Misa Tanaka

Reputation, Risk-Taking and Macroprudential Policy

This paper examines the role of macroprudential capital requirements in preventing inefficient credit booms in a model with reputational externalities. Unprofitable banks have strong incentives to invest in risky assets and generate inefficient credit booms when macroeconomic fundamentals are good in order to signal high ability. We show that across-the-system countercyclical capital requirements that deter credit booms are constrained optimal when fundamentals are within an intermediate range. We also show that when fundamentals are deteriorating, a public announcement of that fact can itself play a powerful role in preventing inefficient credit booms, providing an additional channel through which macroprudential policies can improve outcomes.

Let’s talk about the weather: the impact of climate change on central banks

This paper examines the channels via which climate change and policies to mitigate it could affect a central bank’s ability to meet its monetary and financial stability objectives. We argue that two types of risks are particularly relevant for central banks. First, a weather-related natural disaster could trigger financial and macroeconomic instability if it severely damages the balance sheets of households, corporates, banks, and insurers (physical risks). Second, a sudden, unexpected tightening of carbon emission policies could lead to a disorderly re-pricing of carbon-intensive assets and a negative supply shock (transition risks). Climate-related disclosure could facilitate an orderly transition to a low-carbon economy if it helps a wide range of investors better assess their financial risk exposures.

Resolving Banking Crises - An Analysis of Policy Options

This paper develops a dynamic model to examine the ex-ante and ex-post implications of five policy options for resolving bank failures when the authorities cannot observe the level of non-performing loans (NPLs) held by individual banks. Under asymmetric information, we show that the first-best outcome is achievable when the authorities can close all banks that fail to raise a minimum level of new capital. But when the authorities cannot close banks and must rely on financial incentives to induce banks to liquidate their NPLs, recapitalisation using equity (Tier 1 capital) would be the second-best policy, whereas recapitalisation using subordinated debt (Tier 2 capital) is suboptimal. If the authorities do not wish to hold an equity stake in a bank, they should subsidise the liquidation of non-performing loans rather than inject subordinated debt. We also show that the cost of this subsidy can be reduced if it is offered in a menu that includes equity injection.

International Spillover Effects and Monetary Policy Activism

This paper examines how the preferences of a large economy’s central bank affect the trade-off between output and inflation volatility faced by the central bank of a small open economy by analysing the impact of a global cost-push shock. We demonstrate that under the assumption of producer currency pricing, the trade-off faced by the small open economy is likely to worsen as the foreign central bank becomes more focused on output stabilisation relative to inflation stabilisation; but the opposite is true in the case of local currency pricing.

Bankers' Pay and Excessive Risk

This paper studies the agency problem between bank management, shareholders, and the taxpayer. Executive bonuses increase in the probability the bank is too big to fail. Bank management recognise it is very likely optimal to select risky projects which exploit the taxpayer, implying project selection effort (eg due diligence) is more expensive to incentivise. This agency problem leads to too much risk for society, not for shareholders. Compensation rules aimed at solving management-shareholder agency problems — equity pay, deferred, including debt — do not correct the excessive risk taking. By contrast, malus and clawbacks can incentivise the bank management to make better risk choices.

All Together Now: Do International Factors Explain Relative Price Comovements?

Recent research has found evidence of increasing comovement in CPI inflation rates across industrialised countries. This paper considers whether this can be attributed to greater global integration of product markets. To examine this question, we build a data set of 28 matched product category price indices for fourteen advanced economies for 1998 Q1 to 2008 Q2, and decompose the inflation rates into a world factor, country-specific factors, and category-specific factors using a Bayesian dynamic factor model with Gibbs sampling. We find that the category-specific factors account for a large part of the comovement in the prices of goods which are intensive in internationally traded primary commodities; but this is less evident for other traded goods. We also find that both the world factor and the category-specific factors become more significant in explaining the movement in the relative prices in the second half of our sample.

International Monetary Co-Operation in a World of Imperfect Information

This paper examines the welfare implications of international monetary co-operation using a stylised two-country New Keynesian general equilibrium model of imperfect information. We show that setting a self-oriented monetary policy rule generally leads to welfare gains relative to passive monetary policy even when central banks do not have perfect information about the foreign economy. However, information sharing between central banks in this set-up, by itself, has ambiguous welfare implications. Gains from monetary co-ordination are largest when productivity shocks are negatively correlated across countries.

Climate change challenges for central banks and financial regulators

The academic and policy debate regarding the role of central banks and financial regulators in addressing climate-related financial risks has rapidly expanded in recent years. This Perspective presents the key controversies and discusses potential research and policy avenues for the future. Developing a comprehensive analytical framework to assess the potential impact of climate change and the low-carbon transition on financial stability seems to be the first crucial challenge. These enhanced risk measures could then be incorporated in setting financial regulations and implementing the policies of central banks.Climate change poses a financial risk but it is unclear what management role there is for central banks and financial regulators. This Perspective outlines research and policy directions needed for financial sector engagement.

Bank Leverage, Credit Traps and Credit Policies

We construct an overlapping generations macroeconomic model with which to study the causes, consequences and remedies to ‘credit traps’ — prolonged periods of stagnant real activity accompanied by low productivity, financial sector undercapitalisation, and the misallocation of credit. In our model, credit traps arise when shocks to bank equity capital tighten banks’ borrowing constraints, causing them to allocate credit to easily collateralisable but low productivity projects. Low productivity weakens bank capital generation, reinforcing tight borrowing constraints, sustaining the credit trap steady state. We use the model to study policy options, both ex ante(avoiding credit traps) and ex post (escaping them). Ex ante, restrictions on bank leverage can help to enhance the economy’s resilience to the shocks that can cause credit traps. Further, a policymaker focused on maximising the economy’s resilience to credit traps would set leverage countercyclically, allowing an expansion of leverage in minor downturns and reducing leverage in upswings. However, ex post, relaxing a leverage cap will not help escape the trap. Instead, a range of unconventional policies are needed. We study publicly intermediated lending, discount window lending, and recapitalisation, and compare the efficacy of these policies under different conditions.