There is a long-standing debate on whether financial crises can be predicted. This column draws on a chronology of past financial crises and data on credit and asset prices for a panel of 42 countries between 1950-2016 and finds that if there is a large credit expansion with an asset price boom, then financial crises are highly predictable. These results are used to motivate a simple indicator that identifies periods of potential credit-market overheating. The indicator is shown to predict past crises in advance, suggesting that policymakers have time to act and take prophylactic policy interventions.
Financial regulation and banking
Governments and economists are now focused on the macroeconomic policies that can support economies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, for policies to be effective and economies to function, payment systems and services must operate efficiently, reliably, and securely. The third column of this series analyses the role that a central bank digital currency can play in this context, and outlines the key steps required for its successful implementation. In addition, the column proposes improvements to the existing payments infrastructure to ensure continued operability, especially in times of emergency.
Governments and economists are now focused on the macroeconomic policies that can support economies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, for policies to be effective and economies to function, payment systems and services must operate efficiently, reliably, and securely. The second column of this series discusses the special role that government payments and international remittances play, in particular for developing economies, and identifies measures to ensure their accessibility and resilience especially at times of emergencies.
Liquidity restrictions on investors, like the redemption gates and liquidity fees introduced in the 2016 money market fund (MMF) reform, are meant to improve financial stability during a crisis. However, by comparing the latest outflow episode due to COVID-19 to those in 2008 and 2011, this column finds evidence that these liquidity restrictions might have exacerbated the run on prime MMFs in this episode. Such severe outflows amid frozen short-term funding markets led the Federal Reserve to intervene with the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMLF). By providing ‘liquidity of last resort’, the MMLF successfully stopped the run on prime MMFs and gradually stabilised conditions in short-term funding markets.
The severe economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic could threaten financial stability. Since accounting-based methods report loan losses with a delay, this column adopts a real-time, market-based assessment of the impact on corporate loan portfolios. Using European stock market data, it estimates that the market-implied losses for euro area banks could reach over €1 trillion, or, depending on the scenario, 7-43% of available bank capital.
Most Read
Blogs&Reviews
Vox eBooks
Buti, Giudice, Leandro, 13 July 2020
Vox Talks
Events
-
19 July - 8 August 2020 / Twickenham, London / University of Warwick
-
24 - 24 July 2020 / Online /
-
3 - 14 August 2020 / University of Oxford, UK / University of Oxford
-
7 - 7 August 2020 / Online /
-
17 - 18 August 2020 / Palais Coburg, Vienna, Austria / WU Vienna - Research Institute for Capital Markets
