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The paper examines the determination of bank lending during the Finnish credit boom of 1986-1990 with the data of 483 savings and cooperative banks.A particular objective is to establish whether bank behaviour is consistent with what is called moral hazard hypothesis, according to which banks expanded risky lending in part to benefit from underpricing of bank liabilities and/or anticipated bank support policies, which would reward capital insufficiency.The results strongly support the moral hazard hypothesis.Growth of lending was, ceteris paribus, negatively associated with bank capital and positively associated with bank costs.Also the behaviour of subordinated debt is consistent with the moral hazard hypothesis.The findings suggest that the cause of such behaviour was underpriced non-deposit liabilities rather than underpriced deposit insurance or anticipation at perverse bank policies.The perverse behaviour was much stronger among the savings banks than among the cooperative banks.According to calculations based on the estimation results, the growth rate of savings bank lending had been 1/3 smaller than the actual growth rate in 1986-1990 in the absence of moral hazard.In the case of the cooperative banks the estimated moral hazard effect is less than l/10 of the growth rate.Given the clear positive association of the rate of growth of lending during the boom period and the amount of non-performing assets later during the banking crisis, the disproportionary losses of the savings bank group are - in the light of this analysis - largely due to moral hazard.Consequently also most of the government expenditure on bank support appears to be caused by distorted incentives.

The Nordic welfare model has received a lot of positive attention around the world. High standard of living, small income disparities and substantial social mobility looks like a very attractive package. Moreover, sound public finances and strong emphasis on environmental sustainability suggest that today's success has not been accomplished at the expense of future generations. But is there really a unique "Nordic Supermodel", unshaken by the global economic crisis and capable of producing continuous high growth and world class welfare services when many developed economies struggle with the impacts of global competition and population ageing?This book shows that Nordic performance has not been quite as unique or uniform as often claimed. The recent global and European crisis and country specific shocks have affected also the Nordic countries, some of them very strongly. And there are as many variants of the Nordic model as there are Nordic countries. Going forward, also the Nordic countries will be challenged by ageing, globalisation and technological change, some more than the others. On the other hand many fundamentals remain strong in the Nordic countries, and, what is perhaps most important, the Nordics have proved themselves capable of adjusting. Labour market practices, pension policies, and production of public services have been reformed to match new circumstances. Public policies have been aimed at creating new jobs and helping people in transition, not at protecting uncompetitive businesses. There is a strong, rational tradition of consensual policy making. Further reforms are needed, and some widening of income disparities may be inevitable. The message of the book is, however, that refocused and recalibrated in a realistic scale the Nordic model has good chances of thriving well into the future.

The report focuses on the relative macroeconomic performance since the global financial crisis of six Northern European countries with a special emphasis on Finland. While fiscal and monetary policies have definitely impacted on macroeconomic outcomes in the six countries examined, as a whole they do not appear to be the key driving forces of the differences observed between the countries. The initial vulnerabilities, the nature of shocks and the resilience of the economies appear more important in explaining the differences. In particular, the weakness of growth in Finland can best be explained by a series of exceptional negative shocks in combination with a too weak capacity of the economy to improve its cost competitiveness in the absence of exchange rate flexibility.

The paper is an update through early 1994 of a similarly titled paper (Bank of Finland Discussion Papers 8/93). It gives a brief description of the evolution of the Finnish banking crisis and its handling. In the first section, the salient features of the Finnish banking system are described. We then briefly discuss the liberalization process, macroeconomic and regulatory policies, and the subsequent credit boom and its development into a recession of unprecedented depth. Next, we document the impact on bank profitablity of the drastic changes in macroeconomic conditions. The collapse and rescue of, Skopbank are summarized. In section 2 we describe the public safety net, starting with the pre-crisis arrangements. This is followed by an exposition in section 3 of the, new measures taken in 1992 and 1993, with the emphasis on the establishment of the Government Guarantee Fund, its organization, powers and principles of operation. Section 4 gives an account of the support measures taken by the Goverment Guarantee Fund in the course of 1992 and the whole of 1993. Finally, in section 5, we discuss the banks' current economic environment and their prospects in the near future, now also brought forward into early 1994. The paper includes references to recent articles and discussion papers dealing with important aspects of the current banking crisis. The list of references is by no means exhaustive, and it is designed mainly to help foreign readers to find supplementary material. Therefore only those papers in Finnish or Swedish which have to do most with the current crisis are included.

The paper gives a brief description of the evolution of the Finnish banking crisis and its handling. 1n the first section, the salient features of the Finnish banking system are described. We then briefly discuss the liberalization process, macroeconomic and regulatory policies, and the subsequent credit boom and its development into a recession of unprecedented depth. Next, we document the impact on bank profitablity of the drastic changes in macroeconomic conditions. The collapse and rescue of Skopbank are summarized. 1n section 2 we describe the public safety net, starting with the pre-crisis arrangements. This is followed by an exposition of the new measures taken in 1992, with the emphasis on the establishment of the Government Guarantee Fund, its organization, powers and principles of operation. Section 3 gives an account of the support measures taken by the Goverment Guarantee Fund in the course of 1992 and in earIy 1993. Section 4 describes the reform of the bank support arrangements in the earIy months of 1993. Finally, in section 5, we discuss the banks' current economic environment and their prospects in the near future. We also take up some of the major issues of principle relating to the rationalization of the banking sector.

The Nordic welfare model has received a lot of positive attention around the world. High standard of living, small income disparities and substantial social mobility looks like a very attractive package. Moreover, sound public finances and strong emphasis on environmental sustainability suggest that today's success has not been accomplished at the expense of future generations. But is there really a unique "Nordic Supermodel", unshaken by the global economic crisis and capable of producing continuous high growth and world class welfare services when many developed economies struggle with the impacts of global competition and population ageing? This book shows that Nordic performance has not been quite as unique or uniform as often claimed. The recent global and European crisis and country specific shocks have affected also the Nordic countries, some of them very strongly. And there are as many variants of the Nordic model as there are Nordic countries. Going forward, also the Nordic countries will be challenged by ageing, globalisation and technological change, some more than the others. On the other hand many fundamentals remain strong in the Nordic countries, and, what is perhaps most important, the Nordics have proved themselves capable of adjusting. Labour market practices, pension policies, and production of public services have been reformed to match new circumstances. Public policies have been aimed at creating new jobs and helping people in transition, not at protecting uncompetitive businesses. There is a strong, rational tradition of consensual policy making. Further reforms are needed, and some widening of income disparities may be inevitable. The message of the book is, however, that refocused and recalibrated in a realistic scale the Nordic model has good chances of thriving well into the future.