Macro Financial Linkages In The Pacific Region

Growth perspectives in emerging market economies are increasingly dependent on international capital flows in recent decades because of their influences on business cycles. In fact, volatile international capital flows has been one of the main concerns for the macroeconomic policy authorities. Focusing on emerging economies in the Pacific region, this book reveals how they are different from those in other regions in terms of international macro-financial linkages to the global capital market and domestic financial development,. The book also discusses how these characteristics have interacted with their macroeconomic policy regimes and their macroeconomic performance throughout the two major international financial crises in the past more than two decades. It suggests facts that have strengthened the resilience of these emerging economies in the Pacific region against the global financial crisis along with the intensified intra-regional economic integration through trade and investment. The book also examines their macroeconomic management focusing on monetary policy regimes and suggests that their factual unorthodox policies with exchange rate management and capital controls have contributed to their resilience against the intrinsic volatility of the international capital market and financial flows.

This book deals with the challenges of macro financial linkages in the emerging markets.

The Great Financial Crisis of 2007-09 confirmed the vital importance of advancing our understanding of macrofinancial linkages, the two-way interactions between the real economy and the financial sector. The crisis was a bitter reminder of how sharp fluctuations in asset prices, credit and capital flows can have dramatic impact on the financial positions of households, corporations and sovereign nations. As fluctuations were amplified, the global financial system was brought to the brink of collapse and the deepest contraction in world output in more than half a century followed. Moreover, unprecedented challenges for fiscal, monetary and financial regulatory policies resulted.The crisis revived an old debate in the economics profession about the importance of macrofinancial linkages. Some argue that the crisis was a painful reminder of our limited knowledge of these linkages. Others claim that the profession had already made substantial progress in understanding them but that there was too much emphasis on narrow approaches and modelling choices. Yet, most also recognise that the absence of a unifying framework to study these two-way interactions has limited the practical applications of existing knowledge and impeded the formulation of policies.With these observations in mind, this paper presents a systematic review of the rapidly expanding literature on macrofinancial linkages. It first surveys the literature on the linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes. It then reviews the literature on the macroeconomic implications of financial imperfections. It also examines the global dimensions of macrofinancial linkages and documents the main stylized facts about the linkages between the real economy and the financial sector. The topic of macrofinancial linkages promises to remain an exciting area of research, given the many open questions and significant policy interest. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible directions for future research, stressing the need for richer theoretical models, more robust empirical work and better quality data so as to advance knowledge and help guide policymakers going forward.

Growth perspectives in emerging market economies are increasingly dependent on international capital flows in recent decades because of their influences on business cycles. In fact, volatile international capital flows has been one of the main concerns for the macroeconomic policy authorities. Focusing on emerging economies in the Pacific region, this book reveals how they are different from those in other regions in terms of international macro-financial linkages to the global capital market and domestic financial development,. The book also discusses how these characteristics have interacted with their macroeconomic policy regimes and their macroeconomic performance throughout the two major international financial crises in the past more than two decades. It suggests facts that have strengthened the resilience of these emerging economies in the Pacific region against the global financial crisis along with the intensified intra-regional economic integration through trade and investment. The book also examines their macroeconomic management focusing on monetary policy regimes and suggests that their factual unorthodox policies with exchange rate management and capital controls have contributed to their resilience against the intrinsic volatility of the international capital market and financial flows.

The Asian financial landscape has grown more interconnected over the past 2 decades. Previous financial crises have shown how financial volatility can transmit rapidly across an interconnected financial network. Empirical analyses have shown, moreover, how financial volatility can reverberate across the macroeconomy. This report summarizes the lessons from past crises, reviews the evidence of the macrofinancial linkages and feedback effects of financial distress, and proposes policy considerations and coordinated responses to enhance financial stability and resilience.

The paper investigates the non-performing loans (NPLs) in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (CESEE) in the period of 1998–2011. The paper finds that the level of NPLs can be attributed to both macroeconomic conditions and banks’ specific factors, though the latter set of factors was found to have a relatively low explanatory power. The examination of the feedback effects broadly confirms the strong macro-financial linkages in the region. While NPLs were found to respond to macroeconomic conditions, such as GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation, the analysis also indicates that there are strong feedback effects from the banking system to the real economy, thus suggesting that the high NPLs that many CESEE countries currently face adversely affect the pace economic recovery.

This paper assesses and disseminates experiences and lessons from low-income countries (LICs) in Sub-Saharan Africa that were selected by the Africa Department in 2015-16 as pilots for enhanced analysis of macro-financial linkages in Article IV staff reports. The paper focuses on the common characteristics across the pilot countries and highlights the tools used in the analysis, the challenges encountered, and the solutions deployed in overcoming them.

This book collects selected articles addressing several currently debated issues in the field of international macroeconomics. They focus on the role of the central banks in the debate on how to come to terms with the long-term decline in productivity growth, insufficient aggregate demand, high economic uncertainty and growing inequalities following the global financial crisis. Central banks are of considerable importance in this debate since understanding the sluggishness of the recovery process as well as its implications for the natural interest rate are key to assessing output gaps and the monetary policy stance. The authors argue that a more dynamic domestic and external aggregate demand helps to raise the inflation rate, easing the constraint deriving from the zero lower bound and allowing monetary policy to depart from its current ultra-accommodative position. Beyond macroeconomic factors, the book also discusses a supportive financial environment as a precondition for the rebound of global economic activity, stressing that understanding capital flows is a prerequisite for economic-policy decisions.