Mr.Gee Hee Hong

Jochen M. Schmittmann

Mr.Koshy Mathai

Mr.Geoff Gottlieb

Sung Eun Jung

Jiangyan Yu

China’s trade patterns are evolving. While it started in light manufacturing and the assembly of more sophisticated products as part of global supply chains, China is now moving up the value chain, “onshoring” the production of higher-value-added upstream products and moving into more sophisticated downstream products as well. At the same time, with its wages rising, it has started to exit some lower-end, more labor-intensive sectors. These changes are taking place in the broader context of China’s rebalancing—away from exports and toward domestic demand, and within the latter, away from investment and toward consumption—and as a consequence, demand for some commodity imports is slowing, while consumption imports are slowly rising. The evolution of Chinese trade, investment, and consumption patterns offers opportunities and challenges to low-wage, low-income countries, including China’s neighbors in the Mekong region. Cambodia, Lao P.D.R., Myanmar, and Vietnam (the CLMV) are all open economies that are highly integrated with China. Rebalancing in China may mean less of a role for commodity exports from the region, but at the same time, the CLMV’s low labor costs suggest that manufacturing assembly for export could take off as China becomes less competitive, and as China itself demands more consumption items. Labor costs, however, are only part of the story. The CLMV will need to strengthen their infrastructure, education, governance, and trade regimes, and also run sound macro policies in order to capitalize fully on the opportunities presented by China’s transformation. With such policy efforts, the CLMV could see their trade and integration with global supply chains grow dramatically in the coming years.

China's Changing Trade and the Implications for the CLMV

Mr.Jorge A. Chan-Lau

MissEstelle X. Liu

This study finds that equity returns in the banking sector in the wake of the Great Recession and the European sovereign debt crisis have been driven mainly by weak growth prospects and heightened sovereign risk and to a lesser extent, by deteriorating funding conditions and investor sentiment. While the equity return performance in the banking sector has been dismal in general, better capitalized and less leveraged banks have outperformed their peers, a finding that supports policymakers’ efforts to strengthen bank capitalization.

Equity Returns in the Banking Sector in the Wake of the Great Recession and the European Sovereign Debt Crisis

Miss Hélène Poirson

For a sample of 83 financial institutions during 2003–2011, this paper attempts to answer three questions: first, what is the evolution of banks’ stock price exposure to country-level and global risk factors as approximated by equity indices; second, which bank-specific characteristics explain these risk exposures; third, are there clusters of banks with equity price linkages beyond market risk factors. The paper finds a rise in sensitivities to both country and global risk factors in 2011, although on average to levels still below those of the subprime crisis. The average sensitivity to European risk, specifically, has been steadily rising since 2008. Banks that are reliant on wholesale funding, have weaker capital levels and low valuations, and higher exposures to crisis countries are found to be the most vulnerable to shocks. The analysis of bank-to-bank linkages suggests that any “globalization” of the euro area crisis is likely to be channelled through U.K. and U.S. banks, with little evidence of direct spillover effects to other regions.

Bank-Level Evidence

Risk Exposures and Financial Spillovers in Tranquil and Crisis Times

Jochen M. Schmittmann

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