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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Thorvald Grung Moe |
| Abstract: | Global liquidity provision is highly procyclical. The recent financial crisis has resulted in a flight to safety, with severe strains in key funding markets leading central banks to employ highly unconventional policies to avoid a systemic meltdown. Bagehot's advice to "lend freely at high rates against good collateral" has been stretched to the limit in order to meet the liquidity needs of dysfunctional financial markets. As the eligibility criteria for central bank borrowing have been tweaked, it is legitimate to ask, How elastic should the supply of central bank currency be? Even when the central bank has the ability to create abundant official liquidity, there should be some limits to its support for the financial sector. Traditionally, the misuse of the fiat money privilege has been limited by self-imposed rules that central bank loans must be fully backed by gold or collateralized in some other way. But since the onset of the crisis, we have seen how this constraint has been relaxed to accommodate the demand for market support. My suggestion is that there has to be some upper limit, and that we should work hard to find guidelines and policies that can limit the need for central bank liquidity support in future crises. In this paper, I review the recent expansion of central bank liquidity support during the crisis, before discussing the collateral polices related to central banks' lender-of-last-resort and market-maker-of-last-resort policies and their rationale. I then examine the relationship between the central bank and the treasury, and the potential threat to central bank independence if they venture into too much risky balance sheet expansion. A discussion about the exceptional growth of the shadow banking system follows. I introduce the concept of "liquidity illusion" to describe the fragility upon which much of the sector is based, and note that market growth has been based largely on a "fair-weather" view that central banks will support the market on rainy days. I argue that we need a better theoretical framework to understand the growth in the shadow banking system and the role of central banks in providing liquidity in a crisis. Recently, the concept of "endogenous finance" has been used to explain the strong procyclical tendencies of the global financial system. I show that this concept was central to Hyman P. Minsky's theory of financial instability, and suggest that his insights should be integrated into the ongoing search for a better theoretical framework for understanding the growth of the shadow banking system and how we can limit official liquidity support for this system. I end the paper with a summary and a discussion of some of the policy issues. I note that the Basel III "package" will hopefully reduce the need for central bank liquidity support in the future, but suggest that further structural reforms of the financial sector are needed to ease the tension between freewheeling private credit expansion and the limited ability or willingness of central banks to provide unlimited official liquidity support in a future crisis. |
| Keywords: | Financial Regulation; Financial Stability; Monetary Policy; Central Bank Policy |
| JEL: | E44 E52 E58 G28 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_712&r=pke |
| By: | Thorvald Grung Moe |
| Abstract: | Henry Simons's 1936 article "Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy" is a classical reference in the literature on central bank independence and rule-based policy. A closer reading of the article reveals a more nuanced policy prescription, with significant emphasis on the need to control short-term borrowing; bank credit is seen as highly unstable, and price level controls, in Simons's view, are not be possible without limiting banks' ability to create money by extending loans. These elements of Simons's theory of money form the basis for Hyman P. Minsky's financial instability hypothesis. This should not come as a surprise, as Simons was Minsky's teacher at the University of Chicago in the late 1930s. I review the similarities between their theories of financial instability and the relevance of their work for the current discussion of macroprudential tools and the conduct of monetary policy. According to Minsky and Simons, control of finance is a prerequisite for successful monetary policy and economic stabilization. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy; Financial Stability; Narrow Banking; Financial Regulation |
| JEL: | B22 E42 E52 G28 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_713&r=pke |
| By: | Sverre Knutsen (Norwegian Business School and Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway)) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the causes of banking crises by the way of a historical comparative case study. Moreover, the analysis draws on theories elaborated by the economist Hyman Minsky. The evidence presented suggests that the fundamental causes of the compared crises are found in the macroeconomic boom-bust fluctuation and the building up of asset market bubble(s) preceding the breakdown and the crisis. We also find boom-bust cycles as depicted in a basic Minsky-cycle, where financial instability and the outbreak of crisis is a consequence of an unbalanced mix of hedge, speculative and Ponzi financial positions. In both cases we have observed a pattern where stabilizing or thwarting institutions, as Minsky denoted them, were eroded over time. Each case demonstrates that structural economic shifts were interacting with major institutional changes and created processes that effectively removed institutional stabilizers. Hence, systemic risk was allowed to fill up the financial system. These processes were essential for building up financial imbalances of such a magnitude that the particular booms ended in systemic banking crises. |
| Keywords: | Financial Crises, business cycles, Institutional Stabilizers, Structural Economic |
| JEL: | E32 E51 G01 G18 N10 N12 N14 |
| Date: | 2012–03–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bno:worpap:2012_03&r=pke |
| By: | Russo, Alberto |
| Abstract: | In our view, the causes of the crisis are tied to the political change towards a Neoliberal phase from the 1970s on: a wide process of “deregulation” – from the labour market to the globalisation of production, from the national to the international finance – has allowed a partial recovery in the profitability of the capitalist system, contrasting the post-war decline of the profit rate which led to the 1970s “stagflation”. The same key elements of the Neoliberal model – deregulation, financialisation, globalisation – have eventually led to a large crisis as a result of the huge increase of inequality, financial instability, and trade imbalances. In this perspective, the “financial crisis” is the signal of underlying problems concerning the global process of capital accumulation. It is now necessary to support a recovery of the public intervention (“top down”) in order to create the conditions for an economic restart that, in turn, would strengthen the construction of a radical alternative (from the “bottom up”) to the Neoliberal course. A wider access to education should be the key to this progressive strategy aimed at supporting a more egalitarian and green path of development. A radical rethinking of bequest taxation and, in general, of the taxation on wealth would have a clear symbolic value in this perspective, providing, at the same time, the material basis for extending the right to a “universal education”. |
| Keywords: | capital accumulation; deregulation; crisis; austerity; public intervention |
| JEL: | E66 P17 G01 |
| Date: | 2012–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38004&r=pke |
| By: | Erik S. Reinert |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a historical and theoretical overview of the mechanisms leading up to financial crises and financial bubbles. It suggests that the potentially explosive growth of the financial sector at the expense of the real economy fed by compound interest has . since before Ancient Mesopotamia under the rule of Hammurabi . represented a real threat for such crises. A more modern and additional factor that builds up crises is Joseph Schumpeterÿs observation of the clustering of innovations. Carlota Perez has more recently developed Schumpeterÿs vision into a theory of techno-economic paradigms which . about midway in their trajectory . produce the build-up to financial crises. The theories of Schumpeterian economist Hyman Minsky, describing the mechanisms producing the collapse of financial bubbles complete the overview. The paper ends with recommendations to bring the West out of the present crisis by .once again . putting the real economy rather than the financial economy in the driverÿs seat of capitalism. |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tth:wpaper:39&r=pke |
| By: | Marion Allet |
| Abstract: | In recent years, in addition to financial and social objectives, the microfinance industry has started to look at its environmental bottom line. The objective of this paper is to identify why microfinance institutions (MFIs) decide to go green. Data was collected through a quantitative survey of 160 MFIs and qualitative semi-structured interviews of 23 MFIs’ top managers. Basing our analysis on the model of ecological responsiveness developed by Bansal & Roth (2000), we discover that MFIs that are the most proactive in environmental management are primarily motivated by social responsibility, additionally by competitiveness, and to a lesser extent by legitimation (stakeholder pressure). MFIs for which legitimation is the dominant driver tend to adopt a defensive approach and set up more superficial negative strategies to appear green. In contrast, MFIs for which social responsibility is the dominant driver tend to be more proactive and innovative and develop adapted financial and non-financial services to promote environmentally-friendly practices. |
| Keywords: | Microfinance; Ecological responsiveness; Environmental motivation; Organizational decision making; Corporate Social Responsibility |
| JEL: | G21 Q01 Q56 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/115102&r=pke |