It is difficult to design and implement an effective safety net for banks, because overgenerous protection of banks may introduce a risk-enhancing moral hazard and destabilize the very system it is meant to protect. The safety net that policymakers design must provide the right mix of market and regulatory discipline, enough to protect depositors without unduly undermining market discipline on banks.
It is difficult to design and implement an effective safety net for banks, because overgenerous protection of banks may introduce a risk-enhancing moral hazard and destabilize the very system it is meant to protect. The safety net that policymakers design must provide the right mix of market and regulatory discipline - enough to protect depositors without unduly undermining market discipline on banks.There has been little empirical work on the effectiveness of safety nets designed for banks, for lack of data on safety net design across countries. Demirguuml;ccedil;-Kunt and Huizinga examine cross-country data on bank-level interest expense and deposit growth for evidence of market discipline in individual countries. In addition, using cross-country information on deposit insurance systems, they investigate the impact of explicit deposit insurance (and its key features) on bank interest rates and market discipline.They find that:middot; Many countries retain some degree of market discipline, regardless of the type of safety net.middot; The existence of explicit deposit insurance lowers banks' interest expenses and makes interest payments less sensitive to bank risk factors, especially bank liquidity.middot; Higher explicit coverage, broader coverage, and the existence of an earmarked insurance fund increase required-deposit rates and reduce market discipline.middot; Government provision of funds lowers deposit rates but also reduces market discipline.middot; Private (especially joint) management of insurance schemes lowers deposit rates and improves market discipline.This paper - a product of Finance, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study deposit insurance. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].
Since banking systems play a crucial role in maintaining the overall health of the economy, the adverse effects of poorly supervised systems may be quite severe. Without some form of vigilant external oversight, banking systems could fall prey to excessive risk taking, moral hazard, and corruption. Prudential supervision provides that oversight, using government regulation and monitoring to ensure the soundness of the banking system and, by extension, the economy at large. The contributors to this thoughtful volume examine the current state of prudential supervision, focusing on fundamental issues and key pragmatic concerns. Why is prudential supervision so important? What kinds of excess must it guard against? What particular forms does it take? Which of these are the most effective deterrents against mismanagement and system overload in today's rapidly shifting financial climate? The contributors foresee a continued movement beyond simple regulatory rules in banking and toward a more active evaluation and supervision of a bank's risk management practices.
An overview of present day thought on the very topical subject of financial stability and central banking. The papers, written by leading researchers, provide a highly informed account of contemporary policy issues and explore the legal, regulatory, managerial and economic issues that affect central banks.
This excellent new book contains contributions from a number of leading experts and is the result of the UNU/WIDER project on globalization and low-income countries. The discussion focuses in on how to harness globalization for the benefit of present day marginalized countries and enhance their meaningful participation in the globalization process.
Contains topics that include the design of a country's financial safety nets, the effective policies of acquiring failed banks in reducing moral hazard problems, the voluntary disclosure of real options by corporate managers, and the interrelationship between the housing and general economic activities.
This volume provides two recent analyses of government responses to financial crises; they have been developed in the light of the recent East Asian crisis, but also draw on experiences from other regions. Issues discussed relate to: the tradeoffs involved in public policies for systemic financial and corporate sector restructuring; and the use of cross-country evidence to determine whether specific crisis containment and resolution policies effect the fiscal costs of resolving a crisis. The book also presents information on 113 systemic banking crises that have occurred in 93 countries since the 1970s, as well as 50 borderline or non-systemic banking crises in 44 countries during the same period.
Since 1990, major banking and current crises have occurred in many countries throughout the world - including Mexico and Latin America in 1994-95, East Asia in 1997-98, and Russia and Brazil in 1998 - with large costs both to the individual countries experiencing the crises and to other nations. As a result, considerable effort has been expended by economists and policymakers to identify the causes of these crises and to design programs with the aim both of preventing similar crises from occurring in the future, and of minimizing the costs when these do occur. These studies have cut across national boundaries, being undertaken by individual researchers and organizations in particular countries, as well as by international institutions. This book collects the papers and discussants' comments presented at a conference co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, and held in Chicago, in early October 1999. The purpose of the conference was to identify and discuss the lessons to be learned from these crises. Topics discussed included reviews of the crises in the individual countries and regions; analyses of the policy responses, both by the affected countries and by official international institutions; what has been learned from these crises; deposit insurance reform; the design of bank capital regulation; the role of bank supervision and regulation; and the future of official international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The conference participants included a broad range of academic, industry, and regulatory experts from more than twenty-five countries. Because of the timeliness of the conference and the wide-ranging expertise of the participants, the papers in this book should be of significant interest both to students of financial crises and to domestic and international policymakers.
The behavior of actors in financial systems depends crucially on the incentives that motivate them. The right regulation, supervision, and incentives (including the scope of permissible activities, degree of contestability, and extent of safety net) for financial services can make the sector more resilient in the face of adverse shocks.
Thailand's economic crisis in 1997 was fundamentally one of private sector debt, rooted in private behavior that affected the magnitude and composition of investment and how it was financed. Thailand's crisis provides further evidence that financial liberalization must be carefully managed because, by increasing competition, it lowers the franchise value of existing financial institutions and creates incentives for unsound banking practices.
