In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, it is hard to find any macroeconomic policy report that does not include some reference to financial stability or systemic risk and the resulting need for “macroprudential policies.” While there is a large and growing literature on macroprudential policies and financial stability, less attention has been paid to how macroprudential policies may facilitate macroeconomic stabilization in the presence of large capital flows. To fill such a gap, this report looks at the use of reserve requirements (RR) as a macroprudential tool. Its findings should be of particular interest to emerging market economists and policymakers that are faced with difficult questions regarding how to cope effectively with volatile capital flows. The analysis builds upon a new dataset on quarterly RR covering a large number of industrial and developing countries for the period 1970-2011. It finds that while no industrial country has resorted to active RR policy since 2004, almost half of developing countries have. Indeed, together with interest rates adjustments and forex interventions, RR seem to be an important component of a trio of policy instruments that developing countries have relied upon to navigate through the boom-bust cycles driven by capital flows. The ultimate reason for resorting to RR lies essentially on the procyclical behavior of the exchange rate over the business cycle in developing countries (with the currency depreciating in bad times and appreciating in good times) that complicates enormously the use of interest rates as a countercyclical instrument. Under such circumstances, RR are an effective instrument that can be used countercyclically when concerns about the effects of interest rates on the exchange rate become paramount. Finally, the report suggests that while, from a macroprudential point of view, the most common macroprudential instruments are equivalent, from a microprudential one they are not. Conflicts may thus arise between the micro- and macro-prudential policy stances. In addition, the overall design of macroprudential policies should follow a careful analysis of the role that different financial frictions play in various environments since similar symptoms can reflect very different underlying forces.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, it is hard to find any macroeconomic policy report that does not include some reference to financial stability or systemic risk and the resulting need for macroprudential policies. While there is a large and growing literature on macroprudential policies and financial stability, less attention has been paid to how macroprudential policies may facilitate macroeconomic stabilization in the presence of large capital flows. To fill such a gap, this report looks at the use of reserve requirements (RR) as a macroprudential tool. Its findings should be of particular interest to emerging market economists and policymakers that are faced with difficult questions regarding how to cope effectively with volatile capital flows. The analysis builds upon a new dataset on quarterly RR covering a large number of industrial and developing countries for the period 1970-2011. It finds that while no industrial country has resorted to active RR policy since 2004, almost half of developing countries have. Indeed, together with interest rates adjustments and forex interventions, RR seem to be an important component of a trio of policy instruments that developing countries have relied upon to navigate through the boom-bust cycles driven by capital flows. The ultimate reason for resorting to RR lies essentially on the procyclical behavior of the exchange rate over the business cycle in developing countries (with the currency depreciating in bad times and appreciating in good times) that complicates enormously the use of interest rates as a countercyclical instrument. Under such circumstances, RR are an effective instrument that can be used countercyclically when concerns about the effects of interest rates on the exchange rate become paramount. Finally, the report suggests that while, from a macroprudential point of view, the most common macroprudential instruments are equivalent, from a microprudential one they are not. Conflicts may thus arise between the micro- and macro-prudential policy stances. In addition, the overall design of macroprudential policies should follow a careful analysis of the role that different financial frictions play in various environments since similar symptoms can reflect very different underlying forces.

Using a new, large data set on quarterly reserve requirements for the period 1970-2011, this paper provides new evidence on the use of reserve requirements as a countercyclical macroprudential tool in developing countries. The appeal of reserve requirements lies in the pro-cyclical behavior of the exchange rate over the business cycle in developing countries. This enormously complicates the use of interest rates as a countercyclical instrument (because of its effect on the exchange rate) and calls for a second instrument. The paper suggests that conflicts may arise between the microprudential and macroprudential policy stances.

Macroprudential policies – caps on loan to value ratios, limits on credit growth and other balance sheets restrictions, (countercyclical) capital and reserve requirements and surcharges, and Pigouvian levies – have become part of the policy paradigm in emerging markets and advanced countries alike. But knowledge is still limited on these tools. Macroprudential policies ought to be motivated by market failures and externalities, but these can be hard to identify. They can also interact with various other policies, such as monetary and microprudential, raising coordination issues. Some countries, especially emerging markets, have used these tools and analyses suggest that some can reduce procyclicality and crisis risks. Yet, much remains to be studied, including tools’ costs ? by adversely affecting resource allocations; how to best adapt tools to country circumstances; and preferred institutional designs, including how to address political economy risks. As such, policy makers should move carefully in adopting tools.

Macro-prudential policies aimed at mitigating systemic financial risks have become part of the policy toolkit in many emerging markets and some advanced countries. Their effectiveness and efficacy are not well-known, however. Using panel data regressions, we analyze how changes in balance sheets of some 2,800 banks in 48 countries over 2000–2010 respond to specific macro-prudential policies. Controlling for endogeneity, we find that measures aimed at borrowers––caps on debt-to-income and loan-to-value ratios––and at financial institutions––limits on credit growth and foreign currency lending––are effective in reducing asset growth. Countercyclical buffers are little effective through the cycle, and some measures are even counterproductive during downswings, serving to aggravate declines, consistent with the ex-ante nature of macro-prudential tools.

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 Agénor 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. Agénor focuses on upper middle-income countries, which differ from advanced economies in terms of both their structural features (which include a financial sector dominated by banks, weak supervisory capacity, and a high degree of vulnerability to external shocks) and their long-standing policy challenges (such as managing volatile capital flows). Some of the analytical insights and broad policy lessons that can be drawn from the book will be of relevance to advanced economies as well.

Using a recent IMF survey and expanding on previous studies, we document the use of macroprudential policies for 119 countries over the 2000-13 period, covering many instruments. Emerging economies use macroprudential policies most frequently, especially foreign exchange related ones, while advanced countries use borrower-based policies more. Usage is generally associated with lower growth in credit, notably in household credit. Effects are less in financially more developed and open economies, however, and usage comes with greater cross-border borrowing, suggesting some avoidance. And while macroprudential policies can help manage financial cycles, they work less well in busts.