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The Role of the Banking System in the International Transmission of Shocks
Author(s) -
Sbracia Massimo,
Zaghini Andrea
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.594
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1467-9701
pISSN - 0378-5920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9701.00544
Subject(s) - moral hazard , vulnerability (computing) , economics , diversification (marketing strategy) , financial crisis , financial system , collateral , lender of last resort , latin americans , monetary economics , business , finance , macroeconomics , monetary policy , central bank , market economy , linguistics , philosophy , computer security , marketing , computer science , incentive
The paper analyzes the role of the banking system in the international transmission of financial shocks. A channel of transmission is defined as a mechanism through which a financial crisis in one country induces a financial crisis in another country. Channels involving banks operate through changes in the capital adequacy ratios of a common lender and in the value of collateral of domestic borrowers, through bank runs and bank panics, and through moral hazard. Recent empirical evidence points to the significant effects of the common lender channel on the probability of a financial crisis, while mitigating the role of bank runs and remaining inconclusive about moral hazard. Thus, we introduce a series of indices of vulnerability to the common lender channel that improve existing measures by taking into account both the borrower's dependence on foreign loans and the lender's exposure to a single country. By comparing the degree of vulnerability to the common lender channel during the 1990s major crises, we find that vulnerability was higher in the Asia Pacific region in 1997 (and, especially, in the five countries most involved in the crisis) than in Latin America and East Europe. Vulnerability was significantly lower in 2000 for almost all the countries in our sample, due to both a more even distribution of liabilities on the part of developing countries and a higher degree of diversification of bank investments from the three main lending countries (United States, Japan, Germany).