How well designed are the financial regulations that have been imposed after the global financial crisis in 2008–09 and the subsequent euro crisis? Will the new bail-in rules work in a systemic crisis, or do we risk further costly bail-outs by governments? How does monetary policy influence household debt? Have macroprudential tools been well-calibrated? Answers to these questions are crucial for judging the risks that the current corona crisis might also trigger a new financial crisis. The 2020 issue of the Nordic Economic Policy Review consists of six papers, including an introduction by editors Lars Calmfors and Peter Englund.

This book deals with the challenges of macro financial linkages in the emerging markets.

The October 2019 Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) identifies the current key vulnerabilities in the global financial system as the rise in corporate debt burdens, increasing holdings of riskier and more illiquid assets by institutional investors, and growing reliance on external borrowing by emerging and frontier market economies. The report proposes that policymakers mitigate these risks through stricter supervisory and macroprudential oversight of firms, strengthened oversight and disclosure for institutional investors, and the implementation of prudent sovereign debt management practices and frameworks for emerging and frontier market economies.

Extraordinary policy measures have eased financial conditions and supported the economy, helping to contain financial stability risks. Chapter 1 warns that there is a pressing need to act to avoid a legacy of vulnerabilities while avoiding a broad tightening of financial conditions. Actions taken during the pandemic may have unintended consequences such as stretched valuations and rising financial vulnerabilities. The recovery is also expected to be asynchronous and divergent between advanced and emerging market economies. Given large external financing needs, several emerging markets face challenges, especially if a persistent rise in US rates brings about a repricing of risk and tighter financial conditions. The corporate sector in many countries is emerging from the pandemic overindebted, with notable differences depending on firm size and sector. Concerns about the credit quality of hard-hit borrowers and profitability are likely to weigh on the risk appetite of banks. Chapter 2 studies leverage in the nonfinancial private sector before and during the COVID-19 crisis, pointing out that policymakers face a trade-off between boosting growth in the short term by facilitating an easing of financial conditions and containing future downside risks. This trade-off may be amplified by the existing high and rapidly building leverage, increasing downside risks to future growth. The appropriate timing for deployment of macroprudential tools should be country-specific, depending on the pace of recovery, vulnerabilities, and policy tools available. Chapter 3 turns to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the commercial real estate sector. While there is little evidence of large price misalignments at the onset of the pandemic, signs of overvaluation have now emerged in some economies. Misalignments in commercial real estate prices, especially if they interact with other vulnerabilities, increase downside risks to future growth due to the possibility of sharp price corrections.

An integrated analysis of how financial frictions can be accounted for in macroeconomic models built to study monetary policy and macroprudential regulation. Since the global financial crisis, there has been a renewed effort to emphasize financial frictions in designing closed- and open-economy macroeconomic models for monetary and macroprudential policy analysis. Drawing on the extensive literature of the past decade as well as his own contributions, in this book Pierre-Richard Age&́nor provides a unified set of theoretical and quantitative macroeconomic models with financial frictions to explore issues that have emerged in the wake of the crisis. These include the need to understand better how the financial system amplifies and propagates shocks originating elsewhere in the economy; how it can itself be a source of aggregate fluctuations; the extent to which central banks should account for financial stability considerations in the conduct of monetary policy; whether national central banks and regulators should coordinate their policies to promote macroeconomic and financial stability; and how much countercyclical macroprudential policies should be coordinated at the international level to mitigate financial spillovers across countries.

The G20 meeting in London in spring 2009 was a historical moment of global cooperation to deal with the global financial crisis. This book collects essays from leading economists, first presented as an eBook in January 2009, advocating many of the policies that were eventually agreed on, including the headline-grabbing global fiscal stimulus. But it goes further, calling for: Reforms to address global imbalances by a) creating insurance mechanisms for countries that forgo reserve accumulation and stimulate domestic expansion; and b) accelerating the development of financial systems in emerging markets. Macroeconomic policy to meet any threat of deflation promptly, with a zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing, and an inflation target to avoid expectations of deflation. Adjustment of the Basel II capital requirements to mitigate procyclicality. Creation of a centralised clearing counterparty for credit default swap trades. Severing the link between credit rating agencies and issuers and monitoring the former's power. Establishment of a harmonised bankruptcy regime for banks that gives regulators strong powers over bank managers and shareholders before the bank is technically insolvent, especially in the case of cross-border banks. Creation of an International Financial Stability Fund that takes equity positions in the financial institutions of participating countries and monitors their activities. Many of these suggestions are still being debated today.

"In the wake of the global financial crisis that began in 2008, offers a systematic overview of recent developments in regulatory frameworks in advanced and emerging-market countries, outlining challenges to improving regulation, markets, and access in developing economies"--Provided by publisher.