Accelerating Financial Sector Development to Boost Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

Posted on July 13, 2016 by iMFdirect

Anne-Marie Gulde-Wolf.IMFBy Anne-Marie Gulde-Wolf

Version in Français (French), Português (Portuguese)

There are many reasons why deeper financial development—the increase in deposits and loans but also their accessibility and improved financial sector efficiency—is good for sustainable growth in sub-Saharan Africa. For one, it helps mobilize savings and to direct funds into productive uses, for example by providing the start-up capital for the next innovative enterprise. This in turn facilitates a more efficient allocation of resources and increases overall productivity.

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Filed under: Africa, Economic outlook, Financial regulation, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Investment | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

What Happens When Banks Stop Doing Business With Some Countries

Posted on June 30, 2016 by iMFdirect

By iMFdirect

When global banks decide to withdraw from some countries and no longer do business with banks there, the global effect so far has been a gentle ripple, but if unaddressed, it may become more like a tsunami for the countries they leave.

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Filed under: banking, Financial regulation, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Investment, trade | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Flash Crashes and Swiss Francs: Market Liquidity Takes a Holiday

Posted on May 20, 2015 by iMFdirect

GFSR

By José Viñals

Financial market liquidity can be fleeting. The ability to trade in assets of any size, at any time and to find a ready buyer is not a given.  As discussed in some detail last fall in this blog, a number of factors, including the evolving structure of financial markets and some regulations appear to have pushed liquidity into a new realm: markets look susceptible to episodes of high price volatility where liquidity suddenly vanishes.

In our April 2015 Global Financial Stability Report we identify a new aspect to the problem:  asset price correlations have risen sharply in the last five years across all major asset classes (see figure). Continue reading →

Filed under: Advanced Economies, Emerging Markets, Europe, Finance, IMF, International Monetary Fund | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Ten Take Aways from the “Rethinking Macro Policy: Progress or Confusion?”

Posted on May 1, 2015 by iMFdirect

blanchBy Olivier Blanchard

On April 15-16, the IMF organized the third conference on “Rethinking Macro Policy.”

Here are my personal take aways.

1. What will be the “new normal”?  

I had asked the panelists to concentrate not on current policy challenges, but on challenges in the “new normal.” I had implicitly assumed that this new normal would be very much like the old normal, one of decent growth and positive equilibrium interest rates. The assumption was challenged at the conference.

On the one hand, Ken Rogoff argued that what we were in the adjustment phase of the “debt supercycle.” Such financial cycles, he argued, end up with debt overhang, which in turn slows down the recovery and requires low interest rates for some time to maintain sufficient demand.  Under that view, while it may take a while for the overhang to go away, more so in the Euro zone than in the United States, we should eventually return to something like the old normal.

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Filed under: Advanced Economies, Asia, Economic Crisis, Economic outlook, Emerging Markets, Europe, Financial Crisis, Fiscal policy, Globalization, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Multilateral Cooperation, Politics, Reform | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Are Banks Too Large? Maybe, Maybe Not

Posted on May 14, 2014 by iMFdirect

By Luc Laeven, Lev Ratnovski, and Hui Tong

Large banks were at the center of the recent financial crisis. The public dismay at costly but necessary bailouts of “too-big-to-fail” banks has triggered an active debate on the optimal size and range of activities of banks.

But this debate remains inconclusive, in part because the economics of an “optimal” bank size is far from clear. Our recent study tries to fill this gap by summarizing what we know about large banks using data for a large cross-section of banking firms in 52 countries.

We find that while large banks are riskier, and create most of the systemic risk in the financial system, it is difficult to determine an “optimal” bank size. In this setting, we find that the best policy option may not be outright restrictions on bank size, but capital—requiring  large banks to hold more capital—and better bank resolution and governance.

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Filed under: Economic research, Finance, Financial Crisis, Financial regulation, Fiscal, Fiscal policy, Government, International Monetary Fund, Reform | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Time is Nigh: How Reforms Can Bring Back Productivity Growth in Emerging Markets

Posted on December 18, 2013 by iMFdirect

By  Era Dabla-Norris and Kalpana Kochar

(Version in Español)

The era of remarkable growth in many emerging market economies fueled by cheap money and high commodity prices may very well be coming to an end.

The slowdown reflects not just inadequate global demand, but also structural factors that are rendering previous growth engines less effective, and the fact that economic “good times” reduced the incentives to implement further reforms to enhance productivity. With the end of the period of favorable global financing and trade conditions, the time is nigh for governments to make strong efforts to increase productivity—the essential foundation of sustainable growth and rising living standards. Continue reading →

Filed under: Asia, Economic research, Emerging Markets, Employment, Finance, Financial regulation, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Latin America | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Lessons of the North Atlantic Crisis for Economic Theory and Policy

Posted on May 3, 2013 by iMFdirect

Joseph_E._StiglitzGuest post by: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Columbia University, New York, and co-host of the Conference on Rethinking Macro Policy II: First Steps and Early Lessons

(Versions in 中文, Français, 日本語, and Русский)

In analyzing the most recent financial crisis, we can benefit somewhat from the misfortune of recent decades. The approximately 100 crises that have occurred during the last 30 years—as liberalization policies became  dominant—have given us a wealth of experience and mountains of data.  If we look over a 150 year period, we have an even richer data set.

With a century and half of clear, detailed information on crisis after crisis, the burning question is not How did this happen? but How did we ignore that long history, and think that we had solved the problems with the business cycle? Believing that we had made big economic fluctuations a thing of the past took a remarkable amount of hubris.

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Filed under: Advanced Economies, Debt Relief, Economic Crisis, Emerging Markets, Europe, Finance, Financial Crisis, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

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