You may be interested in the papers that will be presented at the Economic Policy Panel meeting in Warsaw over the next two days, supported by the National Bank of Poland.  The papers are available here.

The list includes

• a comprehensive overview of eurobonds by Carlo Favero and Alessandro Missale
• how housing slumps end by Agustin Benetrix, Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O’Rourke
• the interplay between sovereign risk and banking-sector risk in European bond markets by Ashok Mody and Damiano Sandri
• a new proposal for automatic recapitalisation of banks by Patrick Bolton and Frederic Samama

Edited by Thorsten Beck, a new VOXEU e-book has been released on this topic.  An overview is here, while the free download of the e-book is here.

A call for action

A new VoxEU.org eBook, The Future of Banking, contains three headline messages:

• We need a forceful and swift resolution of the Eurozone crisis, without further delay! For this to happen, the sovereign debt and banking crises that are intertwined have to be addressed with separate policy tools. This concept finally seems to have dawned on policymakers. Now it is time to follow up on this insight and to be resolute.
• It’s all about incentives! We have to think beyond mechanical solutions that create cushions and buffers (exact percentage of capital requirements or net funding ratios) to incentives for financial institutions. How can regulations (capital, liquidity, tax, activity restrictions) be shaped in a way that forces financial institutions to internalise all repercussions of their risk, especially the external costs of their potential failure?
• It is the endgame, stupid. The interaction between banks and regulators/politicians is a multi-round game. As any game theorist will tell you, it is best to solve this from the end. A bailout upon failure will provide incentives for aggressive risk-taking throughout the life of a bank. Only a credible resolution regime that forces risk decision-takers to bear the losses of these decisions is an incentive compatible with aligning the interests of banks and the broader economy.

Policy recommendations

There are many policy recommendations, but I would like to point to three:

• European Safe Bonds: Several authors present the case for a forceful resolution of the Eurozone crisis. Critical of Eurobonds, Markus Brunnermeier and co-authors have proposed an alternative solution in the form of ‘European Safe Bonds’ – securities funded by currently outstanding government debt (up to 60% of GDP) that would constitute a large pool of ‘safe’ assets. The authors argue that these bonds would address both liquidity and solvency problems within the European banking system and, most critically, help to distinguish between the two. ‘European Safe Bonds’ could effectively separate the sovereign debt from the banking crisis, and would allow the ECB to disentangle more clearly liquidity support for the banks from propping up insolvent governments in the European periphery.
• Capital and liquidity requirements – risk weights are crucial. While ring-fencing might be part of a sensible regulatory reform, it is not sufficient. Capital requirements with risk weights that are dynamic, counter-cyclical and take into account co-dependence of financial institutions are critical. Capital requirements, however, do not work independently, but operate in their effect on banks’ risk-taking in interaction with ownership and governance structures – so one size does not necessarily fit all. Similarly, liquidity requirements have to be adjusted to make them less rigid and pro-cyclical. Though banks are under-taxed, the currently discussed financial transaction tax would not significantly affect banks’ risk-taking behaviour and might actually increase market volatility; in addition, its revenue potential could also be overestimated.

The need for a stronger European-wide regulatory framework. If the common European market in banking is to be saved – and the authors argue that it should be – then the geographic perimeter of banks has to be matched with a similar geographic perimeter in regulation, which ultimately requires stronger European-level institutions. Many of the regulatory reforms, including macro-prudential tools and bank resolution, have to be at least coordinated if not implemented at the European level. Critically, the resolution of financial institutions has an important cross-border element to it, which calls for a European-level resolution authority for systemically-important financial institutions.

Venue: ESRI, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2.
Date: Thursday 27/10/2011.
Time: 4.00 pm.
Speaker: Petra Gerlach-Kristen, ESRI.
If a central bank’s promise to keep inflation stable is credible, long-run inflation expectations should not respond to economic news. This paper studies market participants’ inflation expectations in the euro area, the United Kingdom and the United States as implied by inflation swaps. We find that inflation expectations up to ten years out seem to respond to commodity prices and unemployment news and that some of these reactions have apparently become stronger and longer-lasting since the onset of the global financial crisis. This might be due to second-round effects and thus to a decrease in central banks’ credibility.

Zsolt Darvas and Jean Pisani-Ferry address this topic in this new Bruegel Policy Contribution, which is available here.

Please note the change of venue (extra capacity can now be accomodated)

Henry Grattan Lecture – The European Sovereign Debt Crisis

Speakers: Peter Boone, Mike Dooley, Jean Pisani-Ferry and Ciarán O’Hagan

Date: Tuesday 25 October from 4.00 to 5.45pm

Venue:** Tercentenary Hall, Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street

** Please note NEW VENUE

This public lecture will discuss the European Sovereign Debt Crisis one year on from Ireland’s €85 billion bail out by the European Union-International Monetary Fund. This lecture is part of the 2011-2012 Henry Grattan Lecture Series which will address the theme of The Debt Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Controls.

The lecture, which is being jointly organised by the Policy Institute and the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS), will be chaired by Philip Lane, Head of the Economics Department, Trinity College Dublin.

Speaker Biographies
Peter Boone
Mike Dooley
Jean Pisani-Ferry
Ciarán O’Hagan
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Registration
Speaker Biographies