Flow Of Funds Analysis

This is a collection of articles on the flow of funds that attempts to serve as a reference guide to economists in academia, business, finance and government. Flow of funds analysis is widely used in analysis of financial institutions and markets. In fact, they were largely constructed by the Federal Reserve and other central banks and were the foundations for defining and measuring the various concepts of the monetary aggragates used as key targets by central banks in carrying out monetary policy. The book brings together the scattered articles on the subject and should be useful as a research guide and teaching source.

This book discusses the theory, methods, and applications of flow of funds analysis. The book integrates the basic principles of economic statistics, financial accounts, international finance, econometric models, and financial network analysis, providing a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the interconnection between these research fields. It thus provides the reader with the intellectual groundwork indispensable for understanding the workings and interactions of today’s globalized financial markets. The main focus of the book is how to observe the flow of funds in macroeconomics, how to measure the global flow of funds (GFF), and how to use GFF data to carry out an analysis. Based on the statistical framework for measuring GFF under the System of National Accounts, the book identifies the systematic relationship of financial linkages among economic sectors and with the rest of the world while integrating data sources that include stock data, geographically broken down by country–region, and selected financial instruments. It sets out the GFF concept and constructs a GFF matrix (metadata) on a from-whom-to-whom basis within a country-by-country pattern. Lastly, an established GFF matrix table is used to conduct an empirical study including an econometric model and financial network analysis.

This paper presents an approach to understanding the shadow banking system in the United States using a new Global Flow of Funds (GFF) conceptual framework developed by the IMF’s Statistics Department (STA). The GFF uses external stock and flow matrices to map claims between sector-location pairs. Our findings highlight the large positions and gross flows of the U.S. banking sector (ODCs) and its interconnectedness with the banking sectors in the Euro area and the United Kingdom. European counterparties are large holders of U.S. other financial corporations (OFCs) debt securities. We explore the relationship between credit to domestic entities and the growth of non-core liabilities. We find that external debt liabilities of the financial sector are procyclical and are closely aligned with domestic credit growth.

The central emphasis in the book is on the transaction and the constraints that its architecture imposes on a discussion of monetary theory and policy. Because of their comprehensiveness and discipline the flow-of-funds accounts are the ideal vehicle for theorizing about real and financial interaction. Such int- action can best be understood when real and financial transac tions are expressed in a common flow dimension. Each decision by economic agents is seen as two-ended in terms of markets: one market supplies the source of funds and the second market absorbs these funds. A matrix of interdependent markets is featured throughout the theoretical discussion. Credit markets, and the bank credit market in particular, become the source of disturbance in the theoretical model, but the necessary involve ment of the money market is also stressed. Theories of finan cial instability and crisis now receiving considerable attention are part of the more general theory of the flow of funds. The rationale for the monetary authority to target credit rather than the monetary aggregates emerges from the analytical discus sion. A flow-constrained analysis clarifies interest-rate deter mination, provides a helpful format for discussing equilibrium and disequilibrium, integrates credit markets with the familiar IS-LM framework, and identifies a class of missing equations in macro-monetary theory. The prototype of the missing equations is an equation explaining monetary dissaving in terms of a series of arguments only one of which will be the stock of real balances or real wealth.