Investment Behaviour of Financially Constrained Multinational Corporations: Consequences for the International Transmission of Business Cycle Fluctuations
Diemo Dietrich
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 165,
2002
Abstract
The paper investigates the investment decision of a financially constrained multinational
corporation (MNC) planning investment projects both at home and in a developing
country. The collateral values of the projects diverge because of country specific
transactions costs so that the willingness of banks to grant a loan depends not only on
the MNCs financial wealth but also on the share of FDI in total investment. It is shown
that i) variations in the MNCs financial standing affects FDI stronger than domestic
investment, ii) FDI is likely to decrease following a macroeconomic shock to the MNC
parent, and iii) domestic investment is likely to increase following a macroeconomic
shock to the MNC affiliate.
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Germany s dependence on the economic situation in the U.S. is less crucial than generally assumed
Klaus Weyerstraß
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 6,
2002
Abstract
In the context of the recent cyclical downturn in Germany it has often been argued that Germany depends more than other European countries on international economic developments. In this article it is investigated whether empirical support can be found for this proposition. Moreover, it is explored whether this relation has changed over time. For this purpose, vector autoregressive (VAR) models are applied to the output gaps of different economies.
It is shown that in the seventies and eighties, the transmission of business cycle shocks was more pronounced to Germany than to the other EU countries. Since the middle of the nineties, no such differences can be detected. Furthermore, since the middle of the nineties, the effects of shocks from abroad on the German business cycle have been significantly more short-lived than before.
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Are the Central and Eastern European Transition Countries still vullnerable to an Financial Crisis? Results from the Signals Approach
Axel Brüggemann, Thomas Linne
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 157,
2002
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to analyse the vulnerability of the Central and Eastern European accession countries to the EU as well as that of Turkey and Russia to a financial crisis. Our methodology is an extension of the signals approach. We develop a composite indicator to measure the evolution of the risk potential in each country. Our findings show that crises in Central and Eastern Europe are caused by much the usual suspects as in others emerging markets. In particular an overvalued exchange rate, weak exports and dwindling currency reserves have good predictive power for assessing crisis vulnerabilities.
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International economic development still impedes growth in Central and Eastern Europe
Axel Brüggemann
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 3,
2002
Abstract
The world wide economic slow down has increasingly affected the transition economies. Lower demand in Western Europe for exports from Central and Eastern Europe has depressed industrial production and growth in the region. Strong domestic demand has managed to offset some of the negative external influences. In total the countries in Central and eastern Europe will grow with 3,1 % in 2002 and with 4,1% in 2003. The higher growth in 2003 results from the combination of a continuing strong domestic demand and amore favourabel external environment, as the world economy starts to recover in the second half of 2002. Inflation will continue to slow, while unemployment decreases only marginally. Higher growth will also lead to higher current account deficits.
The slowdown in 2001 has increased the risk potential for financial crises in Central and Eastern Europe. The forecast is build upon the assumption that no such crisis will occur, if a crisis does errupt the forecast will have to be revised downwards. The regular anlysis carried out by the IWH regarding the development of the risk potential, indicate particular high risks for Poland and to a somewhat lesser extent also for Hungary. As the unfavourable external economic conditions will persist for the coming months, a further increase in the risk potential can be expected.
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Risk Potential for Financial Crises for the Central and East European Transition Countries still high
Axel Brüggemann, Thomas Linne
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 1,
2002
Abstract
Since the mid-nineties there have been several financial crises in Central and Eastern Europe. Among the countries affected are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Romania - all countries with which the European Union is in the midst of accession negotiations. The prevention of financial crises is also important due to the output losses which occurr in the affected countries. Additionally, contagion effects can influence the economic situation in third countries such as those of the EU. For this reason, the IWH analyses on a regular basis the risk potential of the EU-accession countries as well as for Turkey and Russia.
Since the beginning of 1999 at least two different phases in the development of the risk potential can be distinguished for the majority of the Central and Eastern European countries. The first phase is marked by an increase in the risk potential across all countries in the region because of the contagion and spill-over effects following the Russian financial crisis in August 1998. The risk potential was considerably reduced with the phasing out of these effects and a worldwide economic recovery. However, since mid-2000 a second phase has set in. The weaker international environment has again led to a sizable increase in the crisis vulnerability of several countries, where a host of signals indicate an urgent need for economic policy actions.
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Rating Agency Actions and the Pricing of Debt and Equity of European Banks: What Can we Infer About Private Sector Monitoring of Bank Soundness?
Reint E. Gropp, A. J. Richards
Economic Notes,
No. 3,
2001
Abstract
The recent consultative papers by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has raised the possibility of an explicit role for external rating agencies in the assessment of the credit risk of banks’ assets, including interbank claims. Any judgement on the merits of this proposal calls for an assessment of the information contained in credit ratings and its relationship to other publicly available information on the financial health of banks and borrowers. We assess this issue via an event study of rating change announcements by leading international rating agencies, focusing on rating changes for European banks for which data on bond and equity prices are available. We find little evidence of announcement effects on bond prices, which may reflect the lack of liquidity in bond markets in Europe during much of our sample period. For equity prices, we find strong effects of ratings changes, although some of our results may suffer from contamination by contemporaneous news events. We also test for pre-announcement and post-announcement effects, but find little evidence of either. Overall, our results suggest that ratings agencies may perform a useful role in summarizing and obtaining non-public information on banks and that monitoring of banks’ risk through bond holders appears to be relatively limited in Europe. The relatively weak monitoring by bondholders casts some doubt on the effectiveness of a subordinated debt requirement as a supervisory tool in the European context, at least until bond markets are more developed.
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Further development and application of an early warning indicator system for observing and evaluating financial crises in prospective EU acceding countries and selected Central and Eastern European countries
Axel Brüggemann, Thomas Linne
IWH-Sonderhefte,
No. 4,
2001
Abstract
Seit Beginn der 1990er Jahre haben mehrere der Beitrittskandidatenländer für eine Mitgliedschaft in der Europäischen Union (EU) sowie Russland und die Ukraine Finanzkrisen durchlaufen. Das jüngst betroffene Land ist die Türkei, wo im November 2000 eine schwerwiegende Finanzkrise ausbrach und deren Folgen immer noch nicht gänzlich absehbar sind. Die Finanzkrisen umfassten dabei sowohl Währungskrisen als auch Bankenkrisen. Eine wichtige Rolle für den Ausbruch von Währungskrisen spielte die oftmalige Fixierung des Wechselkurses mit dem Ziel, das Preisniveau zu stabilisieren. Bei allerdings anhaltend hohen Inflationsraten mündete diese Politik in einer realen Aufwertung der inländischen Währungen und in einem Anstieg der Leistungsbilanzdefizite.
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A glimpse on sectoral convergence of productivity levels
Gerald Müller
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 133,
2001
Abstract
This paper examines the presence of sectoral convergence of labor productivity between 14 OECD countries. Using the OECD International Sectoral Data Base (ISDB), the paper looks at the developments within 12 distinct sectors during the period 1970-1995. The change of the coefficients of variance suggests that there is strong sectoral convergence within most service sectors while the evidence of convergence for Manufacturing as well as for Communication is rather weak. These findings are in line with most studies undertaken on this subject so far. It is concluded that economic theories at hand to explain growth and convergence (or divergence respectively) are of different importance for the sectors concerned. While models of the New Growth Theory seemed to be useful to explain growth mechanisms within Manufacturing and Communication, traditional models seemed to apply to most other sectors.
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Structural change, specialization patterns, and the productivity gap between Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union
Johannes Stephan
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 13,
2000
Abstract
The transition countries of Central East Europe exhibit significantly lower productivity levels than that of the average of the 15 European Union countries. Since the outset of transition, however, this gap has clearly narrowed.
Next to technological and organisational factors it is sectoral structures which play an important role for the development and level of national productivities: in most transition economies, structural change clearly contributed positively to productivity growth. Poland is an exception here, no significant effect of structural change between sectors and industrial branches on the growth of the national productivity level could be found. The low intensity of structural adjustment in Poland in particular in the agricultural sector corresponds with a decisive role played by the sectoral pattern of specialisation within the European division of labour as determinant of the productivity gap. Hungary and to some degree also Slovenia, the country with the lowest productivity gap, exhibit similar results. Only in the cases of the Czech Republic and Slovakia remain negligible the explanatory powers of respective patterns of specialisation as productivity determinants.
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