negative expected inflation. Embedded in a general equilibrium asset pricing model with learning, these dynamics replicate the observed time variation in stock return volatilities and stock- bond return correlations. They also provide an alternative derivation for a measure of time-varying disaster risk suggested by Wachter (2013), implying that both the disaster and the long-run risk paradigm can be extended towards explaining movements in the stock-bond correlation.
Using a normalized CES function with factor-augmenting technical progress, we estimate a supply-side system of the US economy from 1953 to 1998. Avoiding potential estimation biases that have occurred in earlier studies and putting a high emphasis on the consistency of the data set, required by the estimated system, we obtain robust results not only for the aggregate elasticity of substitution but also for the parameters of labor and capital augmenting technical change. We find that the elasticity of substitution is significantly below unity and that the growth rates of technical progress show an asymmetrical pattern where the growth of laboraugmenting technical progress is exponential, while that of capital is hyperbolic or logarithmic.
A series of recent articles has called into question the validity of VAR models of the global market for crude oil. These studies seek to replace existing oil market models by structural VAR models of their own based on different data, different identifying assumptions, and a different econometric approach. Their main aim has been to revise the consensus in the literature that oil demand shocks are a more important determinant of oil price fluctuations than oil supply shocks. Substantial progress has been made in recent years in sorting out the pros and cons of the underlying econometric methodologies and data in this debate, and in separating claims that are supported by empirical evidence from claims that are not. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the VAR literature on global oil markets and to synthesize what we have learned. Combining this evidence with new data and analysis, I make the case that the concerns regarding the existing VAR oil market literature have been overstated and that the results from these models are quite robust to changes in the model specification.
Mis-selling by banks has occurred repeatedly in many nations over the last decade. While clients may benefit from competition – enabling them to choose financial services at lowest costs – economic frictions between banks and clients may give rise to mis-selling. Examples of mis-selling are mis-representation of information, overly complex product design and non-customized advice. European regulators address the problem of mis-selling in the "Markets in Financial Instruments Directive" (MiFID) I and II and the "Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation" (MiFIR), by setting behavioral requirements for banks, regulating the compensation of employees, and imposing re-quirements on offered financial products and disclosure rules.
This paper argues that MiFID II protects clients but is not as effective as it could be. (1) It does not differentiate between client groups with different levels of financial literacy. Effective advice requires different advice for different client groups. (2) MiFID II uses too many rules and too many instruments to achieve identical goals and thereby generates excessive compliance costs. High compliance costs and low revenues would drive banks out of some segments of retail business.
A key solution for public good provision is the voluntary formation of institutions that commit players to cooperate. Such institutions generate inequality if some players decide not to participate but cannot be excluded from cooperation benefits. Prior research with small groups emphasizes the role of fairness concerns with positive effects on cooperation. We show that effects do not generalize to larger groups: if group size increases, groups are less willing to form institutions generating inequality. In contrast to smaller groups, however, this does not increase the number of participating players, thereby limiting the positive impact of institution formation on cooperation.
Im vorliegenden Papier werden drei Ansätze zur Reform des Familienleistungsausgleichs (FLA) mit jeweils zwei Varianten dargestellt und hinsichtlich ihrer fiskalischen Effekte und Wirkungen in verschiedenen Segmenten der Einkommensverteilung systematisch verglichen. – Mit dem weitestgehenden Konzept, der Kindergrundsicherung, wird ein Existenz sicherndes und zu versteuerndes Kindergeld in Höhe von monatlich 502 Euro bzw. 454 Euro pro Kind vorgeschlagen. Die bisherigen kindbedingten Freibeträge und mehrere Sozialleis-tungen könnten entfallen bzw. reduziert werden. – Daneben werden Kindergelderhöhungen auf einheitlich 238 Euro bzw. 328 Euro pro Kind und Monat, die allen Kindern – auch denen im SGB II-Leistungsbezug – zugute kommen sollen, untersucht. Das Kindergeld wäre wie bisher nicht zu versteuern, die bisherigen kindbedingten Freibeträge würden aber entfallen. – Schließlich wird der Vorschlag einer deutlichen Erhöhung des Kinderzuschlags bei reduzierter Mindesteinkommensgrenze und Wegfall der Höchsteinkommensgrenze erörtert. Zudem ist bei diesem Ansatz ein nochmals erhöhter Kinderzuschlag bei Alleinerziehenden – analog zum Mehrbedarfszuschlag nach dem SGFB II – (erste Variante) oder eine Herabsetzung der Transferentzugsrate auf Nichterwerbseinkommen von 100% auf 70% (zweite Variante) vorgesehen. Die zu erwartenden fiskalischen Belastungen der einfachen Kindergelderhöhung (ohne Be-steuerung) können ohne Weiteres hochgerechnet werden (16 bzw. 35 Mrd. Euro p. a.), die der anderen Reformmodelle sind aber ohne mikroanalytische Fundierung unter Berücksichtigung der Einkommensverteilung kaum abschätzbar. Zwar lassen sich auch die Bruttokosten der Kindergrundsicherung auf einfachem Wege ermitteln (Multiplikation der Kindergeld-Kinder mit der Betragshöhe), die Aggregate der davon abzusetzenden zahlreichen Einsparungen bei anderen Sozialleistungen und insbesondere der Steuermehreinnahmen sind allerdings nicht offensichtlich. Eine erste Überschlagsrechnung hat ergeben, dass die Nettokosten der ersten „großzügigen“ Variante der Kindergrundsicherung (502 Euro) denen der Kindergelderhöhung auf das sächliche Existenzminimum (322 Euro) ohne Besteuerung ungefähr gleich sind (in der Größenordnung von 35 Mrd. Euro). Eine genauere Quantifizierung kann aber nur auf der Ba-sis repräsentativer Mikrodaten und eines Simulationsmodells erfolgen, da insbesondere der Besteuerungseffekt der Kindergrundsicherung von der faktischen Einkommensverteilung abhängt. Auch eine Kostenschätzung für die Kinderzuschlagsreform bedarf mikroanalytischer Verfahren; ungeachtet dessen würde diese auf einen begrenzten Einkommensbereich gerichte-te Reform aber eindeutig die geringsten Kosten verursachen. Für einen systematischen Vergleich der Verteilungswirkungen der Reformvorschläge werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit Modellrechnungen für zwei ausgewählte Haushaltstypen präsen-tiert. Dabei wird deutlich, dass mit dem vergleichsweise begrenzten Konzept der Ausweitung des Kinderzuschlags die Situation von Familien in prekären Einkommensverhältnissen bis zu Familien der unteren Mittelschicht deutlich verbessert werden könnte. Inwieweit dieser Effekt eintreten würde, hängt allerdings auch vom Inanspruchnahmeverhalten ab; bisher ist die Nicht-Inanspruchnahme von Kinderzuschlag und Wohngeld weit verbreitet. Zudem würde sich die Situation der ärmsten Familien, die auf SGB II-Leistungen angewiesen sind, nicht verbessern, und am oberen Rand würden die Entlastungseffekte des FLA als Folge der kind-bedingten Freibeträge weiterhin mit dem elterlichen Einkommen zunehmen. Demgegenüber würden sich bei den Varianten der Kindergelderhöhung (ohne Besteuerung) die deutlichen Verbesserungen gegenüber dem Status quo gleichmäßig über das Einkommensspektrum vom Niedriglohnsegment – bei unverändert problematischen Effekten des Kinderzuschlags (Ein-kommensbruchstelle bei Höchsteinkommensgrenze) – bis in obere Schichten verteilen und erst am oberen Rand mit steigendem Einkommen sinken (infolge des Wegfalls der bisherigen kindbedingten Freibeträge). Die Förderungen durch die Kindergrundsicherung schließlich würden am stärksten im unteren und unteren Mittelbereich ausfallen und – im Gegensatz zu anderen Konzepten – insbesondere verdeckte Armut systembedingt, also quasi „automatisch“, weitgehend abbauen. Im oberen Mittelbereich und hauptsächlich in höheren Schichten würden die Transfers dagegen mit zunehmendem Einkommen kontinuierlich abnehmen. Insgesamt würde dies zu einem vergleichsweise stetig steigenden Verlauf des verfügbaren Familieneinkommens führen; die wegen der hohen Transferentzugsraten des Kinderzuschlags – gegebenenfalls in Kombination mit Wohngeld – häufigen Befürchtungen negativer Arbeitsanreize im unteren Einkommensbereich wären gegenstandslos. Inwieweit die hier diskutierten Reformkonzepte zu einem Abbau von Kinder- und Familien-armut und zu weniger Ungleichheit der personellen Einkommensverteilung führen können, lässt sich allein auf der Basis von Modellrechnungen allerdings nicht absehen. Dazu bedarf es detaillierter Analysen auf der Basis von repräsentativen Mikrodaten, die die faktische Ein-kommensverteilung abbilden und Simulationsrechnungen zur Quantifizierung der Effekte der Reformvarianten – unter Einbeziehung der Finanzierung der jeweiligen Nettokosten – ermöglichen. Daran wird im Projekt „Vom Kindergeld zu einer Grundsicherung für Kinder“ auf Basis der Daten des Sozio-ökonomischen Panels (SOEP) 2007 gearbeitet; die Repräsentativität des Datensatzes hinsichtlich des Nachweises von Einkommens-, insbesondere Transferar-ten wurde bereits geprüft – mit gutem Ergebnis.
Social Security rules that determine retirement, spousal, and survivor benefits, along with benefit adjustments according to the age at which these are claimed, open up a complex set of financial options for household decisions. These rules influence optimal household asset allocation, insurance, and work decisions, subject to life cycle demographic shocks, such as marriage, divorce, and children. Our model-based research generates a wealth profile and a low and stable equity fraction consistent with empirical evidence. We confirm predictions that wives will claim retirement benefits earlier than husbands, while life insurance is mainly purchased by younger men. Our policy simulations imply that eliminating survivor benefits would sharply reduce claiming differences by sex while dramatically increasing men’s life insurance purchases.
The Federal Reserve’s muddled mandate to attain simultaneously the incompatible goals of maximum employment and price stability invites short-term-oriented discretionary policymaking inconsistent with the systematic approach needed for monetary policy to contribute best to the economy over time. Fear of liftoff—the reluctance to start the process of policy normalization after the end of a recession—serves as an example. Causes of the problem are discussed, drawing on public choice and cognitive psychology perspectives. The Federal Reserve could adopt a framework that relies on a simple policy rule subject to periodic reviews and adaptation. Replacing meeting-by-meeting discretion with a simple policy rule would eschew discretion in favor of systematic policy. Periodic review of the rule would allow the Federal Reserve the flexibility to account for and occasionally adapt to the evolving understanding of the economy. Congressional legislation could guide the Federal Reserve in this direction. However the Federal Reserve may be best placed to select the simple rule and could embrace this improvement on its own, within its current mandate, with the publication of a simple rule along the lines of its statement of longer-run goals.
Are we in a new “Polanyian moment”? If we are, it is essential to examine how “spontaneous” and punctual expressions of discontent at the individual level may give rise to collective discourses driving social and political change. It is also important to examine whether and how the framing of these discourses may vary across political economies. This paper contributes to this endeavor with the analysis of anti-finance discourses on Twitter in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK between 2019 and 2020. This paper presents three main findings. First, the analysis shows that, more than ten years after the financial crisis, finance is still a strong catalyzer of political discontent. Second, it shows that there are important variations in the dominant framing of public anti-finance discourses on social media across European political economies. If the antagonistic “us versus them” is prominent in all the cases, the identification of who “us” and “them” are, vary significantly. Third, it shows that the presence of far-right tropes in the critique of finance varies greatly from virtually inexistent to a solid minority of statements.
Central banks sometimes evaluate their own policies. To assess the inherent conflict of interest, the authors compare the research findings of central bank researchers and academic economists regarding the macroeconomic effects of quantitative easing (QE). They find that central bank papers report larger effects of QE on output and inflation. Central bankers are also more likely to report significant effects of QE on output and to use more positive language in the abstract. Central bankers who report larger QE effects on output experience more favorable career outcomes. A survey of central banks reveals substantial involvement of bank management in research production.
Fabo, Janˇcokov ́a, Kempf, and P ́astor (2021) show that papers written by central bank researchers find quantitative easing (QE) to be more effective than papers written by academics. Weale and Wieladek (2022) show that a subset of these results lose statistical significance when OLS regressions are replaced by regressions that downweight outliers. We examine those outliers and find no reason to downweight them. Most of them represent estimates from influential central bank papers published in respectable academic journals. For example, among the five papers finding the largest peak effect of QE on output, all five are published in high-quality journals (Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and Applied Economics Letters), and their average number of citations is well over 200. Moreover, we show that these papers have supported policy communication by the world’s leading central banks and shaped the public perception of the effectiveness of QE. New evidence based on quantile regressions further supports the results in Fabo et al. (2021).
The paper analyses the contagion channels of the European financial system through the stochastic block model (SBM). The model groups homogeneous connectivity patterns among the financial institutions and describes the shock transmission mechanisms of the financial networks in a compact way. We analyse the global financial crisis and European sovereign debt crisis and show that the network exhibits a strong community structure with two main blocks acting as shock spreader and receiver, respectively. Moreover, we provide evidence of the prominent role played by insurances in the spread of systemic risk in both crises. Finally, we demonstrate that policy interventions focused on institutions with inter-community linkages (community bridges) are more effective than the ones based on the classical connectedness measures and represents consequently, a better early warning indicator in predicting future financial losses.
Past research suggests that international real estate markets show return characteristics and interrelationships with other asset classes, which probably qualify them as an interesting component of national and international asset allocation decisions. However, the special characteristics of real estate assets are quite distinct from that of financial assets, such as stocks and bonds. This is also the case for real estate return distributions. Therefore, the proper integration of real estate markets into asset allocation decisions requires profound understanding of real estate returns' distributional characteristics .
Because of the particular characteristics of real estate, representing real estate markets through reliable a time-series is a complex task. Consequently, reliable real estate indices with a sufficiently long history in major international real estate markets are only scarcely available. Most of the research that has been done on real estate returns was done for the U.K. and U.S., where eligible indices exist. On the other hand, in other important real estate markets, such as Germany, either little or no research has been perfoimed.
In this analysis, the methodology of Maurer, Sebastian and Stephan (2000) for indirectly deriving an appraisal-based index for the German commercial real estate market will be applied. This approach is solely based on publicly available data from German open-ended real estate investment trusts. It could also provide a solution to deriving a reliable real estate time-series for other markets.
We will extend previous analyses for the U.K. and U.S. to provide additional fundamental insights into the return characteristics of the German commercial real estate market. Despite univariate considerations, the main focus is the interrelationships between various international real estate markets, as well as between those respective markets and the international stock and bond markets.
This paper analyzes the effect of financial constraints on firms' corporate social responsibility. Exploiting heterogeneity in firms' exposure to a monetary policy shock in the U.S., which reduced financial constraints for some firms, I find that firms increase their environmental responsibility. I use facility-level data to account for unobservable time-varying influences on pollution and find that toxic emissions decrease when parent companies are more exposed to the monetary policy shock. I further find that these facilities are also more likely to implement pollution abatement activities. Examining within-parent company heterogeneity I find that pollution abatement investments center on facilities at greater risk of facing additional costs due to environmental regulation. The findings are consistent with the idea that a reduction in financial constraints reduces pollution as it allows firms to implement pollution abatement measures.
The objective of this paper is to test the hypothesis that in particular financially constrained firms lease a higher share of their assets to mitigate problems of asymmetric information. The assumptions are tested under a GMM framework which simultaneously controls for endogeneity problems and firms’ fixed effects. We find that the share of total annual lease expenses attributable to either finance or operating leases is considerably higher for financially strained as well as for small and fast-growing firms – those likely to face higher agency-cost premiums on marginal financing. Furthermore, our results confirm the substitution of leasing and debt financing for lessee firms. However, we find no evidence that firms use leasing as an instrument to reduce their tax burdens. Keywords: Leasing; financial constraints; capital structure; asymmetric information.
This paper aims to analyze the effects of financial constraints and the financial crisis on the financing and investment policies of newly founded firms. Thereby, the analysis adds important new insights on a crucial segment of the economy. We make use of a large and comprehensive data set of French firms founded in the years 2004-2006, i.e. well before the financial crisis. Our panel data analysis shows that the global financial crisis imposed a shock (mostly demand-driven) on the financing as well as on the investments of these firms. Moreover, we find that financially constrained firms use less external debt financing and invest smaller amounts. They also rely on less trade credit. With regard to bank financing, newly founded firms which are more financially constrained accumulate less bank debt and repay initial bank debt slower than their non-financially constraint counterparts. Finally, we find that financially constrained firms are affected to a smaller degree by the financial crisis than their less financially constrained counterparts.
During the last years the relationship between financial development and economic growth has received widespread attention in the literature on growth and development. This paper summarises in its first part the results of this research, stressing the growth-enhancing effects of an increased interpersonal re-allocation of resources promoted by financial development. The second part of the paper seeks to identify the determinants of financial development based on Diamond's theory of financial intermediation as delegated monitoring. The analysis shows that the quality of corporate governance of banks is the key factor in financial system development. Accordingly, financial sector reforms in developing countries will only succeed if they strengthen the corporate governance of financial institutions. In this area, financial institution building has an important contribution to make. Paper presented at the First Annual Seminar on New Development Finance held at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, September 22 - October 3, 1997
We study a model where some investors ("hedgers") are bad at information processing, while others ("speculators") have superior information-processing ability and trade purely to exploit it. The disclosure of financial information induces a trade externality: if speculators refrain from trading, hedgers do the same, depressing the asset price. Market transparency reinforces this mechanism, by making speculators' trades more visible to hedgers. As a consequence, issuers will oppose both the disclosure of fundamentals and trading transparency. Issuers may either under- or over-provide information compared to the socially efficient level if speculators have more bargaining power than hedgers, while they never under-provide it otherwise. When hedgers have low financial literacy, forbidding their access to the market may be socially efficient.
We study the effect of weakening creditor rights on distress risk premia via a bankruptcy reform that shifts bargaining power in financial distress toward shareholders. We find that the reform reduces risk factor loadings and returns of distressed stocks. The effect is stronger for firms with lower firm-level shareholder bargaining power. An increase in credit spreads of riskier relative to safer firms, in particular for firms with lower firm-level shareholder bargaining power, confirms a shift in bargaining power from bondholders to shareholders. Out-of-sample tests reveal that a reversal of the reform's effects leads to a reversal of factor loadings and returns.
In contrast to the popularity of financial education interventions worldwide, studies on the economic effects of those interventions report mixed results. With a focus on the effect on disadvantaged groups, we review both the theoretical and empirical findings in order to understand why this discrepancy exists. The survey first highlights that it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of, and the relationships between, financial education, financial literacy and financial behavior to identify the true effects of financial education. The review addresses possible biases caused by third factors such as numeracy. Next, we review theories on financial literacy which make clear that the effect of financial education interventions is heterogeneous across the population. Last, we look closely at main empirical studies on financial education targeted at the migrants/immigrants, the low-income earners and the young, and compare their methodologies. There seems to be a positive effect on short-term financial knowledge and awareness of the young, but there is no proven evidence on long-term behavior after being grown up. Studies on financial behavior of migrants and immigrants show almost no effect of financial education.
Based on a sample of university students, we provide field and laboratory evidence that a small scale training intervention has a both statistically and economically significant effect on subjective and objective assessments of financial knowledge. We also show that for a large part of students whose self-assessed financial knowledge has improved we do not find an increase in their actual skills.
This dissertation consists of three essays, which study the implication of financial frictions in business cycles and monetary policy making. The first essay develops a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model to study how the instability of the banking sector can amplify and propagate business cycles. Model simulations show that in an economic down turn, in addition to credit demand contraction induced by low firm net worth, low bank capital
position can create strong credit supply contraction, and have a quantitatively significant effect on business cycle dynamics. The second essay studies the optimal Taylor-type monetary policy rules based on the model developed in the first chapter and find that with interest rate smoothing, 'leaning against the wind' can significantly dampen the procyclicality of financial distortions, and increase the welfare of the economy. The third chapter examines the role of households frugality in a financial crisis and finds that higher savings by more frugal households provide an important cushion for the fall in private investment funding.
In this paper, we investigate the implications of providing loan officers with a compensation structure that rewards loan volume and penalizes poor performance. We study detailed transactional information of more than 45,000 loans issued by 240 loan officers of a large commercial bank in Europe. We find that when the performance of their portfolio deteriorates, loan officers shift their efforts towards monitoring poorly-performing borrowers and issue fewer loans. However, these new loans are of above-average quality, which suggests that loan officers have a pecking order and process loans only for the very best clients when they are under time constraints.
In this paper we investigate the implications of providing loan officers with a compensation structure that rewards loan volume and penalizes poor performance versus a fixed wage unrelated to performance. We study detailed transaction information for more than 45,000 loans issued by 240 loan officers of a large commercial bank in Europe. We examine the three main activities that loan officers perform: monitoring, originating, and screening. We find that when the performance of their portfolio deteriorates, loan officers increase their effort to monitor existing borrowers, reduce loan origination, and approve a higher fraction of loan applications. These loans, however, are of above-average quality. Consistent with the theoretical literature on multitasking in incomplete contracts, we show that loan officers neglect activities that are not directly rewarded under the contract, but are in the interest of the bank. In addition, while the response by loan officers constitutes a rational response to a time allocation problem, their reaction to incentives appears myopic in other dimensions.
Since the financial crisis financial literacy has attracted growing interest among researchers and policy makers, as there is international empirical evidence that financial literacy is poor among both adults and students. In Germany we have almost no empirical evidence on financial literacy, especially in the case of students attending secondary schools, as financial education has not featured on German school curricula to date. Besides, Germany has not yet participated in the optional financial literacy module of PISA, which was offered for the first time in 2012. However, a lack of private pension provisioning, in spite of demographic change, and low stock ownership among German households indicate a deficit in financial knowledge and skills in this country as well.
In this paper we investigate financial literacy among students aged 14 to 16 attending a secondary school in the state of Hesse. The foundation is a test designed according to international standards. The statistical analysis of the test reveals substantial deficits in key areas of financial literacy. Particular deficits could be identified in the fields of basic knowledge of financial matters and, to an even greater degree, in more advanced concepts such as risk diversification. Applying interest calculations to financial matters turned out to be problematic for many students.
Furthermore, the paper analyses the impact of gender and type of school on the overall test score as well as test performance in specific tasks. The findings suggest that financial matters should be covered in some form at secondary schools. In light of the potentially far-reaching consequences of financial illiteracy for financial wellbeing, German participation in future PISA financial literacy tests seems highly advisable to gain a deeper understanding of the preliminary findings presented in this paper.
This paper studies insurance demand for individuals with limited financial literacy. We propose uncertainty about insurance payouts, resulting from contract complexity, as a novel channel that affects decision-making of financially illiterate individuals. Then, a trade-off between second-order (risk aversion) and third-order (prudence) risk preferences drives insurance demand. Sufficiently prudent individuals raise insurance demand upon an increase in contract complexity, while the effect is reversed for less prudent individuals. We characterize competitive market equilibria that feature complex contracts since firms face costs to reduce complexity. Based on the equilibrium analysis, we propose a monetary measure for the welfare cost of financial illiteracy and show that it is mainly driven by individuals’ risk aversion. Finally, we discuss implications for regulation and consumer protection.
Savings accounts are owned by most households, but little is known about the performance of households’ investments. We create a unique dataset by matching information on individual savings accounts from the DNB Household Survey with market data on account-specific interest rates and characteristics. We document considerable heterogeneity in returns across households, which can be partly explained by financial sophistication. A one-standard deviation increase in financial literacy is associated with a 13% increase compared to the median interest rate. We isolate the usage of modern technology (online accounts) as one channel through which financial literacy has a positive association with returns.
We report the results of a longitudinal intervention with students across five universities in China designed to reduce online consumer debt. Our research design allocates individuals to either a financial literacy treatment, a self-control training program, or a zero-touch control group. Financial education interventions improve test scores on general financial literacy but only marginally affect future online borrowing. Our self-control treatment features detailed tracking of spending and borrowing activity with a third-party app and introspection about individuals' consumption with a counselor. These sessions reduce future online borrowing, delinquency charges, and borrowing for entertainment reasons - and are driven by the male subjects in the sample. Our results suggest that self-regulation can affect financial behavior in e-commerce platforms.
A growing body of literature shows the importance of financial literacy in households' financial decisions. However, fewer studies focus on understanding the determinants of financial literacy. Our paper fills this gap by analyzing a specific determinant, the educational system, to explain the heterogeneity in financial literacy scores across Germany. We suggest that the lower financial literacy observed in East Germany is partially caused by a different institutional framework experienced during the Cold War, more specifically, by the socialist educational system of the GDR which affected specific cohorts of individuals. By exploiting the unique set-up of the German reunification, we identify education as a channel through which institutions and financial literacy are related in the German context.
Over the life-cycle, wealth holdings tend to be highest in the early part of retirement. The quality of financial decisions among older adults is therefore an important determinant of their financial security during the asset drawdown phase. This paper assesses how financial literacy shapes financial decision-making at older ages. We devised a special module in the Singapore Life Panel survey to measure financial literacy to study its relationship with three aspects of household financial and investment behaviors: credit card debt repayment, stock market participation, and adherence to age-based investment glide paths. We found that the majority of respondents age 50+ has some grasp of concepts such as interest compounding and inflation, but fewer know about risk diversification. We provide evidence of a statistically significant positive association between financial literacy and each of the three aspects of suboptimal financial decision-making, controlling for many other factors, including education. A one-unit increase in the financial literacy score was associated with an 8.3 percentage point greater propensity to hold stocks, and a 1.7 percentage point higher likelihood of following an age-appropriate investment glide path. The financial literacy score is only weakly positively linked with timely credit card balance repayment, both in terms of statistical significance and estimate size.
This paper uses unique administrative data and a quasi-field experiment of exogenous allocation in Sweden to estimate medium- and longer-run effects on financial behavior from exposure to financially literate neighbors. It contributes evidence of causal impact of exposure and of a social multiplier of financial knowledge, but also of unfavorable distributional aspects of externalities. Exposure promotes saving in private retirement accounts and stockholding, especially when neighbors have economics or business education, but only for educated households and when interaction possibilities are substantial. Findings point to transfer of knowledge rather than mere imitation or effects through labor, education, or mobility channels.
The introduction of a common currency as well as the harmonization of rules and regulations in Europe has significantly reduced distance in all its guises. With reduced costs of overcoming space, this emphasizes centripetal forces and it should foster consolidation of financial activity. In a national context, as a rule, this led to the emergence of one financial center. Hence, Europeanization of financial and monetary affairs could foretell the relegation of some European financial hubs such as Frankfurt and Paris to third-rank status. Frankfurt’s financial history is interesting insofar as it has lost (in the 1870s) and regained (mainly in the 1980s) its preeminent place in the German context. Because Europe is still characterized by local pockets of information-sensitive assets as well as a demand for variety the national analogy probably does not hold. There is room in Europe for a number of financial hubs of an international dimension, including Frankfurt.
Using merger announcements and applying methods from computational linguistics we find strong evidence that stock prices under-react to information in financial media. A one standard deviation increase in the media-implied probability of merger completion increases the subsequent 12-day return of a long-short merger strategy by 1.2 percentage points. Filtering out the 28% of announced deals with the lowest media-implied completion probability increases the annualized alpha from merger arbitrage by 9.3 percentage points. Our results are particularly pronounced when high-yield spreads are large and on days when only few merger deals are announced. We also document that financial media information is orthogonal to announcement day returns.
This is a chapter for a forthcoming volume Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2014) (eds. Eilís Ferran, Niamh Moloney, and Jennifer Payne). It provides an overview of EU financial regulation from the first banking directive up until its most recent developments in the aftermath of the financial crisis, focusing on the multiple layers of multi-level governance and their characteristic conceptual difficulties. Therefore the paper discusses the need to accommodate cross-border capital flows following from the EU internal market and the resulting regulatory strategies. This includes a brief overview of the principle of home country control and the ensuing Financial Services Action Plan. Dealing with the accommodation of cross-border capital flows and their regulation necessarily require an orchestration of the underlying supervisory structures, which is therefore also discussed. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-09 an additional aspect of necessary orchestration has emerged, that is the need to control systemic risk. Specific attention is paid to microprudential supervision by the newly established European Supervisory Authorities and macroprudential supervision in the European Banking Union, the latter’s underlying drivers and the accompanying Single Supervisory Mechanism, including the SSM’s institutional framework as well as the consideration of its rationales and the Single Resolution Mechanism closely linked to it.
In this paper we propose a way forward towards increased financial resilience in times of growing disagreement concerning open borders, free trade and global regulatory standards. In light of these concerns, financial resilience remains a highly valued policy objective. We wish to contribute by suggesting an agenda of concrete, do-able steps supporting an enhanced level of resilience, combined with a deeper understanding of its relevance in the public domain.
First, remove inconsistencies across regulatory rules and territorial regimes, and ensure their credibility concerning implementation. Second, discourage the use of financial regulatory standards as means of international competition. Third, give more weight to pedagogically explaining the established regulatory standards in public, to strengthen their societal backing.
We examine the inter-linkages between financial factors and real economic activity. We review the main theoretical approaches that allow financial frictions to be embedded into general equilibrium models. We outline, from a policy perspective, the most recent empirical papers focusing on the propagation of exogenous shocks to the economy, with a particular emphasis on works dealing with time variation of parameters and other types of nonlinearities. We then present an application to the analysis of the changing transmission of financial shocks in the euro area. Results show that the effects of a financial shock are time-varying and contingent on the state of the economy. They are of negligible importance in normal times but they greatly matter in conditions of stress.
Even if the importance of micro data transparency is a well-established fact, European institutions are still lacking behind the US when it comes to the provision of financial market data to academics. In this Policy Letter we discuss five different types of micro data that are crucial for monitoring (systemic) risk in the financial system, identifying and understanding inter-linkages in financial markets and thus have important implications for policymakers and regulatory authorities. We come to the conclusion that for all five areas of micro data, outlined in this Policy Letter (bank balance sheet data, asset portfolio data, market transaction data, market high frequency data and central bank data), the benefits of increased transparency greatly offset potential downsides. Hence, European policymakers would do well to follow the US example and close the sizeable gap in micro data transparency. For most cases, relevant data is already collected (at least on national level), but just not made available to academics for partly incomprehensible reasons. Overcoming these obstacles could foster financial stability in Europe and assure level playing fields with US regulators and policymakers.
Financing asset growth
(2012)
We document the existence of a debt anomaly that is in addition to the asset growth anomaly: for a given asset growth rate, firms that issue more debt, as well as firms that retire more debt, have lower stock returns in the 12 months starting 6 months after the calendar year of asset growth. Exploring the reasons for debt issuance, we find that managers of firms for which analyst expectations are more over-optimistic, which suffer from declining investment profitability, and whose earnings-price ratios are relatively high are inclined to rely more heavily on debt financing. On the other hand, firms that retire more debt for a given asset growth rate tend to have improving profitability but to be over-priced. We also find that the financing decision is influenced by the prior debt ratio, the asset growth rate, profitability, and CEO pay sensitivity. We interpret our results in terms of managerial incentives, signaling, and market timing.
In this paper we provide new evidence that corporate financing decisions are associated with managerial incentives to report high equity earnings. Managers rely most heavily on debt to finance their asset growth when their future earnings prospects are poor, when they are under pressure due to past declines in earnings, negative past stock returns, and excessively optimistic analyst earnings forecasts, and when the earnings yield is high relative to bond yields so that from an accounting perspective equity is ‘expensive’. Managers of high debt issuing firms are more likely to be newly appointed and also more likely to be replaced in subsequent years. Abnormal returns on portfolios formed on the basis of asset growth and debt issuance are strongly positively associated with the contemporaneous changes in returns on assets and on equity as well as with earnings surprises. This may account for the finding that debt issuance forecasts negative abnormal returns, since debt issuance also forecasts negative changes in returns on assets and on equity and negative earnings surprises. Different mechanisms appear to be at work for firms that retire debt.
Exploiting heterogeneity in U.S. firms' exposure to an unconventional monetary policy shock that reduced debt financing costs, I identify the impact of financing conditions on firms' toxic emissions. I find robust evidence that lower financing costs reduce toxic emissions and boost investments in emission reduction activities, especially capital-intensive pollution control activities. The effect is stronger for firms in noncompliance with environmental regulation. Examining the ability of regaining regulatory compliance by implementing pollution control activities I find that only capital-intensive activities help firms regaining compliance. These findings underscore the impact of firms' financing conditions for emissions and the environment.
The paper compares provision of public infrastructure via public-private partnerships (PPPs) with provision under government management. Due to soft budget constraints of government management, PPPs exert more effort and therefore have a cost advantage in building infrastructure. At the same time, hard budget constraints for PPPs introduce a bankruptcy risk and bankruptcy costs. Consequently, if bankruptcy costs are high, PPPs may be less efficient than public management, although this does not result from PPPs’ higher interest costs.
A widely recognized paper by Colin Mayer (1988) has led to a profound revision of academic thinking about financing patterns of corporations in different countries. Using flow-of-funds data instead of balance sheet data, Mayer and others who followed his lead found that internal financing is the dominant mode of financing in all countries, that financing patterns do not differ very much between countries and that those differences which still seem to exist are not at all consistent with the common conviction that financial systems can be classified as being either bank-based or capital market-based. This leads to a puzzle insofar as it calls into question the empirical foundation of the widely held belief that there is a correspondence between the financing patterns of corporations on the one side, and the structure of the financial sector and the prevailing corporate governance system in a given country on the other side. The present paper addresses this puzzle on a methodological and an empirical basis. It starts by comparing and analyzing various ways of measuring financial structure and financing patterns and by demonstrating that the surprising empirical results found by studies that relied on net flows are due to a hidden assumption. It then derives an alternative method of measuring financing patterns, which also uses flow-of-funds data, but avoids the questionable assumption. This measurement concept is then applied to patterns of corporate financing in Germany, Japan and the United States. The empirical results, which use an estimation technique for determining gross flows of funds in those cases in which empirical data are not available, are very much in line with the commonly held belief prior to Mayer’s influential contribution and indicate that the financial systems of the three countries do indeed differ from one another in a substantial way, and moreover in a way which is largely in line with the general view of the differences between the financial systems of the countries covered in the present paper.