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Stijn Ferrari

16 September 2013
OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 3
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Abstract
Financial institutions are connected to each other by a series of bilateral transactions. In normal times, institutions’ connections may result in efficient risk transfer. But in crises, connections can facilitate contagion – as initial problems lead to chains of defaults and liquidity shortages – sparked by shocks which might arise within the financial system or from the real economy. Institutions are also interconnected in indirect ways, since they are exposed to common risk factors that can result in concurrent losses. For example, most banks extend loans secured by real estate: they are thus collectively exposed to falls in house prices. Resulting bank distress can then exacerbate initial problems: banks might simultaneously sell collateral (houses), thus worsening downward price spirals. Less tangibly, institutions can also be connected through perceptions of counterparties’ creditworthiness. Given uncertainty, financial institutions may in general become reluctant to lend to each other and hoard liquidity. Potential for contagion due to interconnectedness is a key component of systemic risk. As a first step towards understanding the mechanisms of contagion, this paper abstracts from complex indirect connections between banks, and rather focuses on direct linkages between 53 large EU banks, based on unique data on interbank exposures collected by national regulators as of the end of 2011.
JEL Code
G01 : Financial Economics→General→Financial Crises
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
27 August 2015
OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 8
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Abstract
This Occasional Paper presents a formal statistical evaluation of potential early warning indicators for real estate-related banking crises. Relying on data on real estate-related banking crises for 25 EU countries, a signalling approach is applied in both a non-parametric and a parametric (discrete choice) setting. Such an analysis evaluates the predictive power of potential early warning indicators on the basis of the trade-off between correctly predicting upcoming crisis events and issuing false alarms. The results in this paper provide an analytical underpinning for decision-making based on guided discretion with regard to the activation of macro-prudential instruments targeted to the real estate sector. After the publication of the ESRB Handbook and the Occasional Paper on the countercyclical capital buffer, it represents a next step in the ESRB’s work on the operationalisation of macroprudential policy in the banking sector. This Occasional Paper highlights the important role of both real estate price variables and credit developments in predicting real estate-related banking crises. The results indicate that, in addition to cyclical developments in these variables, it is crucial to monitor the structural dimension of real estate prices and credit. In multivariate settings macroeconomic and market variables such as the inflation rate and short-term interest rates may add to the early warning performance of these variables. Overall, the findings indicate that combining multiple variables improves early warning signalling performance compared with assessing each indicator separately, both in the non-parametric and the parametric approach. Combinations of the abovementioned indicators lead to lower probabilities of missing crises while at the same time not issuing too many false alarms. In addition to EU level, they also perform relatively well at individual country level. Even though the best performing indicators have relatively good signalling abilities at the individual country level, national authorities are encouraged to perform their own complementary analyses in a broader framework of systemic risk detection, which augments potential early warning indicators and methods with other relevant inputs and expert judgement.
JEL Code
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G18 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Government Policy and Regulation
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies