scholarly journals Knowledge and Governance: Can Systemic Risk in Financial Markets Be Managed? The Case of the Euro Crisis

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Stephen Bell ◽  
Andrew Hindmoor
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Systemic Risk ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
Euro Crisis ◽  
Fire Sales ◽  
Governance Arrangements

AbstractThe crystallization of systemic risk in financial markets occurs when financial actors collectively (if unwillingly) bring on a major financial crisis through the withholding of credit and asset fire sales. The management and prevention of such calamities is our focus. We introduce the tools of political science, especially governance and institutional analysis, to help us probe the key dynamics at work. We then show that where appropriate knowledge and governance arrangements can be put in place, collective action may be arranged to help prevent the crystallization of systemic risk. We use the euro crisis to help illustrate our arguments.

scholarly journals Fire Sales in Finance and Macroeconomics

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Shleifer ◽  
Robert Vishny
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
Fire Sales ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Recent Financial Crisis ◽  
Asset Sale

Analysts of the recent financial crisis often refer to the role of asset “fire sales” in depleting the balance sheets of financial institutions and aggravating the fragility of the financial system. The term “fire sale” has been around since the nineteenth century to describe firms selling smoke-damaged merchandise at cut-rate prices in the aftermath of a fire. But what are fire sales in broad financial markets with hundreds of participants? As we suggested in a 1992 paper, a fire sale is essentially a forced sale of an asset at a dislocated price. The asset sale is forced in the sense that the seller cannot pay creditors without selling assets. The price is dislocated because the highest potential bidders are typically involved in a similar activity as the seller, and are therefore themselves indebted and cannot borrow more to buy the asset. Indeed, rather than bidding for the asset, they might be selling similar assets themselves. Assets are then bought by nonspecialists who, knowing that they have less expertise with the assets in question, are only willing to buy at valuations that are much lower. In this paper, we selectively review some of the research on fire sales, emphasizing both concepts and supporting evidence. We begin by describing our 1992 model of fire sales and the related findings in empirical corporate finance. We then show that models of fire sales can account for several related phenomena during the recent financial crisis, including the contraction of the banking system and the failures of arbitrage in financial markets exemplified by historically unprecedented differences in prices of very similar securities. We then link fire sales to macroeconomics by discussing how such dislocations of security prices and the reduction in balance sheets of banks can reduce investment and output. Finally, we consider how the concept of fire sales can help us think about government interventions in financial markets, including the evidently successful Federal Reserve interventions in 2009. Fire sales are surely not the whole story of the financial crisis, but they are a phenomenon that binds together many elements of the crisis.

Normative dimensions of central banking: How the guardians of financial markets affect justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dietsch
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Central Banking ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Introductory Section ◽  
The Impact

Monetary policy, and the response it elicits from financial markets, raises normative questions. This chapter, building on an introductory section on the objectives and instruments of monetary policy, analyzes two such questions. First, it assesses the impact of monetary policy on inequality and argues that the unconventional policies adopted in the wake of the financial crisis exacerbate inequalities in income and wealth. Depending on the theory of justice one holds, this impact is problematic. Should monetary policy be sensitive to inequalities and, if so, how? Second, the chapter argues that the leverage that financial markets have today over the monetary policy agenda undermines democratic legitimacy.

The COVID-19 and bond spreads

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Esteves ◽  
Nathan Sussman
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Financial Stress ◽  
International Financial Crisis ◽  
Bond Spreads

AbstractFinancial markets reacted with a vengeance to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that while the spread of the pandemic is statistically significant in explaining changes to bond spreads, it has little additional explanatory power over variables that capture financial stress. Financial markets reacted as in any international financial crisis by penalizing emerging economies exposing existing vulnerabilities. This finding highlights the need for credible, but flexible, sovereign currencies and the need to build up liquidity reserves.

Austerity and fragmentation: Dynamics of Europeanization of media discourses in Greece and Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (s1) ◽  
pp. 864-892
Author(s):  
Cristiano Bee ◽  
Stavroula Chrona
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
National Level ◽  
Emergency Situation ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Euro Crisis ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Fragmentation Dynamics ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Media Discourses

AbstractThis article investigates media representations of the European financial crisis in Greece and Italy. We study the Euro crisis as an ‘emergency situation’ with domino effects, where media played a central role in shaping communication practices at the national level as well as between the two countries. Drawing upon vertical and horizontal dynamics of Europeanization, we map the convergences and divergences in media discourses that surround the period 2011–2015. In doing so, we elaborate a qualitative analysis of newspaper articles focusing, in particular, on the themes of austerity and the fragmentation of Europe. Our argument suggests that national public spheres in times of transnational crisis become increasingly nationalized; yet under certain circumstances such as when the supranational infrastructure is the target of blame, they converge, opening the path toward a transnational discursive dialogue.

Macroprudential Policy - Taxonomy and Challenges

2011 ◽  
Vol 216 ◽  
pp. R1-R15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erland W. Nier
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Regulation ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Macroprudential Policy ◽  
Macroprudential Policies ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Governance Arrangements ◽  
Country Specific

There is increasing recognition that prior to the global financial crisis financial regulation had lacked a macroprudential perspective. There has since been a strong effort to make a new macroprudential orientation operational, including through the establishment of new macroprudential authorities or ‘committees’ in a number of jurisdictions. These developments raise — and this paper explores — the following three questions. First, what distinguishes macroprudential policy from microprudential policy and what are its key tasks? Second, what powers should be given to macroprudential authorities and what should be their mandate? Third, how can governance arrangements ensure that macroprudential policies are pursued effectively? While arrangements for macroprudential policy will to some extent be country-specific, we identify three basic challenges in setting up an effective macroprudential policy framework and discuss options to address them.

scholarly journals Measuring the systemic risk in the South African banking sector

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory M. Foggitt ◽  
Andre Heymans ◽  
Gary W. Van Vuuren ◽  
Anmar Pretorius
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
South African ◽  
Systemic Risk ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Risk Index ◽  
Financial Sector ◽  
Ethical Behaviour ◽  
The South ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Worst Case

Background: In the aftermath of the sub-prime crisis, systemic risk has become a greater priority for regulators, with the National Treasury (2011) stating that regulators should proactively monitor changes in systemic risk.Aim: The aim is to quantify systemic risk as the capital shortfall an institution is likely to experience, conditional to the entire financial sector being undercapitalised.Setting: We measure the systemic risk index (SRISK) of the South African (SA) banking sector between 2001 and 2013.Methods: Systemic risk is measured with the SRISK.Results: Although the results indicated only moderate systemic risk in the SA financial sector over this period, there were significant spikes in the levels of systemic risk during periods of financial turmoil in other countries. Especially the stock market crash in 2002 and the subprime crisis in 2008. Based on our results, the largest contributor to systemic risk during quiet periods was Investec, the bank in our sample which had the lowest market capitalisation. However, during periods of financial turmoil, the contributions of other larger banks increased markedly.Conclusion: The implication of these spikes is that systemic risk levels may also be highly dependent on external economic factors, in addition to internal banking characteristics. The results indicate that the economic fundamentals of SA itself seem to have little effect on the amount of systemic risk present in the financial sector. A more significant relationship seems to exist with the stability of the financial sectors in foreign countries. The implication therefore is that complying with individual banking regulations, such as Basel, and corporate governance regulations promoting ethical behaviour, such as King III, may not be adequate. It is therefore proposed that banks should always have sufficient capital reserves in order to mitigate the effects of a financial crisis in a foreign country. The use of worst-case scenario analyses (such as those in this study) could aid in determining exactly how much capital banks could need in order to be considered sufficiently capitalised during a financial crisis, and therefore safe from systemic risk.

Foucault against the Foucauldians? On the problem of the neoliberal state

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110533
Author(s):  
Henry Maher
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The State ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

The survival of neoliberal forms of governance after their apparent repudiation during the Global Financial Crisis is a problem that continues to generate significant scholarly controversy. One of the most influential accounts of the survival of neoliberalism in the crisis draws on Michel Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics to claim that states intervening to support financial markets during the crisis was simply the neoliberal system working as expected. Returning to Foucault’s original text, I argue this account constitutes a systematic misreading because it treats Foucault as having developed an instrumentalist theory of the neoliberal state, a possibility Foucault explicitly rejected. I suggest that the reasons that led Foucault to reject an instrumentalist theory of the state remain just as relevant today, and accordingly argue for a return to Foucault’s methodological decision to treat neoliberalism not as a theory of state but as a discourse which constructs a novel bio-political governmentality.

Risk Factors in Equilibrium Models of Open Economies

2010 ◽  
pp. 23-28
Author(s):  
D. Kuz'min
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Household Consumption ◽  
Equilibrium Models ◽  
Government Consumption ◽  
Cyclic Processes ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Liquidity Crisis

World liquidity crisis, which started in the USA in 2007, is reputed to be the first full-fledged global financial crisis. The liquidity crisis became global exactly due to the influence of large economies' national financial markets on many small ones. The analysis of the crisis expansion and development in these states (the USA, China, Iceland, Mexico, CEE countries) demonstrated that not only working accounts and reserves, but also foreign and internal borrowings, and therefore, household consumption, investments and government consumption proved to be affected by cyclic processes.

scholarly journals The Effect of FOMC Votes on Financial Markets

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (5) ◽  
pp. 921-932
Author(s):  
Carlos Madeira ◽  
João Madeira
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Stock Prices ◽  
Open Market ◽  
Federal Open Market Committee ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Treasury Securities ◽  
Stock Market Reaction

This paper shows that since votes of members of the Federal Open Market Committee have been included in press statements, stock prices increase after the announcement when votes are unanimous but fall when dissent (which typically is due to preference for higher interest rates) occurs. This pattern started prior to the 2007–2008 financial crisis. The differences in stock market reaction between unanimity and dissent remain, even controlling for the stance of monetary policy and consecutive dissent. Statement semantics also do not seem to explain the documented effect. We find no differences between unanimity and dissent with respect to impact on market risk and Treasury securities.

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