Pub Date : 1999-01-01DOI: 10.4324/9781315011615-11
K. Dowd
One of the more important developments in 20th-century central banking is the rise of capital adequacy regulation—the imposition by regulators of minimum capital standards on financial institutions. Most bank regulators see capital adequacy regulation as a means of strengthening the safety and soundness of the banking system, and many see it as a useful—perhaps even necessary—response to the moral hazard problems created by deposit insurance and the existence of a lender of last resort to assist banks in difficulties. If deposit insurance and a lender of last resort encourage banks to take excessive risks and run down their capital, then forcing banks to strengthen their capital positions is a fairly obvious regulatory response. As a result, the regulation of bank capital adequacy has come to be one of the most important concerns of any modern central bank. Indeed, much of the case for modern central banking now depends on the justification (or otherwise) for capital adequacy regulation. Yet arguments for capital adequacy regulation are relatively sparse and not particularly convincing.1 Perhaps the most important argument
{"title":"Does Asymmetric Information Justify Bank Capital Adequacy Regulation","authors":"K. Dowd","doi":"10.4324/9781315011615-11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315011615-11","url":null,"abstract":"One of the more important developments in 20th-century central banking is the rise of capital adequacy regulation—the imposition by regulators of minimum capital standards on financial institutions. Most bank regulators see capital adequacy regulation as a means of strengthening the safety and soundness of the banking system, and many see it as a useful—perhaps even necessary—response to the moral hazard problems created by deposit insurance and the existence of a lender of last resort to assist banks in difficulties. If deposit insurance and a lender of last resort encourage banks to take excessive risks and run down their capital, then forcing banks to strengthen their capital positions is a fairly obvious regulatory response. As a result, the regulation of bank capital adequacy has come to be one of the most important concerns of any modern central bank. Indeed, much of the case for modern central banking now depends on the justification (or otherwise) for capital adequacy regulation. Yet arguments for capital adequacy regulation are relatively sparse and not particularly convincing.1 Perhaps the most important argument","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"121 1","pages":"39-47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88223640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
European monetary union will centralize control over European currency. Some have argued that the scale of this new currency area will cause a leap in demand for European currency as a numeraire and store of value. Furthermore, reductions in transactions and hedging costs from currency homogeneity within Europe could increase European wealth and income. It is argued that this change would be beneficial to the world economy, not just to Europe. Giving other countries the ability to peg their currencies to a basket of hard currencies (say, a mix of the dollar and the euro), rather than just to the dollar, might stabilize fixed exchange rate regimes. For example, pegging to a bundle of currencies could take the form of a currency board that redeems a fixed bundle of ‘‘hard’’ currencies in exchange for the domestic one. A bundle of currencies is potentially superior as an anchor because its value is more stable. A productivity shock in the United States that produces a real exchange rate appreciation for the dollar won’t produce as large an imbalance with emerging market countries if the hardcurrency bundle includes the currencies of countries other than the United States which are not experiencing that productivity shock. So a stable European currency could contribute to overall financial stability. Furthermore, the introduction of the euro could produce a onetime depreciation of the dollar, which immediately could take some pressure off emerging market countries pegged to the dollar.
{"title":"The Impending Collapse of the European Monetary Union","authors":"Charles W. Calomiris","doi":"10.7916/D8RN3JBN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8RN3JBN","url":null,"abstract":"European monetary union will centralize control over European currency. Some have argued that the scale of this new currency area will cause a leap in demand for European currency as a numeraire and store of value. Furthermore, reductions in transactions and hedging costs from currency homogeneity within Europe could increase European wealth and income. It is argued that this change would be beneficial to the world economy, not just to Europe. Giving other countries the ability to peg their currencies to a basket of hard currencies (say, a mix of the dollar and the euro), rather than just to the dollar, might stabilize fixed exchange rate regimes. For example, pegging to a bundle of currencies could take the form of a currency board that redeems a fixed bundle of ‘‘hard’’ currencies in exchange for the domestic one. A bundle of currencies is potentially superior as an anchor because its value is more stable. A productivity shock in the United States that produces a real exchange rate appreciation for the dollar won’t produce as large an imbalance with emerging market countries if the hardcurrency bundle includes the currencies of countries other than the United States which are not experiencing that productivity shock. So a stable European currency could contribute to overall financial stability. Furthermore, the introduction of the euro could produce a onetime depreciation of the dollar, which immediately could take some pressure off emerging market countries pegged to the dollar.","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"86 1","pages":"445-452"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74994633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Throughout history, financial collapses have been defining moments for public policy. Crises promote action, embodied in new financial institutions or policy doctrines. The motives that underlie such policies are sometimes short-sighted--driven by short-run pressures rather than long-run principles--and it is easier to enact unwise policy in the midst of crisis than to reverse course after the crisis has passed, after policies become embodied in institutions or statutes.
{"title":"The IMF's Imprudent Role As Lender of Last Resort","authors":"Charles W. Calomiris","doi":"10.7916/D8H4220N","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8H4220N","url":null,"abstract":"Throughout history, financial collapses have been defining moments for public policy. Crises promote action, embodied in new financial institutions or policy doctrines. The motives that underlie such policies are sometimes short-sighted--driven by short-run pressures rather than long-run principles--and it is easier to enact unwise policy in the midst of crisis than to reverse course after the crisis has passed, after policies become embodied in institutions or statutes.","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"275-294"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83229959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emerging market financial crises are characterized by an abrupt and significant shift from net capital inflow to net capital outflow from one year to the next. By this standard, we find 10 cases of significant financial crisis among the middle-income developing countries in the past four years: Turkey 1994, Venezuela 1994, Argentina 1995, Mexico 1994–95, Indonesia 1997–98, Korea 1997–98, Malaysia 1997–98, Philippines 1997–98, Thailand 1997–98, and Russia 1998.1 It is the contention of this paper that such crises typically reflect a three-stage process that hits a developing country engaged in large-scale international borrowing.2 In the first stage, the exchange rate becomes overvalued as a result of internal or external macroeconomic events. In the second stage, the exchange rate is defended, but at the cost of a substantial drain of foreign exchange reserves held by the Central Bank. In the third stage, the depletion of reserves, usually in combination with a devaluation, triggers a panicked outflow by foreign creditors holding short-term claims. The trigger of panic, in most cases, is the devaluation itself, resulting from the exhaustion of reserves. The panicked outflow of short-term creditors leads to macroeconomic overshooting, characterized by sharp economic downturn, typically followed by a nearly equally sharp recovery. Various dimensions of the macroeconomy are involved in this overshooting: real GDP, the real exchange rate, real interest rates, net capital flows, and stock market valuations.
{"title":"Creditor Panics: Causes and Remedies","authors":"J. Sachs","doi":"10.7916/D8K64Q9M","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8K64Q9M","url":null,"abstract":"Emerging market financial crises are characterized by an abrupt and significant shift from net capital inflow to net capital outflow from one year to the next. By this standard, we find 10 cases of significant financial crisis among the middle-income developing countries in the past four years: Turkey 1994, Venezuela 1994, Argentina 1995, Mexico 1994–95, Indonesia 1997–98, Korea 1997–98, Malaysia 1997–98, Philippines 1997–98, Thailand 1997–98, and Russia 1998.1 It is the contention of this paper that such crises typically reflect a three-stage process that hits a developing country engaged in large-scale international borrowing.2 In the first stage, the exchange rate becomes overvalued as a result of internal or external macroeconomic events. In the second stage, the exchange rate is defended, but at the cost of a substantial drain of foreign exchange reserves held by the Central Bank. In the third stage, the depletion of reserves, usually in combination with a devaluation, triggers a panicked outflow by foreign creditors holding short-term claims. The trigger of panic, in most cases, is the devaluation itself, resulting from the exhaustion of reserves. The panicked outflow of short-term creditors leads to macroeconomic overshooting, characterized by sharp economic downturn, typically followed by a nearly equally sharp recovery. Various dimensions of the macroeconomy are involved in this overshooting: real GDP, the real exchange rate, real interest rates, net capital flows, and stock market valuations.","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"24 1","pages":"377-390"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74502887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1994-01-01DOI: 10.4324/9780203448588-14
A. Jasay
All is not well with our politics. Never before in history, perhaps with the exception of ancient Greece, has civil life been politicized to quite the same extent as today. It might appear that society should be better, more fully served by its government than ever before. Yet few would think that this is the case. The principal products of more intrusive, more caring, and more comprehensive politics seem to be disaffection with, and dysfunctionof, government. Where the process has gone furthest, under " real existing socialism, " failure reached staggering dimensions. But whether governments now profess to live bydemocratic or socialist precepts, or by the near-ubiquitous, ungainly crossbred of the two, their relations with the governed are sour. The causes ofthis state ofaffairs are by nowquite widely understood. They have become the commonplace wisdom of political science and political economy. The study of public choice convincingly explains why political decisions are biased toward self-defeating, perverse effects and suboptimal, " negative-sum " outcomes, and why we, as rational players in the political " game, " nevertheless keep asking for more of the same. Given the rules of the game, any other outcome is unlikely as long as enough people behave prudentially, in the sense of maximizing some not wholly implausible combination of material ends. Selfless voters or suicidal politicians could, of course, produce less depressing solutions, but they seem to be a rather rare breed. Failing a wholesale change of hearts, one possible solution to the dilemma suggests itself~change the rules. Hence the rising interest in constitutions as they are, and as they should be. Seeming to be close to a state of despair by the very public choice logic that he coinvented and whose workings no one grasps better than he, James Buchanan (1993: 1) put it pithily:
{"title":"The Rule of Forces, the Force of Rules","authors":"A. Jasay","doi":"10.4324/9780203448588-14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203448588-14","url":null,"abstract":"All is not well with our politics. Never before in history, perhaps with the exception of ancient Greece, has civil life been politicized to quite the same extent as today. It might appear that society should be better, more fully served by its government than ever before. Yet few would think that this is the case. The principal products of more intrusive, more caring, and more comprehensive politics seem to be disaffection with, and dysfunctionof, government. Where the process has gone furthest, under \" real existing socialism, \" failure reached staggering dimensions. But whether governments now profess to live bydemocratic or socialist precepts, or by the near-ubiquitous, ungainly crossbred of the two, their relations with the governed are sour. The causes ofthis state ofaffairs are by nowquite widely understood. They have become the commonplace wisdom of political science and political economy. The study of public choice convincingly explains why political decisions are biased toward self-defeating, perverse effects and suboptimal, \" negative-sum \" outcomes, and why we, as rational players in the political \" game, \" nevertheless keep asking for more of the same. Given the rules of the game, any other outcome is unlikely as long as enough people behave prudentially, in the sense of maximizing some not wholly implausible combination of material ends. Selfless voters or suicidal politicians could, of course, produce less depressing solutions, but they seem to be a rather rare breed. Failing a wholesale change of hearts, one possible solution to the dilemma suggests itself~change the rules. Hence the rising interest in constitutions as they are, and as they should be. Seeming to be close to a state of despair by the very public choice logic that he coinvented and whose workings no one grasps better than he, James Buchanan (1993: 1) put it pithily:","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"24 1","pages":"125-134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1994-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86968040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A summary of the history of financial services regulation in the United States and an examination of the conflicting models of political economy, or the legal framework, that lay behind that history.
总结了美国金融服务监管的历史，并考察了历史背后政治经济学或法律框架的冲突模式。
{"title":"The evolving legal framework for financial services","authors":"W. F. Todd","doi":"10.26509/frbc-wp-199306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-199306","url":null,"abstract":"A summary of the history of financial services regulation in the United States and an examination of the conflicting models of political economy, or the legal framework, that lay behind that history.","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"59 1","pages":"207-242"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1993-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84614045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1993-01-01DOI: 10.4324/9781315011615-20
K. Dowd
As communism is at last assigned to its rightful place in the dustbin ofhistory, those who survive it have to come to terms with the task of sorting out the dreadful mess it has left behind. Perhaps the only benefit of having lived through communism is that many ofthose who have done so have a sound grasp of the dangers of government interference in markets. Such understanding leads naturally to a free-market outlook, and many in the former Soviet empire fully understand that the new order must be a liberal one if they are to have any future worth having. But therein lies an immense problem. We understand that the present situation is a total mess, and we understand that once the transition is made, the new market economy will function smoothly and efficiently, andprovide the prosperity and economic security that are so desperately needed. The problem, however, is howto get from here to there, and on that issue we are all to a greater or lesser extent flying by the seats of our pants. We understand reasonablywell howhealthy free-market economieswork, but nursing a chronically sickeconomy to health is a far more difficult problem that none of us is well equipped to handle, and the problem will not wait until we feelwe are ready for it. An immense chasm lies between the present mess here and economic health over there, and we need to think carefully about the transition ifthe countries of the former Soviet bloc are to avoid falling in it as they attempt to make the leap. Were we dealingwith a particular industry, the bakeryindustry, say, the solution would be relatively straightforward. We would first
{"title":"Money and the Market: What Role fir Government?","authors":"K. Dowd","doi":"10.4324/9781315011615-20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315011615-20","url":null,"abstract":"As communism is at last assigned to its rightful place in the dustbin ofhistory, those who survive it have to come to terms with the task of sorting out the dreadful mess it has left behind. Perhaps the only benefit of having lived through communism is that many ofthose who have done so have a sound grasp of the dangers of government interference in markets. Such understanding leads naturally to a free-market outlook, and many in the former Soviet empire fully understand that the new order must be a liberal one if they are to have any future worth having. But therein lies an immense problem. We understand that the present situation is a total mess, and we understand that once the transition is made, the new market economy will function smoothly and efficiently, andprovide the prosperity and economic security that are so desperately needed. The problem, however, is howto get from here to there, and on that issue we are all to a greater or lesser extent flying by the seats of our pants. We understand reasonablywell howhealthy free-market economieswork, but nursing a chronically sickeconomy to health is a far more difficult problem that none of us is well equipped to handle, and the problem will not wait until we feelwe are ready for it. An immense chasm lies between the present mess here and economic health over there, and we need to think carefully about the transition ifthe countries of the former Soviet bloc are to avoid falling in it as they attempt to make the leap. Were we dealingwith a particular industry, the bakeryindustry, say, the solution would be relatively straightforward. We would first","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"34 1","pages":"557-591"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1993-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80966577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: The Economics of Property Rights: Towards a Theory of Comparative Systems","authors":"Peter J. Boettke","doi":"10.1007/b102393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/b102393","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"60 1","pages":"169-171"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1991-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83743999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-01-01DOI: 10.4324/9780203022948.ch7
G. Selgin
Now that the Phillips curve has disappeared, leaving an “empty place where it used to be” (Leijonhufvud 1981, p. 276), economists must come face to face with the problem of deciding how the price level ought to behave. They can no longer treat price-level policy as incidental to employment policy. Yet,rather than becoming an object of economic controversy, the place left vacant by the Phillips curve has become the exclusive, if somewhat barren, grazing ground of advocates of a stable consumer price level. These advocates appear to be winning the macroeconomic policy battle by default. The only challenge now facing them seems to be that of implementing pricelevel stabilization by means of a strict and unambiguous policy mandate.
既然菲利普斯曲线已经消失了，留下了一个“它曾经所在的空白之地”(Leijonhufvud 1981, p. 276)，经济学家必须面对决定价格水平应该如何表现的问题。他们不能再把价格水平政策当作就业政策的附带品。然而，菲利普斯曲线留下的空白非但没有成为经济学争议的对象，反而成了倡导稳定消费价格水平的人的专属(尽管有些贫瘠)牧场。这些支持者似乎在默认情况下赢得了宏观经济政策之战。他们目前面临的唯一挑战似乎是通过严格和明确的政策授权来实现价格水平的稳定。
{"title":"Monetary Equilibrium and the Productivity Norm of Price-Level Policy","authors":"G. Selgin","doi":"10.4324/9780203022948.ch7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203022948.ch7","url":null,"abstract":"Now that the Phillips curve has disappeared, leaving an “empty place where it used to be” (Leijonhufvud 1981, p. 276), economists must come face to face with the problem of deciding how the price level ought to behave. They can no longer treat price-level policy as incidental to employment policy. Yet,rather than becoming an object of economic controversy, the place left vacant by the Phillips curve has become the exclusive, if somewhat barren, grazing ground of advocates of a stable consumer price level. These advocates appear to be winning the macroeconomic policy battle by default. The only challenge now facing them seems to be that of implementing pricelevel stabilization by means of a strict and unambiguous policy mandate.","PeriodicalId":38832,"journal":{"name":"Cato Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"265-287"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81984025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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