Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Brazil: Reserve Requirements, Gfc, Sean Fulmer

Journal of Financial Crises

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, deposits began to accumulate at large Brazilian banks, representing a flight to safety away from small and medium-sized banks. While total deposits in the Brazilian financial system grew by 13% from August 2008 to January 2009, the total deposits held by small and medium-sized banks declined by 23% and 11%, respectively. Because of high statutory reserve requirements and legal disincentives to lend directly to financial institutions, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) used reserve requirements as its primary tool for providing liquidity to incentivize large banks to provide credit to smaller …

Argentina: Reserve Requirements, 1994–1995, Natalie Leonard

Journal of Financial Crises

The devaluation of the Mexican peso in December 1994 sparked concerns about the quality and safety of government debt across Latin American countries, including Argentina. In late 1994 and 1995, Banco Central de la Republica Argentina (BCRA) implemented three changes in reserve requirement policy to restore liquidity throughout the financial system and defend the currency peg to the US dollar. First, it lowered the existing minimum reserve requirement, which required banks to hold reserves entirely in cash (pesos or US dollars). This released more than ARS 4 billion (USD 4 billion) in resources into the banking system, according to the …

Thailand: Fidf Blanket Guarantee, 1997, Ayodeji George

Journal of Financial Crises

The Thai government’s decision to allow the baht to float in July 1997 was the pivotal event of the Asian Financial Crisis. The baht fell 20% by the end of the month, further pressuring Thai financial institutions that had borrowed heavily in US dollars and other foreign currencies. In early August, Thailand’s Finance Minister and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) announced the suspension and restructuring of insolvent finance companies and a blanket guarantee covering depositors and creditors of all domestic banks and the remaining finance companies, administered by the BOT’s Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF). However, the blanket guarantee was …

Mexico: Fobaproa Blanket Guarantee, 1993–1994, Stella Schaefer-Brown

Journal of Financial Crises

On December 22, 1994, the Mexican government allowed the peso to float freely against the US dollar, aggravating the run on peso deposits, leading to the rapid devaluation of the peso, and sparking the peso crisis. The following week, the Bank of Mexico announced that the Mexican deposit insurer would fully guarantee all commercial bank deposits and liabilities except subordinated debt. The announcement of the blanket guarantee appeared effective at reassuring foreign investors, as the central bank was soon able to ease the liquidity support that it had been providing to banks during the crisis. The government created a deposit …

Sweden: Bank Support Authority, Blanket Guarantee, 1992, Anmol Makhija

Journal of Financial Crises

Following a period of rapid financial liberalization and a record credit boom in the 1980s, Sweden’s financial system suffered its worst shock in the post–World War II period. Swedish banks were heavily dependent on foreign credit, which dried up amid signs of instability. The Swedish government announced a blanket guarantee on September 24, 1992, for all banks’ obligations except share capital and perpetual subordinated loans. According to a 1995 IMF Working Paper by Drees and Pazarbasioglu, the purpose of the blanket guarantee was “to guarantee the stability of the payments system and to safeguard the general supply of credit.” The …

Korea: Blanket Guarantee, 1997, Bailey Decker

Journal of Financial Crises

Korea entered the Asian Financial Crisis in August 1997 with highly leveraged firms and a banking system inexperienced in managing systemic risk. Korea faced a currency crisis and a banking crisis, as foreign banks froze credit to Korean commercial banks and merchant banks. On August 25, 1997, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) announced that it would guarantee all Korean financial institutions’ foreign debt—both existing debt and new borrowings. Nonetheless, foreign lenders continued to withdraw credit from Korean financial institutions. On November 19, 1997, a newly appointed MOEF minister announced a suite of measures to promote foreign creditors’ confidence …

Ireland: Credit Institution (Financial Support) Scheme, 2008, Stella Schaefer-Brown

Journal of Financial Crises

The Global Financial Crisis exposed fragilities in the Irish banking system and led to widespread runs on Irish banks. Irish authorities attempted to address the runs on September 22, 2008, by increasing the country’s deposit guarantee limit from EUR 20,000 to EUR 100,000 (USD 28,800 to USD 140,000) and raising the coverage of deposits from 90% to 100%. When the runs continued, the Irish minister for finance announced a blanket guarantee of bank liabilities on September 30 without consulting European Union authorities. The announcement specified the blanket guarantee would be effective immediately and remain in effect for two years. The …

Jamaica: Finsac Blanket Guarantee, 1997, Ayodeji George

Journal of Financial Crises

After a period of sustained distress in the early 1990s, Jamaican financial institutions faced significant liquidity issues by 1996, evidenced by runs on banks by depositors. The government responded by creating the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) on January 29, 1997, to rehabilitate weak financial institutions and administer a blanket guarantee on financial sector liabilities. The blanket guarantee covered all deposit-taking financial institutions, life insurance policy providers, and pension funds registered under the Banking Act, Financial Institutions Act, and Insurance Act. Within eligible institutions, the blanket guarantee covered depositors’ funds in licensed deposit-taking institutions, pension funds managed by authorized institutions, …

Indonesia: Blanket Guarantee, 1998, Ayodeji George

Journal of Financial Crises

The Indonesian government closed 16 banks on November 1, 1997. At the time, the government said it would guarantee depositors up to 20 million Indonesian rupiah (IDR; USD 6,000) per account. The lack of immediate full protection for large depositors caused deposit runs throughout the banking sector and undermined foreign confidence in the Indonesian financial system. In response, the Indonesian president on January 26, 1998, announced a blanket guarantee and created the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) to administer the guarantee and other bank rehabilitation efforts. The blanket guarantee covered all depositors and nonsubordinated creditors in locally incorporated commercial banks. …

Ecuador: Blanket Guarantee, 1998, Bailey Decker

Journal of Financial Crises

After a series of exogenous shocks hit the Ecuadorian economy in 1997–1998, foreign creditors reassessed their emerging-market risk and reduced external credit lines to Ecuador, thus draining liquidity. The closure of a small bank called Solbanco in April 1998 triggered deposit runs at other banks. Banks sought assistance from the Central Bank of Ecuador (Banco Central del Ecuador, or BCE). By the end of September 1998, the BCE had issued emergency loans to 11 financial institutions, totaling nearly 30% of the money base. The crisis accelerated in August 1998 when Banco de Prestamos, the sixth-largest bank, was closed; the existing …

Finland: Government Guarantee Fund, Blanket Guarantee, 1992, Anmol Makhija

Journal of Financial Crises

Following a period of rapid financial liberalization and a record credit boom in the 1980s, Finland’s financial system suffered steadily increasing loan losses and falling earnings beginning in 1990. The Finnish Parliament created the Government Guarantee Fund (GGF) in April 1992 to support banks with loans, capital, and guarantees. In a press release issued on August 6, 1992, the government said the GGF would “secure the stable functioning of the banking system under any circumstances [emphasis added]”. Six months later, the Parliament of Finland specifically required the GGF to guarantee that all Finnish banks could meet their commitments. The government …

Denmark: General Guarantee Scheme, 2008, Benjamin Hoffner

Journal of Financial Crises

As foreign credit in Denmark dried up during the summer of 2008, Danish banks became increasingly reliant on short-term borrowing. The government took over the failing Roskilde Bank, the country’s eighth-largest bank, in late August. On October 5, 2008, the government announced a voluntary General Guarantee Scheme to fully insure deposits and other senior liabilities of participating banks. Banks could participate in the scheme by becoming members of the financial sector’s banking consortium, Det Private Beredskab, or in English, the Private Contingency Association (PCA), before October 13, 2008. The General Guarantee Scheme fully insured all depositors and senior unsecured creditors …

Reserve Requirements Survey, June Rhee, Carey K. Mott, Greg Feldberg, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Banks have a private motive to hold some level of cash and liquid reserves, but the negative externalities of bank runs create a public interest in setting a regulatory level higher than the privately optimal level. We can think of such reserve requirements (RRs) as the original form of liquidity regulation. In this paper, we focus on 14 cases in which central banks adjusted RRs after crises hit, typically to deal with liquidity shortages in the banking system. We observe that RR adjustments have several advantages in a crisis: (1) such changes require little process, and the change for banks …

Blanket Guarantees Survey, Christian M. Mcnamara, Carey K. Mott, Greg Feldberg, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

This paper surveys 10 blanket guarantee (BG) programs across 13 Key Design Decisions. The defining characteristics of these programs in terms of their inclusion in our BG series are (a) that they guaranteed a broader range of liabilities beyond deposit accounts and (b) that the guarantees covered existing liabilities in addition to newly issued ones. Each case represents an effort to eliminate creditors’ incentive to withdraw funding from institutions by guaranteeing that the funding will be paid back even if the institutions are unable to do so themselves. The main themes that emerge are: (a) the inability of blanket guarantees …

Fire Sales, The Lolr, And Bank Runs With Continuous Asset Liquidity, Ulrich Bindseil, Edoardo Lanari

Journal of Financial Crises

Banks’ asset fire sales and recourse to central bank credit are modeled with continuous asset liquidity, allowing us to derive the liability structure of a bank. Both asset sales liquidity and the central bank collateral framework are modeled as power functions within the unit interval. Funding stability is captured as a strategic bank run game in pure strategies between depositors. Fire sale liquidity and the central bank collateral framework determine jointly the ability of the banking system to deliver maturity transformation without endangering financial stability. The model also explains why banks tend to use the least liquid eligible collateral with …

Topics In International Finance, Jonathan Lennon Hsu

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on two main unanswered questions that lie at the intersection between international financing, international trade, and supply chains. Firstly, to what extent can international trade networks offer borrowing opportunities for firms that face significant barriers in traditional financing markets? Second, what are the potential impacts of financial globalization on firms’ borrowing and extension of trade credit?

The first chapter seeks to answer the first research question listed above: to what extentcan international trade networks offer borrowing opportunities for firms that face significant barriers in traditional financing markets? I show that firms use their trade flows to borrow …

The Livingston Survey 2022, S. Anderson, B. Bovino, M. Brown, Thomas Lam, Et Al

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The 16 participants in the December Livingston Survey weakened their forecasts for real GDP growth, compared with their projections in the June 2022 survey. The forecasters, who are surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia twice a year, expect 2.0 percent annualized growth in real GDP during the second half of 2022. They project 0.4 percent annualized growth over the first half of 2023. The forecasters predict that real GDP will continue to decline and reach -1.0 percent annualized growth in the second half of 2023.

A Comparison Of M&T Bank And Citizens Bank Net Income Changes During The Coronavirus Pandemic, Alex R. Glasier

Applied Economics Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic had a tremendous impact on every aspect of life, particularly within the world of banking & finance. All banks saw sharp drops in their stock prices and net income, but my hypothesis is that larger, more established banks maintained more stability during 2020 than smaller banks. This paper analyzes the income statements and balance sheets of M&T Bank (an older, more well-established bank) and Citizens Bank (a less-established bank) during this difficult time.

The first part of my thesis describes similarities and differences between M&T Bank and Citizens Bank. I explain how these similarities and differences may …

Learning From Manipulable Signals, Mehmet Ekmekci, Leandrro Gorno, Lucas Maestri, Jian Sun, Dong Wei

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study a dynamic stopping game between a principal and an agent. The agent is privately informed about his type. The principal learns about the agent’s type from a noisy performance measure, which can be manipulated by the agent via a costly and hidden action. We fully characterize the unique Markov equilibrium of this game. We find that terminations/ market crashes are often preceded by a spike in (expected) performance. Our model also predicts that, due to endogenous signal manipulation, too much transparency can inhibit learning. As the players get arbitrarily patient, the principal elicits no useful information from the …

Innovation In Futures Markets: Event Contracts, Speculation, And Hedging, Fabio Mattos

Cornhusker Economics

The CME Group has recently launched a new type of contract whose payoffs are based on specific events. These contracts are called event contracts but are also known as prediction contracts or information contracts. They are short-term contracts that expire at the end of each trading day. Traders can take positions in these contracts as they predict whether the price of a given asset will finish the trading day above or below a set value.

Discusses: How are they traded? Main characteristics of event contracts. Event contracts offered by CME group and event examples on October 21, 2022. Why were …

On The Market For "Lemons": When Low Quality Does Not Drive High Quality Out Of The Market, Konstantinos Giannakas, Murray E. Fulton

Cornhusker Economics

In a research article published in Nature's Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s4l 599-020-00658-w) we identify the conditions under which the introduction of a low -quality product does not drive its high-quality counterpart out of the market but, instead, ends-up coexisting with it. Using a theoretical framework of heterogeneous consumers and producers in the context of a market for quality- ( or vertically-) differentiated products supplied by producers differing in their production efficiency, we show that the equilibrium quality configuration in a market depends on both the unobservability of product quality by consumers and the relative costs …

Rural Microfinance And Business Ownership Outcomes A Case Of Tanzania Educational And Micro Business Opportunity (Tembo) Loan And Non-Loan Recipients In Longido District, Tanzania, Owen Conlin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The study takes place in a rural area of Tanzania with gender barriers that are extremely difficult to overcome on a cultural level. This research examines outcomes for women in Longido District, Tanzania along the lines of MFI participation, education levels, financial variables, and empowerment variables. This study intends to elaborate this theory by examining the role that education plays in the success of Microfinance Institutions (MFI’s). It was found that MFI participation is correlated with increased financial and overall independence. Higher levels of education are found to be correlated with increased income, financial independence, personal empowerment, and overall independence. …

Commonality In Credit Spread Changes: Dealer Inventory And Intermediary Distress, Zhiguo He, Paymon Khorrami, Zhaogang Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Two intermediary-based factors—a corporate bond dealer inventory measure and a broad intermediary distress measure—explain more than 40% of the puzzling common variation in credit spread changes beyond canonical structural factors. A simple intermediary-based model with partial market segmentation accounts for intermediary factors’ explanatory power and delivers three further implications with empirical support. First, whereas bond sorts on risk-related variables produce monotonic loading patterns on intermediary factors, non-risk-related sorts produce no pattern. Second, dealer inventory comoves with corporate-credit assets only, whereas intermediary distress comoves with both corporate-credit and non-corporate-credit assets. Third, dealers’ inventory responds to (instrumented) bond sales by institutional investors.

The Alphabet Soup In Reporting And Measuring Esg, Hao Liang, Kam Chee Chan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Harmonising frameworks with the Impact-Weighted Accounts Framework.

Lessons Learned: Christopher Spoth, Sandra Ward

Journal of Financial Crises

As senior deputy director of the Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Spoth led examinations, enforcement actions, problem bank remediations, and failure resolutions, among a range of responsibilities. During the Global Financial Crisis, he was on the front lines of fast-moving policy discussions and actions to help stabilize the financial system, and he oversaw the closure and restructuring of some of the nation’s largest banks. This abstract is based on an interview with Spoth on February 4, 2021.

Lessons Learned: Kevin Warsh, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

As senior deputy director of the Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Spoth led examinations, enforcement actions, problem bank remediations, and failure resolutions, among a range of responsibilities. During the Global Financial Crisis, he was on the front lines of fast-moving policy discussions and actions to help stabilize the financial system, and he oversaw the closure and restructuring of some of the nation’s largest banks. This abstract is based on an interview with Spoth on February 4, 2021.

Lessons Learned: Brian Sack, Sandra Ward

Journal of Financial Crises

Charged with overseeing the implementation of the asset-purchase programs and liquidity facilities in his roles as executive vice president of the Markets Group and manager of the System Open Market Account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), Brian Sack played a critical role in keeping markets functioning during the years 2009–2012. He served as an adviser to top policymakers, and, in addition to implementing the various programs designed to stabilize financial conditions, he monitored their impact and measured their performance. This Lessons Learned summary is based on an interview with Sack on November 13, 2020.

Lessons Learned: Nathan Sheets, Yasemin Sim Esmen, Rosalind Z. Wiggins

Journal of Financial Crises

Between 2007 and 2011, Nathan Sheets was director of the Division of International Finance at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He oversaw the operations of the division and advised the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on economic and financial developments in foreign countries. Sheets also regularly represented the Federal Reserve Board at international meetings and in its contacts with foreign central banks. Under his helm, the division was involved in helping establish and manage the US dollar liquidity swap lines with foreign central banks. This Lessons Learned abstract is based on an interview with Sheets on …

Lessons Learned: Frederic Mishkin, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

Rick Mishkin served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 to 2008 and as director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1994 to 1997. A leading expert on monetary economics and financial markets and a professor at Columbia University’s School of Business since 1983, Mishkin has written 20 books, including the textbook The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets. This Lessons Learned is based on an interview with Mishkin conducted on October 20, 2020.

Lessons Learned: Simon Potter, Maryann Haggerty

Journal of Financial Crises

Simon Potter, an economist, worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for more than two decades. Leading up to the Global Financial Crisis, he was the New York Fed’s associate director of economic research; in 2010, he became director. In 2012, he shifted to become the head of the markets group, putting him at the helm of the Fed’s open markets operations, the mechanism by which the central bank steers monetary policy and interest rates. He moved to the private sector in 2019. For this April 2021 Lessons Learned interview, he emphasized that these are his personal opinions, …