In the presence of adverse macroeconomic shocks, simultaneous capital losses in multiple banks can prompt them to contract their balance sheets. These bank responses generate externalities that propagate in the form of macro-financial feedback loops. This paper develops a credit response and externalities analysis model (CREAM) that integrates a disaggregated banking sector into an otherwise standard macroeconomic structural vector autoregressive model. It shows that accounting for macro-financial feedback loops can significantly affect macroeconomic outcomes and bank-specific stress tests results. The heterogeneity in bank lending responses matters: it determines how each bank fares under adverse conditions and the external effects that banks impose on each other and on economic activity. The model can thus be used to assess the contributions of individual banks to systemic risk along the time dimension.

This paper explains specifics of stress testing at the IMF. After a brief section on the evolution of stress tests at the IMF, the paper presents the key steps of an IMF staff stress test. They are followed by a discussion on how IMF staff uses stress tests results for policy advice. The paper concludes by identifying remaining challenges to make stress tests more useful for the monitoring of financial stability and an overview of IMF staff work program in that direction. Stress tests help assess the resilience of financial systems in IMF member countries and underpin policy advice to preserve or restore financial stability. This assessment and advice are mainly provided through the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP). IMF staff also provide technical assistance in stress testing to many its member countries. An IMF macroprudential stress test is a methodology to assess financial vulnerabilities that can trigger systemic risk and the need of systemwide mitigating measures. The definition of systemic risk as used by the IMF is relevant to understanding the role of its stress tests as tools for financial surveillance and the IMF’s current work program. IMF stress tests primarily apply to depository intermediaries, and, systemically important banks.

Credibility is the bedrock of any crisis stress test. The use of stress tests to manage systemic risk was introduced by the U.S. authorities in 2009 in the form of the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program. Since then, supervisory authorities in other jurisdictions have also conducted similar exercises. In some of those cases, the design and implementation of certainelements of the framework have been criticized for their lack of credibility. This paper proposes a set of guidelines for constructing an effective crisis stress test. It combines financial markets impact studies of previous exercises with relevant case study information gleaned from those experiences to identify the key elements and to formulate their appropriate design. Pertinent concepts, issues and nuances particular to crisis stress testing are also discussed. The findings may be useful for country authorities seeking to include stress tests in their crisis management arsenal, as well as for the design of crisis programs.

Macroprudential stress testing (MaPST) is becoming firmly embedded in the post-crisis policy-frameworks of financial-sectors around the world. MaPSTs can offer quantitative, forward-looking assessments of the resilience of financial systems as a whole, to particularly adverse shocks. Therefore, they are well suited to support the surveillance of macrofinancial vulnerabilities and to inform the use of macroprudential policy-instruments. This report summarizes the findings of a joint-research effort by MCM and the Systemic-Risk-Centre, which aimed at (i) presenting state-of-the-art approaches on MaPST, including modeling and implementation-challenges; (ii) providing a roadmap for future-research, and; (iii) discussing the potential uses of MaPST to support policy.

Stress testing is becoming a widely used tool to assess potential vulnerabilities in a financial system. This booklet is intended to answer some of the basic questions that may arise as part of the process of stress testing. The pamphlet begins with a discussion of stress testing in a financial system context, highlighting some of the differences between stress tests of systems and of individual portfolios. The booklet provides an overview of the process itself, from identifying vulnerabilities, to constructing scenarios, to interpreting the results. The experience of the IMF in conducting stress testing as part of the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) is also discussed.

This paper reviews empirical and theoretical work on the links between banks and their governments (the bank-sovereign nexus). How significant is this nexus? What do we know about it? To what extent is it a source of concern? What is the role of policy intervention? The paper concludes with a review of recent policy proposals.

This paper studies the transmission of bank capital shocks to loan supply in Indonesia. A series of theoretically founded dynamic panel data models are estimated and find nonlinear effects of capital on loan growth: the response of weaker banks to changes in their capital positions is larger than that of stronger banks. This non-linearity implies that not only the level of capital but also its distribution across banks in the financial system affects the transmission of shocks to aggregate lending. Likewise, the effects of bank recapitalization on loan growth depend on banks’ starting capital positions and the size of capital injections.