Mr.Ralph Chami

Mr.Raphael A. Espinoza

Mr.Heiko Hesse

Mr.Adolfo Barajas

This paper examines the recent credit slowdown among Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries from three analytical angles. First, it finds that, similar to other regions and to its past history, a credit boom preceded the current slowdown, and that a protracted period of sluggish growth is likely going forward. Second, it uncovers a key role played by bank funding (deposit growth and external borrowing slowed considerably) but whose effect was frequently dampened by expansionary monetary policy. Third, bank-level fundamentals - capitalization and loan quality - helped to explain differences in credit growth across banks and countries.

What to Expect? What Can Be Done?

Recent Credit Stagnation in the Mena Region

Mr.Peter Montiel

Ms.Dalia Hakura

This paper investigates the impact of workers’ remittances on equilibrium real exchange rates (ERER) in recipient economies. Using a small open economy model, it shows that standard "Dutch Disease" results of appreciation are substantially weakened or even overturned depending on: degree of openness; factor mobility between domestic sectors; counter cyclicality of remittances; the share of consumption in tradables; and the sensitivity of a country’s risk premium to remittance flows. Panel cointegration techniques on a large set of countries provide support for these analytical results, and show that ERER appreciation in response to sustained remittance flows tends to be quantitatively small.

Theory and Evidence

Workers’ Remittances and the Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate

Jun Ma

Mr.Thomas F. Cosimano

Ms.Celine Rochon

The recent fnancial crisis highlighted the role of Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) in exacerbating the crisis and in transmitting monetary policy beyond the local economy to global markets. Yet, little is known about their behavior, as most models of banking typically focus on banks with a loan desk. We develop a dynamic model of a BHC that encompasses both a trading desk and a loan desk, and explore the role of risk attitude and overleveraging by the trading desk. We trace the impact of monetary policy and market innovations on bank behavior in the presence of Basel III type regulations. To our knowledge, this is a first such exercise. We show that the value of the BHC is enhanced by operating both desks, even if they both are subject to common market shocks. We explore alternative regulatory remedies to ongoing efforts to ring-fence the proprietary trading business, and show that regulations that target bank governance can mitigate possible rogue trading and the overleveraging problem.

What’s Different about Bank Holding Companies?

Julieta Yung

Investors seek to hedge against interest rate risk by taking long or short positions on bonds of different maturities. We study changes in risk taking behavior in a low interest rate environment by estimating a market stochastic discount factor that is non-linear and therefore consistent with the empirical properties of cashflow valuations identified in the literature. We provide evidence that non-linearities arise from hedging strategies of investors exposed to interest rate risk. Capital losses are amplified when interest rates increase and risk averse investors have taken positions on instruments with longer maturity, expecting instead interest rates to revert back to their historical average.

Riding the Yield Curve: Risk Taking Behavior in a Low Interest Rate Environment

Mr.Ralph Chami

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