Liquidity risk management.

Liquidity and solvency are the heavenly twins of banking, frequently indistinguishable. An illiquid bank can rapidly become insolvent, and an insolvent bank illiquid. As Tim Congdon noted, (FT, September 2007), in the 1950s liquid assets were typically 30 percent of British clearing banks’ total assets, and these largely consisted of Treasury Bills and short dated government debt. Currently, such cash holdings are about ½ percent and traditional liquid assets about 1 percent of total liabilities. Nor have prior standards relating to maturity transformation been maintained. Increasing proportions of long-dated assets have been financed by relatively short-dated borrowing in wholesale markets. Bank conduits financing tranches of securitised mortgages on the basis of three month asset-backed commercial paper is but an extreme example of this. Northern Rock is another. Such time inconsistency issues are hard to resolve, especially in the middle of a (foreseen) crisis; it is worth noting that many, though not all, of the aspects of this present crisis were foreseen by financial regulators. They just did not have the instruments, or perhaps the will, to do anything about it. If, when trouble strikes, the lifeboats are manned immediately, with extra liquidity being provided on easy terms, then there is encouragement to the banks to build even more densely on the flood plain. Why should the banks bother with liquidity management when the Central Bank will do all that for them? The banks have been taking out a liquidity ‘put’ on the Central Bank; they are in effect putting the downside of liquidity risk to the Central Bank. What is surely needed now is a calm and comprehensive review of what the principles of bank liquidity management should be.

The Rise of China as an Economic Power

In the twenty years since the Cultural Revolution, China has maintained fast real growth. This occurred despite China having similar problems to other transitional economies, eg loss-making State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), eroding fiscal revenues and inflation, (Section 3). Although China initially adopted the Soviet central planning model, after the 1950s break Chinese planning changed towards a regionally-based system with local planning (Section 2). In contrast to the centrally-based, functionally-specialized (U form or unitary structure) Soviet model, the Chinese-economy is organized on a multi-layer-multi-regional (M form) basis. This encouraged development of small size township and village enterprises (TVEs), the main engine of Chinese growth. Power and control remained with the Party and the State, but was diffused much more widely, regionally and locally. This allowed initiatives at lower (political) levels to establish institutions, both in agriculture (the 'household responsibility system') and industry (TVEs), without state protection. Even among regionally controlled SOEs, 'tournament rivalry' between regions, etc, and between SOEs and TVEs provided competition.

How, if at all, Should Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) be Regulated?

The role of credit ratings agencies (CRAs) is to forecast the probability that the issuer of a debt liability will default on the due repayment (its probability of default, PD). In this respect, CRAs are one of a large set of institutions and people who seek to forecast certain aspects of the future. As a generality, the only, or at any rate the most important, requisite of a forecast is its accuracy. So long as the forecast is accurate, it is largely beside the point how the forecaster behaves otherwise, whether they lead a blameless life, or alternatively are rude to their parents, beat their children or cheat on their spouses, etc. Moreover, in the case of CRAs, (unlike the Delphic oracle), the forecast is not only relatively clear in content, (though we shall consider later how it could, and should, be made even clearer), but also the status of the event being forecast, i.e. whether the issuer defaults, or not, on due repayment, is also relatively clear – and any remaining fuzziness often becomes subject to a legal decision. So the forecasting activities of CRAs should be susceptible to ex post accountability. Compare forecast with out-turn; assess and publish the comparative accuracy of the various CRAs' and leave competition to do the rest. We shall review what extra steps need to be taken to enhance such ex post accountability, comparing forecast with outcome, and comment briefly on how, perhaps, to enhance competition

A new perspective on the ripple effect in the UK housing market: Comovement, cyclical subsamples and alternative indices

An alternative perspective is provided on the existence of a ripple effect in the UK housing market. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis involves consideration of information on the changes in house prices to which the hypothesis of house price diffusion posited by the ripple effect relates, rather than their levels. In an examination of changes in house prices in London relative to other regions of the UK, directional forecasting methods are employed to establish the extent of the relationship between geographical proximity and comovement across the three month window provided by quarterly data. Consequently, the analysis provides a direct examination of the ripple effect which refers to changes in prices rather than the convergence of levels which has become a feature of the empirical literature. The literature is extended further by both the application of dating techniques to perform the analysis across cycles and phases of cycles (recovery and recessionary periods) in the UK housing market, and the use of data from two alternative house price index providers. Striking results in support of the presence of a ripple effect are noted, particularly for the less commonly considered Halifax price index where the most significant results for comovement with London are exhibited by its contiguous regions. In addition, the cyclical subsamples considered indicate comovement to be greater during upturns, rather than downturns in the market. This is consistent with previous research showing London to correct – that is, exhibit differing behaviour to other regions – during downturns

Sand in the wheels, or oiling the wheels, of international finance? : New Labour's appeal to a 'new Bretton Woods'

Tony Blair’s political instinct typically is to associate himself only with the future. As such, his explicit appeal to ‘the past’ in his references to New Labour’s desire to establish a “new Bretton Woods” is sufficient in itself to arouse some degree of analytical curiosity (see Blair 1998a). The fact that this appeal was made specifically in relation to Bretton Woods is even more interesting. The resonant image of the international economic context established by the original Bretton Woods agreements invokes a style and content of policy-making which Tony Blair typically dismisses as neither economically nor politically consistent with his preferred vision of the future (see Blair 2000c, 2001b)

Consumer credit information systems: A critical review of the literature. Too little attention paid by lawyers?

This paper reviews the existing literature on consumer credit reporting, the most extensively used instrument to overcome information asymmetry and adverse selection problems in credit markets. Despite the copious literature in economics and some research in regulatory policy, the legal community has paid almost no attention to the legal framework of consumer credit information systems, especially within the context of the European Union. Studies on the topic, however, seem particularly relevant in view of the establishment of a single market for consumer credit. This article ultimately calls for further legal research to address consumer protection concerns and inform future legislation