How Voters Respond to Currency Crises: Evidence From Turkey

A burgeoning literature shows that international trade and migration shocks influence individuals’ political attitudes, but relatively little is known about how international financial shocks impact public opinion. This study examines how one prevalent type of international financial shock—currency crises—shapes mass political attitudes. I argue that currency crises reduce average citizens’ support for incumbent governments. I also expect voters’ concerns about their own pocketbooks to influence their response to currency crises. Original survey data from Turkey support these arguments. Exploiting exogenous variation in the currency’s value during the survey window, I show that currency depreciations strongly reduce support for the government. This effect is stronger among individuals that are more negatively affected by depreciation, and it is moderated by individuals’ perceptions of their personal economic situation. This evidence suggests that international financial shocks can strongly influence the opinions of average voters, and it provides further support for pocketbook theories.

Financial shocks and inflation dynamics

We assess the effects of financial shocks on inflation, and to what extent financial shocks can account for the “missing disinflation” during the Great Recession. We apply a Bayesian vector autoregressive model to US data and identify financial shocks through a combination of narrative and short-run sign restrictions. Our main finding is that contractionary financial shocks temporarily increase inflation. This result withstands a large battery of robustness checks. Negative financial shocks help therefore to explain why inflation did not drop more sharply in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Our analysis suggests that higher borrowing costs after negative financial shocks can account for the modest decrease in inflation after the financial crisis. A policy implication is that financial shocks act as supply-type shocks, moving output and inflation in opposite directions, thereby worsening the trade-off for a central bank with a dual mandate.

Financial Frictions and Macroeconomy During Financial Crises: A Bayesian DSGE Assessment

The recent global financial crisis and the Eurozone sovereign default have rekindled the debate on the interactions between the real sector and the financial sphere. The present paper provides an assessment of the role of financial frictions on business cycles in Canada, the Euro Area, the U.K., and the U.S. during these recent financial crises using an extension of the DSGE methodology described by Merola (2015). The main goal is to examine whether and the extent to which those crises enhanced the contribution of financial frictions in driving macroeconomic fluctuations. The models’ properties are examined with posteriors distributions, variance decomposition, and historical decomposition. Posteriors distributions show that the role of real shocks in driving macroeconomic fluctuations decrease with the incorporation of financial frictions in the core DSGE model. Variance decomposition shows that financial frictions and financial shocks affect the business cycle through investment. The empirical estimates also suggest that the contribution of financial frictions and financial shocks in driving investment increases during the global financial crisis.

Behavioral consequences and intervention of financial shocks

An increasing number of individuals report hardship to cover financial shortfalls, but most research to date examines expense shocks (e.g., a car repair) rather than income shocks (e.g., a one-time pay cut). Here we explore the behavioral consequences of expense and income shocks and propose a self-affirmation intervention to mitigate the psychological toll posed by financial shocks. In three experiments, participants were presented with a hypothetical financial emergency (i.e., a one-time income shock or expense shock) and answered questions afterwards. We found that income shocks evoked more methods of coping, were harder to cope with, more impactful on daily life, and perceived as more of a loss than expense shocks of the same amount. Self-affirmation as a behavioral intervention successfully mitigated some of the deleterious effects of the shocks. The findings contribute a more nuanced understanding of decision making in response to shortfalls by differentiating income and expense shocks. Our study suggests that there are psychological distinctions in how different financial shocks are perceived. This evidence can inform the strategies used to prevent and cope with financial emergencies and inform public policy to support household financial management.

Attenuating international financial shocks: the role of capital controls

PurposeBy reinforcing monetary policy independence, reducing international financing pressures and avoiding high-risk takings, capital controls strengthen the stability of the financial system and then reduce the volatility of capital inflows. The objective of this study was to conduct an empirical examination of this hypothesis. This topic has received strong support in the theoretical literature; however, empirical work has been quite limited, with few empirical studies that provide direct empirical support to this hypothesis.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyzed quarterly data of 32 emerging economies over the period between 2000 and 2015 and proposes two methods to identify capital control actions. Using panel analysis, Autoregressive Distributed Lag and local projections approaches.FindingsThis study found that tighter capital controls may diminish monetary and exchange rate shocks and reduce capital inflows volatility. Furthermore, capital controls respond counter-cyclically to monetary shocks. Under capital controls, countries with floating exchange rate regimes have more potential to buffer monetary shocks. We also found that capital controls on inflows are more effective for reducing the volatility of capital inflows compared to capital controls on outflows.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the question of the effectiveness of capital controls in attenuating the effects of international shocks and reducing the volatility of capital flows. Previous studies have mostly focused on the role of macroprudential regulation; however, there is a lack of systematic effects of capital controls on monetary and exchange rate policies. To our knowledge, this is the first preliminary study to suggest that capital controls may buffer monetary and exchange rate shocks and reduce the volatility of capital inflows. This study investigates the novel notion that capital controls allow for a notable counter-cyclical response of monetary and exchange rate policies to international financial shocks.

Sensitivity of Debt Flows to Fiscal External Shocks in Emerging Market and Capital Market Correlations

In this study, we attempted to reveal the reasons for possible debt changes regarding the sensitivity of capital change indices in emerging economies to global financial risks and the meaning of possible correlation effects at the global level. Overcoming to Global economic and financial instabilities in emerging economies have required to take different fiscal measure have been aimed at balancing the rising interest rates and global financial change costs, which are caused by rising global priority costs. The external effects of global financial shocks in emerging economies led to a significant increase in global borrowing in these economies. In other words, in these countries representing emerging economies at different levels of development, they have also provided a reason for the inclusion of different financial and monetary policies in the process. Sensitivity to global financial shocks in emerging economies is related to the structural characteristics of countries and structural impact scales and correlations regarding which markets are affected by the needs. In this respect, it appears that the developments regarding the sectors, especially the capital flow, are meaningful in terms of indexes created by the periodic changes in the values of the current change. In this respect, in emerging economies, these shocks mostly emerge with effects giving different correlation results in countries that differ according to global crises and have other capital accumulations. The remarkable point in terms of the correlations determined here is that debt ratios and capital accumulation variations in emerging economies have put forth a significant correlation in a period of global financial shocks.

Uncertainty, Financial Markets, and Monetary Policy over the Last Century

What has been the effect of uncertainty shocks in the U.S. economy over the last century? What are the roles of the financial channel and monetary policy channel in propagating uncertainty shocks? Our empirical strategies enable us to distinguish between the effects of uncertainty shocks on key macroeconomic and financial variables transmitted through each channel. A hundred years of data further allow us to answer these questions from a novel historical perspective. This paper finds robust evidence that financial conditions captured by both borrowing costs and the availability of credit have played a crucial role in propagating uncertainty shocks over the last century. However, heightened uncertainty does not necessarily amplify the adverse effect of financial shocks, suggesting an asymmetric interaction between uncertainty and financial shocks. Interestingly, the monetary policy stance seems to play only a minor role in propagating uncertainty shocks, which is in sharp contrast to the recent claim that binding zero-lower-bound amplifies the negative effect of uncertainty shocks. We argue that the contribution of constrained monetary policy to amplifying uncertainty shocks is largely masked by the joint concurrence of binding zero-lower-bound and tightened financial conditions.