Ceyla Pazarbasioglu

Determinants of Banking System Fragility: A Case Study of Mexico

This paper tests empirically the proposition that bank fragility is determined by bank-specific factors, macroeconomic conditions, and potential contagion effects. The methodology allows the variables that determine bank failure to differ from those that influence banks time to failure (or survival rate). Based on the indicators of fragility of individual banks, we construct an index of fragility for the banking system. The framework is applied to the Mexican financial crisis that began in 1994. For Mexico, bank-specific variables and contagion effects explain the likelihood, whereas macroeconomic variables largely determine the timing, of bank failure.

Lessons From Systemic Bank Restructuring; A Survey of 24 Countries

In recent decades, a wide range of countries have experienced banking problems. Their approaches to systemic bank restructuring have varied substantially. This paper analyzes a representative sample of 24 countries and provides a summary of policies judged to be successful. The sample countries were ranked by relative progress in resolving banking sector problems. Based on this ranking, the paper examines the effectiveness of institutional and regulatory measures, assesses the impact of accompanying macroeconomic policies, and examines the extent to which particular restructuring instruments contributed to success. Special emphasis is given to the role of the central bank.

Banking System Fragility: Likelihood Versus Timing of Failure: An Application to the Mexican Financial Crisis

This paper tests empirically the proposition that bank fragility is determined by bank-specific factors, macroeconomic conditions and potential contagion effects. The methodology allows for the variables that determine bank failure to differ from those that influence banks` time to failure (or survival rate). Based on the indicators of fragility of individual banks, we construct an index of fragility for the banking system. The framework is applied to the Mexican financial crisis beginning in 1994. In the case of Mexico, bank-specific variables as well as contagion effects explain the likelihood of bank failure, while macroeconomic variables largely determine the timing of failure.

Linkages Between Financial Variables, Financial Sector Reform and Economic Growth and Efficiency

This paper analyzes the different channels through which financial variables and financial sector reform can affect economic growth and efficiency, using panel data for 40 countries which reformed their financial systems. Financial sector reform is hypothesized to affect economic growth and efficiency through three main channels: the real interest rate representing the interest cost of capital, the volume of intermediation, and financial sector efficiency. The results indicate that financial reforms have structural effects; that financial variables and reforms are important determinants of economic performance; that the impact depends on whether countries did or did not face a financial crisis; and that the “quality” of financial sector reform matters.

Crisis Management and Resolution; Early Lessons from the Financial Crisis

This paper compares the policy choices in recent and past crises, explains why those choices varied, and assesses the current state of financial and operational restructuring and institutional reform. While acknowledging the unique and global nature of the recent crisis and varying country circumstances, analysis suggests that the diagnosis and repair of financial institutions and overall asset restructuring are much less advanced than they should be at this stage and that moral hazard has increased. Consequently, vulnerabilities in the global financial system remain considerable and continue to threaten the sustainability of the recovery. These conclusions point to a number of steps to finish the business of financial sector repair and reform. JEL Classification Numbers: G01; G18; G32; G33; H12

Speculative attacks and currency crises: The Mexican experience

This paper estimates a speculative attack model of currency crises in order to identify the role of economic fundamentals and any early warning signals of a potential currency crisis. The data from the Mexican economy was used to illustrate the model. Based on the results, a deterioration in fundamentals appears to have generated high one-step-ahead probabilities for the regime changes during the sample period 1982-1994. Particularly, increases in inflation differentials, appreciations of the real exchange rate, foreign reserve losses, expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, and increases in the share of short-term foreign currency debt appear to have contributed to the market pressures and regime changes in that period.

Impact of Regulatory Reforms on Large and Complex Financial Institutions

Financial sector reforms are being considered to address the risks posed by large and complex financial institutions (LCFIs). The vast majority of global finance is intermediated by a handful of these institutions with growing interconnections within and across borders. Common trends that contributed to the recent global crisis included sharp increases in leverage, significant reliance on short-term wholesale funding, growth of off-balance-sheet activities, maturity mismatches, and increased share of revenues from complex products and trading activities. The key objective of the financial sector reforms is to promote a less leveraged, less risky (or better cushioned), and thus a more resilient financial system that supports strong and sustainable economic growth. The recent proposals of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) on capital standards represent a substantial improvement in the quantity and quality of capital in comparison with the pre-crisis situation. The analysis of this paper suggests that, subject to usual caveats associated with limited data disclosures and availability, phase-in arrangements will allow most banks to move to these higher standards through earnings retention, assuming a modest economic and earnings outlook. It also suggests that should banks generate strong earnings in the coming years, and distribute lower dividends, they could rebuild common equity capital ratios faster than required under the current phase-in periods. The analysis of the paper also suggests that the new capital standards will have a significant impact on investment-banking-type activities, including through tighter requirements for trading book exposures. Investment banking activities will also be affected by a host of other regulatory initiatives, including the new accounting rules and higher standards for securitization, derivatives, and trading businesses, as well as measures to restrain certain activities. Yet, LCFIs with an investment banking focus have flexible business models and can adjust their strategies easily to mitigate the effects of the regulatory reforms, notwithstanding a multitude of regulations affecting their activities. The ultimate effect of the reforms on business models remains to be seen until the regulations take their final shape.

Exchange Market Pressures and Speculative Capital Flows in Selected European Countries

This paper estimates a speculative attack model of currency crises in an attempt to identify the roles of macroeconomic fundamentals and speculative market pressures in the recent crisis, as well as earlier devaluations in adjustable fixed exchange rate systems in the European currency markets. For a sample of five countries, including Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Norway, and Sweden, our empirical analyses show that both economic fundamentals and speculative factors have a significant influence on the probability of devaluations. The recent experience in the European foreign exchange markets suggests that the latest realignments are mainly the result of foreign exchange market tensions amidst the growing conflict between the needs of the domestic economies and the policies needed to maintain fixed exchange rates. Our results confirm that regardless of the source of the deterioration in economic conditions, market participants perceived the existing parities of the currencies in these five countries as inconsistent with their underlying economic fundamentals, thus effectively bringing about either a realignment or a modification of the exchange arrangement.

Creating a Safer Financial System: Will the Volcker, Vickers, and Liikanen Structural Measures Help?

The U.S., the U.K., and more recently, the E.U., have proposed policy measures directly targeting complexity and business structures of banks. Unlike other, price-based reforms (e.g., Basel 3 and G-SIFI surcharges), these proposals have been developed unilaterally with material differences in scope, design and implementation schedules. This may exacerbate cross-border regulatory arbitrage and put a further burden on consolidated supervision and cross-border resolution. This paper provides an analysis of the potential implications of implementing different structural policy measures. It proposes a pragmatic and coordinated approach to development of these policies to reduce risk of regulatory arbitrage and minimize unintended consequences. In doing so, it also aims to identify a set of common policy measures that countries could adopt to re-scope bank business models and corporate structures.

De-dollarizing the Hard Way

There is wide consensus that partial dollarization can magnify a country’s vulnerabilities (e.g., Guide et al., 2004).2,3 These vulnerabilities relate to the country’s balance of payments, the banking sector and its borrowers and also fiscal sustain-ability. There is also broad consensus that dollarization is largely the product of macroeconomic instability or the threat thereof, which has led to a weakening of ‘faith’ in the national currency.4 Hence, dollarization may increase the vulnerabilities of a country already prone to exogenous shocks or misguided policies. How vulnerabilities are affected depends on the form of dollarization. A distinction is usefully made between ‘liability dollarization’, where banks have liabilities to savers in the form of foreign currency deposits (FCDs); ‘asset dollarization’, whereby banks have extended credit to residents (including perhaps the government) in foreign currency; ‘real dollarization’, which implies that contracted amounts even for non-financial sector transactions are denominated in foreign currency, even if transactions are settled in local currency; and ‘payments dollarization’, under which payments are settled in foreign currency. Various combinations of these types of dollarization are possible, but ‘liability dollarization’ is probably the most common, and ‘real’ and ‘payments’ dollarization are viewed as more deep-seated forms of dollarization.