Suchergebnisse

The paper estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model for Ghana. Regression results show that most of the REER's long-run behavior can be explained by real GDP growth, real interest rate differentials (both relative to trading-partner countries), and the real world prices of Ghana's main export commodities. On the basis of these fundamentals, the REER in late 2006 was found to be very close to its estimated equilibrium level. The results also suggest, that deviations from the equilibrium path are eliminated within two to three years

This paper presents a model of a banking industry with heterogeneous banks that delivers predictions on the relationship between banks' risk of failure, market structure, bank ownership, and banks' screening and bankruptcy costs. These predictions are explored empirically using a panel of individual banks data and ownership information including more than 10,000 bank-year observations for 133 non-industrialized countries during the 1993-2004 period. Four main results obtain. First, the positive and significant relationship between bank concentration and bank risk of failure found in Boyd, De N

We formulate a simple theoretical model of a banking industry that we use to identify and construct theory-based measures of systemic bank shocks (SBS). These measures differ from 'banking crisis' (BC) indicators employed in many empirical studies, which are constructed using primarily information on government actions undertaken in response to bank distress. Using both country-level and firm-level samples, we show that SBS indicators consistently predict BC indicators, indicating that BC indicators actually measure lagged policy responses to systemic bank shocks. We then re-examine the impact of macroeconomic factors, bank market structure, deposit insurance, and external shocks on the probability of systemic bank shocks (SBS) and on 'banking crisis' (BC) indicators. We find that the impact of these variables on the likelihood of a policy response to banking distress (as represented by BC indicators) is frequently quite different from that on the likelihood of a systemic bank shock (SBS). We argue that disentangling the effects of systemic bank shocks and policy responses is crucial in understanding the roots of banking crises. We believe that many findings of a large empirical literature need to be re-assessed.