Suchergebnisse

Die EU-Kommission hat im Februar 2022 wirtschaftliche Sanktionen gegen ausgewählte russische OligarchInnen verkündet. So sollte Druck auf den Kreml ausgeübt werden, zunächst die Verlegung von Truppen in die Regionen Donezk und Luhansk und schließlich den Angriff auf die Ukraine zu beenden. Der vorliegende Bericht untersucht, wie sich diese Sanktionen auf Unternehmen auswirken, die von russischen OligarchInnen geleitet werden. Die empirischen Befunde zeigen, dass die Aktienrenditen von Unternehmen mit sanktionierten OligarchInnen im Vorstand nach der Ankündigung der Sanktionen deutlich unter den Aktienrenditen von Unternehmen ohne sanktionierte Vorstände lagen. Beispielsweise dürften InvestorInnen aufgrund von Signaleffekten sowie rechtlichen und wirtschaftlichen Unsicherheiten negative Folgen für Unternehmen mit betroffenen OligarchInnen erwarten und sich deshalb zurückziehen. Persönliche Sanktionen können also über die negativen Effekte auf Unternehmenswerte einen gewissen ökonomischen Druck ausüben.

In February 2022, the EU Commission announced economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs. The goal was to exert pressure on the Kremlin: initially to stop deploying troops to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and ultimately to end its attack on Ukraine. The present report investigates how these sanctions affect companies headed by Russian oligarchs. The empirical findings show that after sanctions are announced, the stock returns of companies with sanctioned oligarchs on their executive board were significantly lower than the stock returns of firms without sanctioned board members. This is due to, for example, signaling effects and legal and economic uncertainties. Investors may expect negative consequences for the companies with sanctioned oligarchs and therefore withdraw. Thus, personal sanctions can exert some economic pressure via the negative economic effects on firm value.

[Highlights] For political reasons, European Union member states' opinions on joining banking union range from outright refusal to active consideration. The main stance is to wait and see how the banking union develops. The wait-and-see positions are often motivated by the consideration that joining banking union might imply joining the euro. However, in the long term, banking union's ultimate rationale is linked to cross-border banking in the single market, which goes beyond the single currency. This Policy Contribution documents the banking linkages between the nine 'outs' and 19 'ins' of the banking union. We find that some of the major banks based in Sweden and Denmark have substantial banking claims across the Nordic and Baltic regions. We also find large banking claims from banks based in the banking union on central and eastern Europe. The United Kingdom has a special position, with London as both a global and European financial centre. We find that the out countries could profit from joining banking union, because it would provide a stable arrangement for managing financial stability. Banking union allows for an integrated approach towards supervision (avoiding ring fencing of activities and therefore a higher cost of funding) and resolution (avoiding coordination failure). On the other hand, countries can preserve sovereignty over their banking systems outside the banking union.

Financial globalisation has led to large increases in foreign assets and liabilities in recent decades, increasing the scope for valuation changes that are potentially greater than trade or financial flows. We confirm that the United States enjoys an 'exorbitant privilege' on flow income from foreign assets, which is primarily related to foreign direct investment (FDI). The geographical allocation of FDI assets explains only a small part of the US yield advantage. The key reason is that US, and also British and Japanese, investors were able to outperform the average yield earned in the countries of their FDI destinations, while most continental European investors earn the average. Further research should explore if large FDI investment in 'tax optimisation' countries, the improper consideration of intellectual property, or financial sophistication contributed to these high yields. For several countries, valuation changes were larger than current account and financial transactions, highlighting the importance of such changes. In the European Union, the generally negative international investment positions of a number of central and southern European countries were greatly supported by EU transfers. Valuation changes on net foreign assets do not look random and played an important role in the sustainability of international investment positions before and after the 2008 crisis. Countries with negative net international investment positions tend to have positive revaluation gains, while countries with large net foreign assets tend to suffer from revaluation losses. Large net foreign asset holders including China, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Japan and Germany, suffered significant losses in 2007-16, helping the sustainability of the negative positions of other countries. Risk sharing was also fostered by losses suffered by the US since 2007. There is no uniform tendency in relation to the asset classes from which these losses arose. Future research should aim to better understand the drivers of these valuation changes.

The European Union's Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive foresees a "minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities" (known as MREL) that banks need to comply with in order to ensure the effectiveness of the bail-in tool. The details of how MREL should be constructed in practice are under discussion. We look at alternative ways to compute MREL, showing how the choice of the benchmark metric (risk weighted assets, total assets or leverage exposure) can change the allocation of requirements across banks. We also review MREL in light of the global effort to ensure future resolvability of banks, highlighting some differences with, and inconsistencies in relation to, the Financial Stability Board's total loss-absorption capacity (TLAC) measure.

During the economic and financial crisis, the divide between young and old in the European Union increased in terms of economic well-being and allocation of resources by governments. As youth unemployment and youth poverty rates increased, government spending shifted away from education, families and children towards pensioners. To address the sustainability of pension systems, some countries implemented pension reforms. We analysed changes to benefit ratios, meaning the ratio of the income of pensioners to the income of the active working population, and found that reforms often favoured current over future pensioners, increasing the intergenerational divide. We recommend reforms in three areas to address the intergenerational divide: improving European macroeconomic management, restoring fairness in government spending so the young are not disadvantaged, and pension reforms that share the burden fairly between generations.