Procyclicality mechanisms in the financial system: what we know and some open questions

Robert Czech, Simon Jurkatis, Arjun Mahalingam, Laura Silvestri and Nick Vause

Financial markets reflect changes in the economy. But sometimes they amplify them too. Both of these roles were evident as the Covid-19 (Covid) pandemic materialised. As the economic outlook deteriorated, risky asset prices fell in reflection of that. And those falls were amplified as some investors reacted by liquidating assets. That also amplified increases in financing costs for companies issuing new debt or equity, which could have further damaged economic prospects. Various ‘procyclical’ mechanisms contributed to this macrofinancial feedback loop, as shown in Figure 1. This post reviews findings from research about these particular mechanisms, covering (i) how they work, (ii) how strong they are and (iii) how they might be mitigated. And, where there are gaps, it suggests new research.

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When should policymakers reach for the history books? Some examples from the 20th century

Catherine R. Schenk

The Bank of England co-organised a ‘History and Policy Making Conference‘ in late 2020. This guest post by Catherine Schenk, Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford, is based on material included in her conference presentation.

Since the Great Financial Crisis started in 2007 there has been renewed interest in using the past as a basis for policy responses in the present, but how useful is history and how is it best used? Certainly, the old chestnut that ‘those who neglect the past are sure to repeat it’ is a valid warning, but how to select the appropriate historical examples and draw the right lessons is a more nuanced exercise that is explored in this post.

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Where is IFRS 9 taking the cost of funding of banks?

Mahmoud Fatouh

IFRS 9 versus IAS 39

In 2018, IFRS 9 came into effect, replacing IAS 39. IFRS 9 has important implications especially for banks, as they mostly hold financial assets. IAS 39 is based on the incurred-loss model, which allows recognition of credit losses (in the form of provisions) only when there is objective evidence of impairment, dividing loans into performing and impaired loans (Figure 1). IFRS 9 introduces the more forward-looking expected loss model, under which provisions are equal to the expected credit losses. As illustrated in Figure 1, IFRS 9 classifies loans into three stages: Stage 1 loans (performing loans), Stage 2 loans (underperforming loans) and Stage 3 loans (nonperforming loans).

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The Real Effects of Zombie Lending in Europe

Belinda Tracey

‘Zombie lending’ occurs when a lender supports an otherwise insolvent borrower through forbearance measures such as repayment holidays and temporary interest-only loans. The phrase was first coined for Japan in the late 1990s, but more recently several authors have documented that zombie lending to European firms has been widespread following the sovereign debt crisis (see Acharya et al (2019), Adalet McGowan et al (2018), Banerjee and Hofmann (2020), Blattner et al (2018) and Schivardi et al (2017)). In a recent paper, I examine whether these lending practices contributed to the subsequent low output experienced by the euro area. My findings suggest that zombie lending had negative consequences for output, investment and productivity in the euro area over the period 2011 to 2014.

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Revisiting the New Keynesian policy paradoxes under QE

Dario Bonciani and Joonseok Oh

In the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, nominal interest rates in the US and other advanced economies have approached the effective lower bound (ELB). This fact has motivated new research to understand, both theoretically and empirically, the impact of monetary policies when the nominal policy rate is at the ELB. In a new paper, we show that accounting for balance sheet policies (QE) can ease the constraints imposed by the ELB on monetary policy and resolve several paradoxical results arising in canonical New Keynesian models at the ELB. The ‘paradox of flexibility’, the ‘paradox of toil’ and the puzzle of excessively large fiscal multipliers are all resolved when QE is added to the model as policy tool.

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The differing effects of globalization on trade versus migration

Rebecca Freeman and John Lewis

Better communications, enhanced transport links, integration agreements between governments, and other factors have all helped increase global economic interconnectedness over the past few decades. Yet, comparing a state-of-the-art gravity model for trade versus migration reveals important differences in the evolution of globalization over time on flows of goods versus people. For trade, the boost from free trade agreements declines the farther apart signatories are, but for migration the boost increases with distance between signatories. Further, while both border and distance frictions have declined for trade over time, this is not the case for migration flows.

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