Edda Zoli

Italian Sovereign Spreads: Their Determinants and Pass-Through to Bank Funding Costs and Lending Conditions

Volatility in Italian sovereign spreads has increased since mid-2011. This paper finds that news on the euro area debt crisis and country specific events were important drivers of sovereign spreads. Movements in sovereign spreads affect CDS spreads and bond yields of Italian banks, and are transmitted rapidly to firm lending rates. Banks with lower capital ratios and higher nonperforming loans were found to be more sensitive to swings in sovereign spreads. Credit supply constraints due to bank funding shortages from the sovereign debt crisis were a major factor behind the lending slowdown in late 2011, while in 2012 weak demand appears to have been driving changes in credit more than supply.

Cost and Effectiveness of Banking Sector Restructuring in Transition Economies

The paper analyses the cost and effectiveness of bank restructuring policies in 11 transition countries during 1991-98. It argues that country-specific banking sector features, the size of bad loans inherited from the centrally planned system, and weaknesses in the restructuring policies implemented were the main factors affecting the overall fiscal costs, with the latter two being more significant. The paper finds no significant relationship between the size of restructuring costs and overall improvement in banking sector performance for the sample countries as a whole.

Commodity Price Volatility, Cyclical Fluctuations, and Convergence: What is Ahead for Inflation in Emerging Europe?

This paper assesses the role of international commodity prices, cyclical fluctuations, and convergence in driving inflation in 18 European emerging economies. Country specific VARs and panel estimates indicate that international commodity price shocks have a significant impact on domestic inflation, but the inflation response is asymmetric for positive and negative shocks. Cyclical fluctuations explain a relative small share of inflation variability, and the inflation response is asymmetric during upturns and downturns. Price convergence is estimated to add nearly 3 percentage points to headline inflation, for the average country whose price level is about 50 percent relative to the EU-15 average.

Fiscal and Monetary Nexus in Emerging Market Economies: How Does Debt Matter?

This paper examines two main aspects of the interaction between fiscal and monetary policy in emerging market economies. First, it explores the interest rate-inflation relationship in economies with different levels of external and domestic public debt using panel- and cross-section data. The results show that interest rate-inflation elasticity weakens with debt/GDP and external debt/GDP. Second, it utilizes high-frequency data from Brazil, Turkey, and Poland to examine how market-determined variables react to economic news. The results suggest that when vulnerabilities are high, budget news has the most significant impact on country spreads and interest rates, and the impact of monetary policy is weakened.

Financial Development in Emerging Europe: The Unfinished Agenda

This paper assesses the status of financial development in Emerging Europe, analyzes the factors that have shaped it, and discusses policy priorities. Financial development has progressed to varying degrees across the region. Macroeconomic stability and institutional quality have been important factors. Going forward, the EU integration process is likely to propel further reforms and shape financial development in EU members. In non-EU emerging economies the focus should be on maintaining macroeconomic stability and strengthening law enforceability. Creating a well-functioning government securities market, reinforcing corporate governance and creditor rights protection, and promoting the emergence of institutional investors would be beneficial.

Credit Rationing in Emerging Economies' Access to Global Capital Markets

This paper tests empirically the theoretical prediction that the country premium paid by emerging economies on sovereign debt increases with the amount of debt up to a certain critical level, above which the supply of foreign funds becomes fixed. The results confirm this theoretical prediction. The approach developed in the paper is also used to test for the presence of moral hazard in international lending. The results indicate significant changes in the supply of funds curve consistent with the presence of moral hazard in the period immediately following the Mexican rescue operation, but not after the Russian non-bailout.

MODIS: A Market-Oriented Deposit Insurance Scheme

This paper argues that an optimal deposit insurance scheme would allow the level of insurance coverage to be determined by the market. Based on this principle, the paper proposes an insurance scheme that minimizes distortions and embodies fairness and credibility, two essential characteristics of a viable and effective deposit insurance scheme. Using a simple model for the determination of the optimal level of insurance coverage, it is shown that the optimal coverage is higher for developing compared to developed countries; a condition that is broadly satisfied by prevailing deposit insurance practices around the world.

Korea's challenges ahead Lessons from Japan's experience

This paper draws out the parallels between Korea and Japan in terms of demographics, potential growth, balance sheets, asset prices and inflation. Korea’s demographic trends seem to track Japan’s with a lag of about 20 years. Low productivity in the service sector and labor market duality are common to both countries and need to be addressed with structural reforms. While Korea’s corporate balance sheets are stronger than Japan’s in the early 1990s, Korea needs to progress with the restructuring of nonviable firms to avoid the adverse consequences of delayed balance-sheet repair that Japan experienced. Given its strong fiscal balance sheet position, Korea can afford using fiscal policy actively to incentivize corporate restructuring and structural reforms and cushion their possible short-term adverse impact. Korea can prevent bubbles in asset prices that were at the origin of Japan’s initial crisis with the continued use of macroprudential policies. Although Korea does not appear to be headed toward deflation, new econometric analysis presented in the paper suggests that aging will exert a downward drag on its inflation going forward.