The Determinants Of Cross Border Bank Flows To Emerging Markets

This paper studies the nature of spillover effects in bank lending flows from advanced to the emerging market economies and identifies specific channels through which such effects occur. Based on a gravity model we examine a panel data set on cross-border bank flows from 17 advanced to 28 emerging market economies in Asia, Latin America and central and eastern Europe from 1993 to 2008. The empirical analysis suggests that global as well as country specific factors are significant determinants of cross-border bank flows. Greater global risk aversion and expected financial market volatility seem to have been the most important factors behind the decrease in cross-border bank flows during the crisis of 2007-08. The decrease in cross-border loans to central and eastern Europe was more limited compared to Asia and Latin America, in large measure because of the higher degree of financial and monetary integration in Europe, and relatively sound banking systems in the region. These results are robust to various specification, sub-samples and econometric methodologies.

This paper studies the nature of spillover effects in bank lending flows from advanced to the emerging market economies and identifies specific channels through which such effects occur. Based on a gravity model we examine a panel data set on cross-border bank flows from 17 advanced to 28 emerging market economies in Asia, Latin America and central and eastern Europe from 1993 to 2008. The empirical analysis suggests that global as well as country specific factors are significant determinants of cross-border bank flows. Greater global risk aversion and expected financial market volatility seem to have been the most important factors behind the decrease in cross-border bank flows during the crisis of 2007-08. The withdraw of cross-border loans from central and eastern Europe was more limited compared to Asia and Latin America, in large measure because of the higher degree of financial and monetary integration in Europe, and relatively sound banking systems in the region. These results are robust to various specification, sub-samples and econometric methodologies.

While global uncertainty—measured by the VIX—has proven to be a robust global “push” factor of international capital flows, there has been no systematic study assessing the role of country-specific uncertainty as a key (pull and push) factor of international capital flows. This paper tries to fill this gap in the literature by examining the effects of country-specific uncertainty shocks on cross-border banking flows using the confidential Bank for International Settlements Locational Banking Statistics data. The dyadic structure of this data allows to disentangle supply and demand factors and to better identify the effect of uncertainty shocks on cross-border banking flows. The results of this analysis suggest that: (i) uncertainty is both a push and pull factor that robustly predicts a decrease in both outflows (retrenchment) and inflows (stops); (ii) global banks rebalance their lending towards safer foreign borrowers from local borrowers when facing higher uncertainty; (iii) this rebalancing occurs only towards advanced economies (flight to quality), but not emerging market economies.

This paper provides a definition of global liquidity consistent with its meaning as the “ease of financing” in international financial markets. Using a longer time series and broader sample of countries than in previous studies, it identifies global factors driving cross-border bank flows, alongside country-specific factors. It confirms the explanatory power of US financial conditions, with flows decreasing in market volatility (VIX) and term premia, and increasing in bank leverage, growth in domestic credit and M2. A new finding is that similar variables for other systemic countries – the UK and the Euro Area – are also important, sometimes even more so, consistent with the dominant role of European banks in cross-border banking. Furthermore, recipient country characteristics are found to affect not only the level of country-specific flows, but also the cyclical impact of global liquidity, with sensitivities of flows to banks decreasing with stronger macroeconomic frameworks and better bank regulation, but less so for flows to non-financial firms.

This paper analyzes the behavior of gross capital inflows across 34 emerging markets (EMs). We first confirm that aggregate inflows to EMs co-move considerably. We then report three findings: (i) the aggregate co-movement conceals significant heterogeneity across asset types as only bank-related and portfolio bond and equity inflows do co-move; (ii) while global push factors in advanced economies mostly explain the common dynamics, their relative importance varies by type of flow; and (iii) the sensitivity to common dynamics varies significantly across borrower countries, with market structure characteristics (especially the composition of the foreign investor base and the level of liquidity) rather than borrower country’s institutional fundamentals strongly affecting sensitivities. Countries relying more on international funds and global banks are found to be more sensitive to push factors. Our findings suggest that EMs need to closely monitor their lenders and investors to assess their inflow exposures to global push factors.

We analyze capital flows to emerging markets in a framework that incorporates two quantitative measures of financial integration, the intensity of capital controls and the extent of cross border listings, while controlling for traditional global (push) and country specific (pull) factors. Two important results emerge. First, the cross listing of an emerging market firm on a U.S. exchange is an important but short lived capital flows event, suggesting that the cross listed stock is in effect a new security that U.S. investors quickly bring into their portfolios. Second, the effect of financial liberalization on capital flows is more nuanced than is suggested by event studies: A reduction in capital controls results in increased inflows only when the controls are binding. Among the standard push and pull factors, global factors are important-slack U.S. economic activity is associated with increased flows to emerging markets-and U.S. investors appear to chase expected, but not past, returns.

In Ruling Capital, Kevin P. Gallagher demonstrates how several emerging market and developing countries (EMDs) managed to reregulate cross-border financial flows in the wake of the global financial crisis, despite the political and economic difficulty of doing so at the national level. Gallagher also shows that some EMDs, particularly the BRICS coalition, were able to maintain or expand their sovereignty to regulate cross-border finance under global economic governance institutions. Gallagher combines econometric analysis with in-depth interviews with officials and interest groups in select emerging markets and policymakers at the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the G-20 to explain key characteristics of the global economy. Gallagher develops a theory of countervailing monetary power that shows how emerging markets can counter domestic and international opposition to the regulation of cross-border finance. Although many countries were able to exert countervailing monetary power in the wake of the crisis, such power was not sufficient to stem the magnitude of unstable financial flows that continue to plague the world economy. Drawing on this theory, Gallagher outlines the significant opportunities and obstacles to regulating cross-border finance in the twenty-first century.

This paper maps cross-border financial linkages and identifies factors that drive them, contributing to the discussion on the appropriate design of a global financial safety net (GFSN). It builds on previous staff work and complements the findings of the companion paper on the Analytics of Systemic Crises and the Role of Global Financial Safety Nets. This paper notes the growing roles of financial linkages and complexity in injecting latent instability into the global financial system, underscoring the value of a GFSN design that is effective in forestalling the risk that a localized liquidity shock propagates through the global financial network turning into a large-scale systemic crisis.