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Die Notenbanken haben weltweit mit einer Ausweitung ihrer Bilanzen auf das Scheitern der Kreditwirtschaft in der Finanz- und Schuldenkrise reagiert. Allerdings bleibt offen, wie sie in ein tragbares Regime der traditionellen Geld- und Kreditabsicherungsbeziehungen zurückgelangen können. Das Vertrauen in das internationale Finanzsystem könnte wiederhergestellt werden, wenn ein neuer Standard für ein globales Geldsystem entstehen würde. Das könnte die chinesische Währung, die an Gold oder einen Rohstoffkorb gebunden ist, sein.

Due to buoyant capital inflows East Asian central banks with exchange rate targets accumulate foreign reserves and thereby increase surplus liquidity. East Asian central banks with more flexible exchange rate regimes also face surplus liquidity that mainly emanates from past accumulation of foreign reserves. We show based on an augmented Barro-Gordon-type central bank loss function that in both cases surplus liquidity limits monetary policy autonomy. In case of fixed exchange rates East Asian central banks can escape from the impossible trinity and gain monetary policy autonomy by using non-market-based sterilization which leads to financial sector distortions. In a flexible exchange rate regime monetary policy autonomy can be gained without financial sector distortions by using market-based sterilization. As central banks face substantial sterilization costs as well as revaluation losses on foreign reserves, however, monetary policy autonomy is eroded.

Die US-Zentralbank hat begonnen, mit ihrem Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2) die Märkte mit Liquidität zu überschwemmen. Betroffen sind nicht allein die USA, sondern vor allem Länder, die ihre Währung an den US-Dollar gebunden haben. Aber auch flexible Wechselkurse bieten nur geringen Schutz vor QE2. Die Autoren vertreten die Auffassung, dass die Verbraucherpreisinfl ation nicht so niedrig wie derzeit bleiben wird. Eine Gefahr bestehe in einem zu langsamen Ausstieg der Notenbanken aus der übermäßigen Liquiditätsbereitstellung.

This paper explores the stability of the relation between money demand for M3 and inflation in the euro area by including the recent period of the financial crisis. Evidence is based on a cointegration analysis, where inflation and asset prices are allowed to enter the long run relationship. By restricting the cointegrating space, equations for money and inflation are identified. The results indicate that the equilibrium evolution of M3 is still in line with money demand. In the long run, inflation is affected by asset prices and detrended output. Excess liquidity plays an important role for inflation dynamics. While the hypothesis of weak exogeneity is rejected for real money balances and inflation, real income, real asset prices and the term structure do not respond to deviations from the long run equilibria. A single equation analysis derived from this system still provides reliable information for the conduct of monetary policy in real time, since the error correction terms are very similar to those obtained by the system approach. To monitor the monetary development, a single money demand equation is sufficient, at least as a rough indication.

Central banks have recently introduced new policy initiatives, including a policy called ‘Quantitative Easing’ (QE). Since it has been argued by the Bank of England that “Standard economic models are of limited use in these unusual circumstances, and the empirical evidence is extremely limited” (Bank of England, 2009b), we have taken an entirely empirical approach and have focused on the QE-experience, on which substantial data is available, namely that of Japan (2001-2006). Recent literature on the effectiveness of QE has neglected any reference to final policy goals. In this paper, we adopt the view that ultimately effectiveness will be measured by whether it will be able to “boost spending” (Bank of England, 2009b) and “will ultimately be judged by their impact on the wider macroeconomy” (Bank of England, 2010). In line with a widely held view among leading macroeconomists from various persuasions, while attempting to stay agnostic and open-minded on the distribution of demand changes between real output and inflation, we have thus identified nominal GDP growth as the key final policy goal of monetary policy. The empirical research finds that the policy conducted by the Bank of Japan between 2001 and 2006 makes little empirical difference while an alternative policy targeting credit creation (the original definition of QE) would likely have been more successful.

The multiple attempts to restore confidence in the eurozone over the 18 months that have passed since the first Greek rescue in May 2010, have clearly failed. Indeed, following each round of emergency measures agreed by the eurozone summits, matters have turned for the worse. This contribution by Stefano Micossi exhorts the leaders of the eurozone to go back to the drawing board and overcome their political disagreements on how to proceed. Arguing that straitened policies in all the member states will not suffice, he insists on the need for an adequate provision of liquidity – as large as needed in order to stop the ongoing currency run. If this cannot be agreed upon, Micossi warns that the eurozone will break down, with gigantic economic dislocations.

The adoption of quantitative easing (QE) policy by the United States (US) Federal Reserve Bank since early 2009 has aroused widespread concerns in Asia and elsewhere regarding its possible impact in terms of the weakening of the US dollar and stimulating capital outflows to emerging economies that might increase inflationary pressures in them. This report investigates possible impacts of US quantitative easing policy on Asian economies and financial markets. Our basic approach is to take the period of November 2009-October 2010, when no quantitative easing took place, as a baseline period against which we can compare the effects of quantitative easing on monetary flows during the QE1 and QE2 periods. We estimate that about 40% of the increase in the US monetary base in the QE1 period leaked out in the form of increased gross private capital outflows and about one-third leaked out during the first two quarters of the QE2 period. An excess private financial capital inflow to Emerging Asia of $9 billion per quarter was estimated for the first two quarters of the QE2 period, which was relatively consistent with the estimated amounts of the excess increases in foreign exchange reserves and the monetary base in the region during that period. However, this amount is small, and hence was unlikely to have a significant impact on financial markets, economic activity or inflation. We also investigate the impacts of QE policy on regional bond yields and exchange rates using event window analysis, and find that the greatest impacts were a stronger Korean won and lower bond yields in Indonesia.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of the ‘quantitative easing’ policy, as implemented by the Bank of England in March 2009. Similar policies had been previously implemented in Japan, the U.S. and the Eurozone. The effectiveness is measured by the impact of Bank of England policies (including, but not limited to QE) on nominal GDP growth – the declared goal of the policy, according to the Bank of England. Unlike the majority of the literature on the topic, the general-to-specific econometric modeling methodology (a.k.a. the ‘Hendry’ or ‘LSE’ methodology) is employed for this purpose. The empirical analysis indicates that QE as defined and announced in March 2009 had no apparent effect on the UK economy. Meanwhile, it is found that a policy of ‘quantitative easing’ defined in the original sense of the term (Werner, 1994) is supported by empirical evidence: a stable relationship between a lending aggregate (disaggregated M4 lending, i.e. bank credit for GDP transactions) and nominal GDP is found. The findings imply that BoE policy should more directly target the growth of bank credit for GDP-transactions.

The recent financial crisis has highlighted the limits of the "originate to distribute" model of banking, but its nexus with the macroeconomy and monetary policy remains unexplored. I build a DSGE model with banks (along the lines of Holmström and Tirole [28] and Parlour and Plantin [39]) and examine its properties with and without active secondary markets for credit risk transfer. The possibility of transferring credit reduces the impact of liquidity shocks on bank balance sheets, but also reduces the bank incentive to monitor. As a result, secondary markets allow to release bank capital and exacerbate the effect of productivity and other macroeconomic shocks on output and inflation. By offering a possibility of capital recycling and by reducing bank monitoring, secondary credit markets in general equilibrium allow banks to take on more risk.

Given buoyant capital inflows and managed exchange rates the majority of emerging market central banks have continued to accumulate massive foreign reserves. If left unsterilized, the liquidity expansion can threaten domestic macroeconomic stability. To contain domestic inflation these central banks absorb rather then provide liquidity in their regular monetary policy operations. Based on an augmented Barro-Gordon framework we show that inflation targeting within an environment of surplus liquidity is less efficient, because absorbing liquidity raises the costs of monetary policy operations. By implementing sterilization costs into the central bank's objective function the inflation bias increases.

The recent crisis was characterized by massive illiquidity. This paper reviews what we know and don't know about illiquidity and all its friends: market freezes, fire sales, contagion, and ultimately insolvencies and bailouts. It first explains why liquidity cannot easily be apprehended through a single statistics, and asks whether liquidity should be regulated given that a capital adequacy requirement is already in place. The paper then analyzes market breakdowns due to either adverse selection or shortages of financial muscle, and explains why such breakdowns are endogenous to balance sheet choices and to information acquisition. It then looks at what economics can contribute to the debate on systemic risk and its containment. Finally, the paper takes a macroeconomic perspective, discusses shortages of aggregate liquidity and analyses how market value accounting and capital adequacy should react to asset prices. It concludes with a topical form of liquidity provision, monetary bailouts and recapitalizations, and analyses optimal combinations thereof; it stresses the need for macro-prudential policies.

This paper examines the interactions between money, interest rates, goods and commodity prices at a global level. For this purpose, we aggregate data for major OECD countries and follow the Johansen/Juselius cointegrated VAR approach. Our empirical model supports the view that, when controlling for interest rate changes and thus different monetary policy stances, money (defined as a global liquidity aggregate) is still a key factor to determine the long-run homogeneity of commodity prices and goods prices movements. The cointegrated VAR model fits with the data for the analyzed period from the 1970s until 2008 very well. Our empirical results appear to be overall robust since they pass inter alia a series of recursive tests and are stable for varying compositions of the commodity indices. The empirical evidence is in line with theoretical considerations. The inclusion of commodity prices helps to identify a significant monetary transmission process from global liquidity to other macro variables such as goods prices. We find further support of the conjecture that monetary aggregates convey useful information about variables such as commodity prices which matter for aggregate demand and thus inflation. Given this clear empirical pattern it appears justified to argue that global liquidity merits attention in the same way as the worldwide level of interest rates received in the recent debate about the world savings and liquidity glut as one of the main drivers of the current financial crisis, if not possibly more.

We motivate and provide an overview to New Monetarist Economics. We then briefly describe the individual contributions to the Macroeconomics Dynamics special issues on money, credit and liquidity.

In the Canadian large value payment system an important goal is to understand how liquidity is transferred through the system and hence how efficient the system is in settling payments. Understanding the structure of the underlying network of relationships between participants in the payment system is a crucial step in achieving the goal. The set of nodes in any given network can be partitioned into a number of groups (or “communities”). Usually, the partition is not directly observable and must be inferred from the observed data of interaction flows between all nodes. In this paper we use the statistical model of Čopič, Jackson, and Kirman (2007) to estimate the most likely partition in the network of business relationships in the LVTS. Specifically, we estimate from the LVTS transactions data different “communities” formed by the direct participants in the system. Using various measures of transaction intensity, we uncover communities of participants that are based on both transaction amount and their physical locations. More importantly these communities were not easily discernible in previous studies of LVTS data since previous studies did not take into account the network (or transitive) aspects of the data., Il est important de bien saisir comment les liquidités transitent dans le Système de transfert de paiements de grande valeur (STPGV) canadien et, ainsi, d’évaluer l’efficience avec laquelle les paiements sont réglés. Pour ce faire, il est essentiel de comprendre la structure du réseau de relations sous-jacent qui lie entre eux les participants au système. Les noeuds que comporte un réseau, quel qu’il soit, se partagent en un certain nombre de groupes (ou « communautés »). Le plus souvent, cette répartition n’est pas directement observable et doit être déduite des données observées sur les interactions entre tous les noeuds. Dans notre étude, nous utilisons le modèle statistique de Čopič, Jackson et Kirman (2007) pour estimer la répartition la plus probable des noeuds du réseau de relations opérationnelles à l’intérieur du STPGV. Plus précisément, nous cernons, à partir des données sur les opérations, les différentes communautés que forment les participants directs au système. En faisant appel à diverses mesures de l’intensité des opérations, nous mettons au jour des communautés de participants fondées tant sur la valeur de leurs opérations que sur leur emplacement géographique. Il s’agit là d’une avancée importante, car les études antérieures sur les données du STPGV permettaient difficilement de discerner les communautés du fait qu’elles ne tenaient pas compte des aspects transitifs des données.

The small decline in the value of mortgage-related assets relative to the large total losses associated with the financial crisis suggests the presence of financial amplification mechanisms, which allow relatively small shocks to propagate through the financial system. We review the literature on financial amplification mechanisms and discuss the Federal Reserve's interventions during different stages of the crisis in terms of this literature. We interpret the Fed's early-stage liquidity programs as working to dampen balance sheet amplifications arising from the positive feedback between financial and asset prices. By comparison, the Fed's later-stage crisis programs take into account adverse-selection amplifications that operate via increases in credit risk and the externality imposed by risky borrowers on safe ones. Finally, we provide new empirical evidence that increases in the amount outstanding of funds supplied by the Fed reduce the Libor-OIS spread during periods of high liquidity risk. In contrast, reductions in the Fed's liquidity supply in 2009 did not increase the spread. Our analysis has implications for the impact on asset prices of a potential withdrawal of liquidity supply by the Fed.

We offer a multi-period systemic risk assessment framework with which to assess recent liquidity and capital regulatory requirement proposals in a holistic way. Following Morris and Shin (2009), we introduce funding liquidity risk as an endogenous outcome of the interaction between market liquidity risk, solvency risk, and the funding structure of banks. To assess the overall impact of different mix of capital and liquidity, we simulate the framework under a severe but plausible macro scenario for different balance-sheet structures. Of particular interest, we find that (1) capital has a decreasing marginal effect on systemic risk, (2) increasing capital alone is much less effective in reducing liquidity risk than solvency risk, (3) high liquid asset holdings reduce the marginal effect of increasing short term liability on systemic risk, and (4) changing liquid asset holdings has little effect on systemic risk when short term liability is sufficiently low., Les auteurs offrent un cadre d'évaluation multipériodique du risque systémique afin d'apprécier globalement l'incidence de récentes propositions relatives aux exigences réglementaires en matière de liquidités et de fonds propres. À l'instar de Morris et Shin (2009), ils font du risque associé à la liquidité de financement une conséquence endogène de l'interaction entre le risque de liquidité du marché, le risque de solvabilité et la structure de financement des banques. Pour mesurer l'impact général d'une combinaison différente de liquidités et de fonds propres, ils simulent la réaction de structures de bilan distinctes à une conjoncture macroéconomique difficile mais plausible. Plusieurs résultats intéressants ressortent des simulations : 1) les fonds propres ont un effet marginal décroissant sur le risque systémique; 2) leur augmentation à elle seule atténue beaucoup moins efficacement le risque de liquidité qu'elle ne réduit le risque de solvabilité; 3) la détention d'un niveau élevé d'actifs liquides restreint l'effet marginal d'une hausse des passifs à court terme sur le risque systémique; 4) la variation du niveau des actifs liquides détenus influe peu sur le risque systémique quand le montant des passifs à court terme est suffisamment faible.

The global imbalances of the 2000s and the recent global financial crisis are intimately connected. Both originate in the combination of economic policies adopted by the two key economies, the US and China. Global financial markets served as a transmission belt, both during the boom as during the bust. In the US, the interaction among the Fed's monetary stance, global real interest rates, distorted incentives in credit markets, and financial innovation created the mix of conditions which first drove growth, but then made the US the epicenter of the global financial crisis. Exchange rate and other economic policies followed by emerging markets such as China and the oil-exporting countries contributed to the US ability to borrow cheaply abroad and thereby finance its unsustainable housing bubble during the upswing. But we find that the key drivers of asset prices are global liquidity conditions. Central banks flooded the markets with ample liquidity. Mopping up this excess liquidity will be one major task for central banks worldwide, which needs to be done in a coordinated fashion. Moreover, our analysis has shown that liquidity will first show up in asset price inflation and only later in consumer goods inflation. This renders it difficult for central bank to exit from their current very expansive monetary policy stance if they continue to focus only on price stability.

Conventional Phillips-curve models that are used to estimate the output gap detect a substantial decline in potential output due to the present crisis. Using a multivariate state space model, we show that this result does not hold if the long run role of excess liquidity (that we estimate endogeneously) for inflation is taken into account. Übliche Phillipskurvenmodelle, die verwendet werden, um die Produktionslücke zu schätzen, deuten auf einen massiven Rückgang des Produktionspotenzials durch die gegenwärtige Krise hin. Mit Hilfe eines multivariaten Zustandsraummodells wird im vorliegenden Papier gezeigt, dass dieses Resultat nicht haltbar ist, wenn die Wirkung der (hier endogen geschätzten) Überschussliquidität auf die Inflation berücksichtigt wird.

This paper extends the benchmark Macro-Finance model by introducing, next to the standard macroeconomic factors, additional liquidity-related and return forecasting factors. Liquidity factors are obtained from a decomposition of the TED spread while the return-forecasting (risk premium) factor is extracted by imposing a single factor structure on the one-period expected excess holding returns. The model is estimated on US data using MCMC techniques. Two findings stand out. First, the model outperforms significantly most structural and non-structural Macro-Finance yield curve models in terms of cross-sectional fit of the yield curve. Second, we find that financial shocks, either in the form of liquidity or risk premium shocks, have a statistically and economically significant impact on the yield curve. The impact of financial shocks extends throughout the yield curve but is most pronounced at the high and intermediate frequencies.

Recently, a dramatic accumulation in foreign exchange reserves has been widely observed in developing countries. This paper explores the possible long-run impacts of this trend on macroeconomic variables in developing countries. We analyze a simple open economy model where increased foreign exchange reserves reduce the costs of liquidity risk. Given the amount of foreign exchange reserves, utility-maximizing representative agents decide consumption, capital stock, and labor input, as well as the amounts of liquid and illiquid external debt. The equilibrium values of these variables depend on the amount of foreign exchange reserves. A rise in foreign exchange reserves increases both liquid and total debt, while shortening debt maturity. To the extent that interest rates of foreign exchange reserves are low, an increase in foreign reserves also leads to a permanent decline in consumption. However, when the tradable sector is capital intensive, the increase may enhance investment and economic growth. We provide empirical support for our theoretical analysis using panel data from the Penn World Table. The cross-country evidence shows that an increase in foreign exchange reserves raises external debt outstanding and shortens debt maturity. The results also imply that increased foreign exchange reserves may lead to a decline in consumption, but can also enhance investment and economic growth. The positive impact on economic growth, however, disappears when we control the impact through investment.

The appropriate design of monetary policy in integrated financial markets is one of the most challenging areas for central banks. One hot topic is whether the increase in liquidity has contributed to the formation of price bubbles in asset markets in the years preceding the financial crisis. If linkages are strong, the inclusion of asset prices in the monetary policy rule may limit speculative runs and negative spillovers to the real economy in the future. To examine the impacts of liquidity shocks on real share and house prices, VAR models are specified for the US and the euro area, as well as global VARs to control for international feedback. The analysis points to some impact of liquidity shocks on house prices, but the effect is restricted to the US. Stock market prices are not affected. Thus, the results suggest that the link between liquidity and asset prices is fragile and far from being obvious. This publication was produced as part of the FINESS project, funded by the European Commission through the 7th Framework Programme under contract no. 217266 (http://www.finess-web.eu/).

In a market-based financial system, banking and capital market developments are inseparable, and funding conditions are closely tied to fluctuations in the leverage of market-based financial intermediaries. Offering a window on liquidity, the balance sheet growth of broker-dealers provides a sense of the availability of credit. Contractions of broker-dealer balance sheets have tended to precede declines in real economic growth, even before the current turmoil. For this reason, balance sheet quantities of market-based financial intermediaries are important macroeconomic state variables for the conduct of monetary policy.

Die aktuellen Finanzmarktturbulenzen wurden durch Entwicklungen im Immobiliensektor ausgelöst. Vor diesem Hintergrund analysiert dieser Beitrag den Zusammenhang zwischen den Immobilienpreisen und der Geldmengen- und Kreditvolumensentwicklung für den Zeitraum 1992 -2006 (westdeutsche Preisdaten) bzw. 1997 bis 2006 (ostdeutsche Preisdaten). Die Untersuchung konzentriert sich erstmals auf die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, deren Immobilienmarkt von einer moderaten Preisentwicklung gekennzeichnet ist und im Vergleich zu den meisten europäischen Ländern damit eine Sonderstellung einnimmt. Auf der Grundlage eines Autoregressiven Distributed Lag (ARDL)-Ansatzes werden Tests auf Kointegration der genannten Variablen durchgeführt. Nach Schätzungen der Langfristparameter werden die zugehörigen Fehlerkorrekturmodell-Regressionen für Immobilienpreise in unterschiedlicher Abgrenzung geschätzt. Die Ergebnisse liefern Evidenz für eine Mitverantwortung der Geld- und Kreditpolitik für die Immobilienpreisentwicklung gerade in Westdeutschland. Es folgen einige Robustheitstests. Zuvor unberücksichtigte Variable der Steuerpolitik wie Sonderabschreibungen in den Neuen Bundesländern üben demnach auf die Immobilienpreise ebenfalls einen wichtigen Einfluss aus, ohne jedoch den Einfluss der Liquidität zu dominieren. Andere Förderprogramme wie beispielsweise vergünstigte Kredite für klimapolitische Maßnahmen (CO2-Gebäudesanierung) erwiesen sich als nicht signifikant. Schließlich verändert auch die Anwendung eines alternativen Kointegrationstestverfahrens die Ergebnisse nicht.

Global liquidity expansion has been very dynamic since 2001. Contrary to conventional wisdom, high money growth rates have not coincided with a concurrent rise in goods prices. At the same time, however, asset prices have increased sharply, significantly outpacing the subdued development in consumer prices. We investigate the interactions between money and goods and asset prices at the global level. Using aggregated data for major OECD countries, our VAR results support the view that different price elasticities on asset and goods markets explain the observed relative price change between asset classes and consumer goods.

Over the course of the recent liquidity crisis, the Federal Reserve made several changes to its primary credit lending facility such as narrowing the spread between the primary credit rate and the target funds rate and increasing the term of the borrowing. In this paper, we use the model developed by Artuç and Demiralp (2008) to provide a structural assessment of the effectiveness of these changes. Our results suggest that these changes were effective in stabilizing the federal funds market.

This paper constructs new indicators of liquidity for equity, bond and money markets in major advanced and emerging market countries, documents their evolution and co-movements, and assesses the extent to which such measures are determinants of selected spreads and proxy measures of countries' growth opportunities. Three main results obtain. First, there is evidence of an historical increase in market liquidity since the early 1990s, in part as a result of advances in international financial integration, but markets have been increasingly exposed to global systemic liquidity shocks. Second, liquidity indicators appear to be important determinants of bond spreads in advanced economies and EMBI spreads in emerging markets. Third, improvements in market liquidity have significant real effects, as liquidity indicators have a significant positive impact on proxy measures of countries' growth opportunities.

Market liquidity is the ease of trading an asset. Its risk is the potential loss, because a security can only be traded at high or prohibitive costs. While the omnipresence and importance of market liquidity is widely acknowledged, it has long remained a more or less elusive concept. Treatment of liquidity risk is still under development. This paper provides an overview on important aspects of market liquidity and its risk. We also survey existing models to integrate market liquidity risk into risk frameworks. We place special emphasis on practical usability and discuss relevant strengths, weaknesses and their implications.

Money growth in the euro area has exceeded its target since 2001. Likewise, recent empirical studies did not find evidence in favour of a stable long run money demand function. The equation appears to be increasingly unstable if more recent data are used. If the link between money balances and the macroeconomy is fragile, the rationale of monetary aggregates in the ECB strategy has to be doubted. In contrast to the bulk of the literature, we are able to identify a stable long run money demand relationship for M3 with reasonable long run behaviour. This finding is robust for different (ML and S2S) estimation methods. To obtain the result, the short run homogeneity restriction between money and prices is relaxed. In addition, a rise in the income elasticity after 2001 is taken into account. The break might be linked to the introduction of euro coins and banknotes. The monetary overhang and the real money gap do not indicate significant inflation pressures. The corresponding error correction model survives a battery of specification tests.

Global liquidity expansion has been very dynamic since 2001. Contrary to conventional wisdom, high money growth rates have not coincided with a concurrent rise in goods prices. At the same time, however, asset prices have increased sharply, significantly outpacing the subdued development in consumer prices. This paper examines the interactions between money, goods and asset prices at the global level. Using aggregated data for major OECD countries, our VAR results support the view that different price elasticities on asset and goods markets explain the recently observed relative price change between asset classes and consumer goods.

Over the recent period, many emerging-market economies and commodity-exporting nations have experienced unprecedented growth and accumulated substantial amounts of foreign exchange reserves. The management of these foreign reserves has led to the emergence of important financial actors: sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). While SWFs have existed in one form or another since the 1950s, they have recently risen in prominence and been exposed to public scrutiny and debate. The author outlines their possible impact on international financial stability. She concludes that SWFs are long-term investors that can play a stabilizing role in financial markets by supplying liquidity and reducing market volatility. While characteristics such as a lack of transparency highlight the potential for destabilization by one or more SWFs, there is little evidence that this has occurred during the recent period. Similarly, the rise of financial protectionism, as host countries adopt rules to protect sensitive industries, might unduly restrict global capital flows, but it is not likely to destabilize the international financial system., Ces dernières années, les économies émergentes et les nations exportatrices de matières premières ont été nombreuses à connaître une expansion économique inédite et à accumuler des réserves de change considérables, dont la gestion a induit la montée en puissance d'importants acteurs financiers : les fonds souverains. Alors que ces fonds existent sous une forme ou une autre depuis les années 1950, ils se trouvent depuis peu au centre de l'attention et font l'objet d'un examen et d'un débat publics. L'auteure décrit brièvement les effets que pourraient avoir les fonds souverains sur la stabilité financière internationale. Ces derniers, conclut-elle, sont des investisseurs à long terme susceptibles de remplir un rôle stabilisateur sur les marchés financiers en y injectant de la liquidité et en y atténuant la volatilité. Si des traits comme le manque de transparence font ressortir le risque de déstabilisation émanant de certains fonds, les données disponibles ne confirment guère la matérialisation de cette éventualité au cours de la période récente. De même, l'attisement du protectionnisme financier, avec l'adoption de règles par les pays destinataires d'investissements pour défendre leurs secteurs névralgiques, peut restreindre à tort la circulation des capitaux dans le monde, sans toutefois être de nature à perturber le système financier international.

Traditionally, aggregate liquidity shocks are modelled as exogenous events. Extending our previous work (Cao & Illing, 2007), this paper analyses the adequate policy response to endogenous systemic liquidity risk. We analyse the feedback between lender of last resort policy and incentives of private banks, determining the aggregate amount of liquidity available. We show that imposing minimum liquidity standards for banks ex ante are a crucial requirement for sensible lender of last resort policy. In addition, we analyse the impact of equity requirements and narrow banking, in the sense that banks are required to hold sufficient liquid funds so as to pay out in all contingencies. We show that such a policy is strictly inferior to imposing minimum liquidity standards ex ante combined with lender of last resort policy.

This paper uses the framework of arbitrage-pricing theory to study the relationship between liquidity risk and sovereign bond risk premia. The London Stock Exchange in the late 19th century is an ideal laboratory in which to test the proposition that liquidity risk affects the price of sovereign debt. This period was the last time that the debt of a heterogeneous set of countries was traded in a centralized location and that a sufficiently long time series of observable bond prices are available to conduct asset-pricing tests. Empirical analysis of these data establishes three new results. First, sovereign bonds with wide bid-ask spreads earn 3-4% more per year than bonds with narrow bid-ask spreads, and the difference is reflected in greater sensitivity to innovations in market liquidity. Second, small sovereign bonds, as measured by market value, earn 1.8-3.5% more per year than large sovereign bonds, and the difference is also reflected in their exposure to innovations in market liquidity. Third, market liquidity is a state variable important for pricing the cross-section of sovereign bonds. This paper thus provides estimates of the quantitative importance of liquidity risk as a determinant of the sovereign risk premium and underscores the significance of market liquidity as a nondiversifiable risk., Dans cette étude, l'auteur examine le lien entre le risque de liquidité et les primes de risque des obligations souveraines à l'aide de la théorie de l'arbitrage appliquée à l'évaluation des actifs. La Bourse de Londres à la fin du XIXe siècle constitue un laboratoire idéal pour mettre à l'épreuve l'hypothèse selon laquelle le risque de liquidité influe sur le prix des obligations souveraines. Cette époque est en effet la dernière au cours de laquelle la négociation des titres de dette d'un ensemble hétérogène d'États a été centralisée dans un même lieu et elle fournit des données qui permettent d'observer les prix des obligations sur une période suffisamment longue pour effectuer des tests d'évaluation des actifs. Une analyse empirique de ces données débouche sur trois nouveaux résultats. Premièrement, les obligations souveraines qui présentent de larges écarts entre les cours acheteur et vendeur rapportent 3 à 4 % de plus par an que celles pour lesquelles ces écarts sont faibles, et cette différence se traduit par une sensibilité accrue aux variations inattendues de la liquidité du marché. Deuxièmement, les petites obligations souveraines (d'après la valeur de marché) affichent des rendements annuels supérieurs de 1,8 à 3,5 % à ceux des obligations souveraines de grande taille; cette différence se répercute également sur la sensibilité du rendement de ces titres aux fluctuations imprévues de la liquidité. Enfin, la liquidité du marché s'avère une variable d'état importante aux fins de l'évaluation d'un échantillon transversal d'obligations souveraines. L'étude fournit des estimations quantitatives de l'influence du risque de liquidité sur l'établissement de la prime de risque souverain et met en évidence l'importance de la liquidité du marché en tant que risque non diversifiable.

This paper studies the welfare costs and the redistributive effects of inflation in the presence of idiosyncratic liquidity risk, in a micro-founded search-theoretical monetary model. We calibrate the model to match the empirical aggregate money demand and the distribution of money holdings across households, and study the effects of inflation under the implied degree of market incompleteness. We show that in the presence of imperfect insurance the estimated long-run welfare costs of inflation are on average 40% smaller compared to a complete markets, representative agent economy, and that inflation induces important redistributive effects across households. For example, the welfare gains of reducing inflation from 10% to 0% is 0.59% of income. Furthermore, we estimate that the long-run welfare gains of reducing the typical current inflation target of 2 to 1 percent to be 0.06% of income., Les auteurs étudient les conséquences de l'inflation sur le bien-être et sur la répartition des revenus en présence d'un risque de liquidité idiosyncrasique, dans le cadre d'un modèle monétaire fondé microéconomiquementet et inspiré de la théorie de la recherche. Après avoir étalonné le modèle de façon à reproduire la demande de monnaie totale observée et la répartition des encaisses monétaires entre les ménages, ils examinent les effets de l'inflation compte tenu du degré d'incomplétude implicite des marchés. Ils montrent que, si l'on ne peut s'assurer parfaitement contre les risques, les effets négatifs de l'inflation sur le bien-être en longue période sont en moyenne inférieurs de 40 % à ce qu'ils seraient selon un modèle à agent représentatif et à marchés complets; ils constatent également que l'inflation entraîne une redistribution importante des encaisses entre les ménages. Ainsi, le gain de bien-être réalisé en ramenant l'inflation de 10 % à 0 % représente 0,59 % du revenu. Les auteurs estiment en outre que, si la cible d'inflation était fixée à 1 % au lieu des 2 % habituels, le gain équivaudrait à 0,06 % du revenu.

Freeman (1999) proposes a model in which discount window lending and open market operations have different effects. This is important because in most of the literature, these policies are indistinguishable. However, Freeman's argument that the central bank should absorb losses associated with default to provide risk-sharing stands in stark contrast to the concern that central banks should limit their exposure to credit risk. We extend Freeman's model by introducing moral hazard. With moral hazard, the central bank should avoid absorbing losses and Freeman's argument breaks down. However, we show that policies resembling discount window lending and open market operations can still be distinguished in this new framework. The optimal policy is for the central bank to make a restricted number of creditors compete for funds. By restricting the number of agents, the central bank can limit the moral hazard problem. By making them compete with each other, the central bank can exploit market information that reveals the state of the economy., Freeman (1999) propose un modèle qui permet de différencier les effets des opérations d'open market de ceux des prêts accordés au guichet de l'escompte. Il s'agit là d'une caractéristique importante, car la plupart des travaux de la littérature ne dissocient pas ces deux moyens d'intervention. L'argument de Freeman voulant que les banques centrales absorbent les pertes attachées aux défaillances pour mutualiser les risques tranche avec le souci de limiter l'exposition de ces institutions au risque de crédit. Les auteurs enrichissent le modèle de Freeman en y insérant un aléa moral. Cet élément incite les banques centrales à ne pas éponger les pertes et invalide l'argument de Freeman. Les auteurs montrent que leur modèle permet encore de distinguer l'incidence de politiques semblables aux opérations d'open market et à l'octroi de prêts au guichet de l'escompte. Pour les banques centrales, la politique optimale consiste à soumettre leurs fonds à la concurrence d'un groupe restreint de créanciers. Cette limitation du nombre des agents permet aux banques centrales de contenir l'aléa moral. La concurrence créée donne à celles-ci la possibilité d'exploiter l'information qui filtre des marchés sur l'état de l'économie.

The paper models the interaction between risk taking in the financial sector and central bank policy for the case of pure illiquidity risk. It is shown that, when bad states are highly unlikely, public provision of liquidity may improve the allocation, even though it encourages more risk taking (less liquid investment) by private banks. In general, however, there is an incentive of financial intermediaries to free ride on liquidity in good states, resulting in excessively low liquidity in bad states. In the prevailing mixed-strategy equilibrium, depositors are worse off than if banks would coordinate on more liquid investment. In that case, liquidity injection will make the free riding problem even worse. The results show that even in the case of pure illiquidity risk, there is a serious commitment problem for central banks. We show that unconditional free lending against good collateral, as suggested by the Bagehot Rule, fails to address the moral hazard problem: Even though we consider a model with pure illiquidity risk, it turns out that such a policy will encourage banks to behave naughty, providing insufficient level of liquidity.

Credit booms have globally fuelled hikes in stock, raw material and real estate markets which have culminated in the recent US subprime market crisis. We explain the global asset market booms since the mid 1980s based on the overinvestment theories of Hayek, Wicksell and Schumpeter. We argue that ample liquidity supply originating in the large industrialized countries has contributed to overinvestment cycles in Japan, East Asia, the new markets in the industrial countries and many emerging market economies. Expansionary monetary policies in response to the burst of bubbles are argued to have contributed to vagabonding bubbles around the globe.

The belief that house prices are driven by specific regional and institutional variables and not at all by monetary conditions is so entrenched with some market participants and some commentators that the search for empirical support would seem to be a trivial task. However, this is not the case. This paper investigates the relationship between global excess liquidity and asset prices on a global scale:How important is global liquidity? How are asset (especially house) prices and other important macro variables like consumer prices affected by global monetary conditions? This paper analyses the international transmission of monetary shocks with a special focus on the effects of a global monetary aggregate ('global liquidity') on consumer prices and different asset prices.We estimate a variety of VAR models for the global economy using aggregated data that represent the major OECD countries. The impulse responses show that a positive shock to global liquidity leads to permanent increases in the global GDP deflator and in the global house price index, while the latter reaction is even more distinctive. Moreover, we find that there are subsequent spillovers to consumer prices. In contrast, we are not able to find empirical evidence in favour of the hypothesis that the MSCIWorld index as a measure of stock prices significantly reacts to changes in global liquidity.

We develop a parsimonious model of the interbank payment system to study congestion and the role of liquidity markets in alleviating congestion. The model incorporates an endogenous instruction arrival process, scale-free topology of payments between banks, fixed total liquidity that limits banks’ capacity to process arriving instructions, and a global market that distributes liquidity. We find that at low liquidity, the system becomes congested and payment settlement loses correlation with payment instruction arrival, becoming coupled across the network. The onset of congestion is evidently related to the relative values of three characteristic times: the time for banks’ net position to return to zero, the time for banks to exhaust their liquidity endowments, and the liquidity market relaxation time. In the congested regime, settlement takes place in cascades having a characteristic size. A global liquidity market substantially diminishes congestion, requiring only a small fraction of the payment-induced liquidity flow to achieve strong beneficial effects.

Financial institutions around the world expected the millennium date change (Y2K) to cause an aggregate liquidity shortage. Responding to concerns about this liquidity shortage, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York auctioned Y2K options to primary dealers. The options gave the dealers the right to borrow from the Fed at a predetermined interest rate. The implied volatilities of Y2K options and the aggressiveness of demand for these instruments reveal that the Fed’s action eased the fears of bond dealers, contributing to a drop in the liquidity premium of Treasurysecurities. Our analysis shows the link between the microstructure of government debt prices and the central bank’s provision of liquidity. The use of Y2K options and their effect on the liquidity premium broadly conform to the economic theory and practice of the public provision of private liquidity.

When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a financial institution in such circumstances. We show that a shock in the insurance sector can cause the current value of banks’ assets to be less than the current value of their liabilities so the banks are insolvent. In contrast, if historic cost accounting is used, banks are allowed to continue and can meet all their future liabilities. Mark-to-market accounting can thus lead to contagion where none would occur with historic cost accounting. Klassifizierung: G21, G22, M41

This paper explores liquidity spillovers in market-capitalization-based portfolios of NYSE stocks. Return, volatility, and liquidity dynamics across the small- and large-cap sectors are modeled by way of a vector autoregression model, using data that spans more than 3,000 trading days. We find that volatility and liquidity innovations in one sector are informative in predicting liquidity shifts in the other. Impulse responses indicate the existence of persistent liquidity, return, and volatility spillovers across the small- and large-cap sectors. Lead and lag patterns across small- and large-cap stocks are stronger when spreads in the large-cap sector are wider. Consistent with the notion that private informational trading in large-cap stocks is transmitted to other stocks with a lag, order flows in the large-cap-stock decile predict both transaction-price-based and mid-quote returns of small-cap deciles when large-cap spreads are high.

The nineteenth-century economist Walter Bagehot maintained that in order to prevent bank panics, a central bank should provide liquidity at a very high rate of interest. However, most of the theoretical literature on liquidity provision suggests that central banks should lend at an interest rate of zero. This latter recommendation is broadly consistent with the Federal Reserve's behavior in the days following September 11, 2001. This paper shows that Bagehot's recommendation can be reconciled with the Fed's policy if one recognizes that Bagehot had in mind a commodity money regime in which the amount of reserves available is limited. A high price for this liquidity allows banks that need it most to self-select. To the contrary, the Fed has a virtually unlimited ability to temporarily expand the money supply so that self-selection is unnecessary.

This paper explores liquidity movements in stock and Treasury bond markets over a period of more than 1800 trading days. Cross-market dynamics in liquidity are documented by estimating a vector autoregressive model for liquidity (that is, bid-ask spreads and depth), returns, volatility, and order flow in the stock and bond markets. We find that a shock to quoted spreads in one market affects the spreads in both markets, and that return volatility is an important driver of liquidity. Innovations to stock and bond market liquidity and volatility prove to be significantly correlated, suggesting that common factors drive liquidity and volatility in both markets. Monetary expansion increases equity market liquidity during periods of financial crises, and unexpected increases (decreases) in the federal funds rate lead to decreases (increases) in liquidity and increases (decreases) in stock and bond volatility. Finally, we find that flows to the stock and government bond sectors play an important role in forecasting stock and bond liquidity. The results establish a link between 'macro' liquidity, or money flows, and 'micro' or transactions liquidity.

We model the interactions between the trading activities of a large investor, the stock price and the market liquidity. Our framework generalizes the model of Frey (2000), where liquidity is constant by introducing a stochastic liquidity factor. This innovation has two implications. First, we can analyse trading strategies for the large investor that are affected by a changing market depth. Second, the sensitivity of stock process to the trading strategy of the large investor can vary due to changes in liquidity. Features of our model are demonstrated using Monte Carlo simulation for different scenarios. The flexibility of our framework is illustrated by an application that deals with the pricing of a liquidity derivative. The claim under consideration compensates a large investor who follows a stop loss strategy for the liquidity risk that is associated with a stop loss order. The derivative matures when the asset price falls below a stop loss limit for the first time and then pays the price difference between the asset price immediately before and after the execution of the stop loss order. The setup to price the liquidity derivative is calibrated for one example using real world limit order book data so that one gets an impression about the order of magnitude of the liquidity effect.

This paper makes use of a natural experiment of the U.S. Treasury Department to examine the relationship between Treasury security issue size and liquidity. Treasury bills that were first issued with fifty-two weeks to maturity and then reopened at twenty-six weeks are shown to be more liquid than comparable maturity bills that were first issued with twenty-six weeks to maturity. The relationship is less pronounced when bills are on-the-run (the most recently auctioned bills of a given maturity) than when they are off-the-run, and persists when controlling for other factors that affect liquidity. The reopened bills are found to have higher yields (lower prices) than comparable maturity bills, showing that the indirect liquidity benefits of reopenings are more than offset by the direct supply costs.

This paper contains three useful contributions: (1) it collects a new data-set of electronic transaction data on soybean futures from the Dalian Futures Exchange in China that records, not only the usual elements of each transaction (such as price and size) but also identifies broker and customer identities, variables not usually obtainable; (2) it presents new econometric methods for the analysis of dynamic multivariate count data based on the autoregressive conditional intensity model of Jordà and Marcellino (2000); and (3) together, the new data and econometric methods allow us to investigate, in a manner not available before, the determinants and effects of non-institutional market making (or scalping).

Modern financial regulation has been about the spread of market-sensitive riskmanagement systems for banks, the spill-over of this approach to other financial institutions and the retreat of regulatory ambition. There is evidence that these trends are leading to a more fragile financial system, more prone to concentration and ‘liquidity black holes’. The most glaring effects of these trends are felt in the pro-cyclicality and volatility of capital flows to risky markets. The root of the problem is that the liquidity of financial markets requires diversity, but all these trends are serving to reduce the diversity of behaviour of market participants.