Sophie Brana

La présence de banques étrangères en Europe de l’Est quels risques financiers ?

La crise financiere de 2008-2009, qui a notamment frappe les banques de l’UE-15, souligne combien les pays d’Europe centrale et orientale (PECO) sont vulnerables a l’arret soudain des entrees de capitaux de ces banques, fortement creancieres ainsi qu’aux crises de balance des paiements. Les PECO sont soumis a deux types de risques financiers qui s’accroissent tout au long de la decennie 2000. Le premier tient a l’exposition financiere directe entre les pays de l’UE-15 et les PECO. Le second, indirect, est associe au risque de contagion regionale via les effets de spillover et le canal du creancier commun. Il s’avere que l’Estonie court ces deux types de risques, tandis que la Lettonie, la Lituanie, la Roumanie, la Bulgarie et la Hongrie sont vulnerables en raison de leur exposition directe aux creanciers exterieurs. Enfin, des pays en apparence moins exposes aux risques directs, comme la Republique tcheque ou la Slovaquie, ne sont pas a l’abri de phenomenes de contagion regionale.

Politiques de stabilisation en Europe de l'Est : ancrage par le change ou ciblage d'inflation ?

The Central and Eastern European countries have used since the beginning of the transition of many monetary and exchange rate strategies to fight against inflation. One can find the full spectrum of regimes, from free floating, currency board, monetary anchors, inflation targeting, through crawling pegs or fluctuation bands. This article examines the impact of these strategies on the performance in terms of inflation for a panel of 14 Central and Eastern European countries. It appears that in early transition, the exchange rate peg has been the most effective way to break the inflationary dynamic. However, more recently, in a context of moderate inflation, inflation targeting strategies seem to be more appropriate.

Banques étrangères et stabilité du financement bancaire extérieur dans les peco

Since the 90’s, between 70 and 90% of banking assets in ceecs’ banking system are held by foreign located banks. The huge presence of foreign banks in ceecs leads also to a strong dependence to banking cross-border claims. Are foreign located affiliates a factor that attracts foreign claims in the host country? Does their presence stabilize banking foreign flows? Using a Push&Pull framework, we adopt a macroeconomic point of view by using balance-of-payment data concerning banking foreign claims on all sectors in ceecs. Tests with panel data show that the presence of foreign banks is a substitute for banking foreign cross-border claims but it plays no role on their stability. Classification JEL : F23, F32, F36, G01, G21

The Dependence of CEECs on Foreign Bank Claims: Direct and Indirect Risks of Capital Withdrawal

CEECs are characterised by a significant presence of foreign banks and by a marked dependence upon financing from foreign bankers. We show that this situation leaves these countries open to two types of financial risk, which have grown throughout the present decade. The first relates to the direct financial exposure between European creditor countries and CEECs and the risk of sudden withdrawal of capital. The second, which is indirect, is associated with the risk of regional contagion via spill-over effects and the common creditor channel. Based on a synthetic measure of these risks, we show that the degree of vulnerability of each country to the recent financial crisis could have been anticipated.