Low Interest Rates and International Banking (2020-)

The purpose of this IBRN initiative is to enhance our insights on the consequences of low or even negative interest rates for banks, both from a domestic and from an international perspective. We use confidential and publicly available data for a large set of countries that have experienced historically low nominal and real interest rates in recent years and examine their impact on bank profitability, bank funding and lending as well cross-border banking flows. These consequences are of interest for monetary policy as well as micro- and macroprudential supervision since they can affect the transmission of monetary policy and the viability of bank business models.

International Banking: Integration or Fragmentation? (2020-)

The purpose of this IBRN initiative is to examine the role of international trade and non-financial foreign direct investment (FDI) in driving international banking activities. Foreign-trade and FDI events can change the demand for banking services and the risk profiles of non-financial borrowers. The initiative considers how banks respond to such changes through their supply of services. The identification of these events relies on the study of episodes when changes in restrictions on foreign trade and FDI took place, including changes to cross-country bilateral or multilateral agreements, as well as more restrictive trade or investment regimes.

Complexity in International Banking: Patterns and Implications for Risk (2018-2021)

The IBRN initiative on complexity and risk aims to put together a comprehensive set of variables to assess the complexity of banks' activities and its adjustment along the extensive margin. Complexity can be measured by the opacity of banks' balance sheets, the number of entities and the composition of its businesses as well as its geographic reach. Building on this set of variables, the initiative also tries to assess the impact of complexity and changes thereof on bank risk.
List of Publications

The Interaction between Macroprudential Policy and Monetary Policy (2018-20)

The IBRN initiative on the interaction between macroprudential policy and monetary policy aims to examine the policy interaction and transmission from three different perspectives. The outward perspective examines whether the transmission of monetary policy through foreign lending from one country to another depends on the receiving country's macroprudential policy. The inward perspective asks whether the transmission of foreign monetary policy on domestic lending depends on domestic macroprudential policy. An examination of domestic interactions and transmission aims to assess the domestic transmission of macroprudential policies when they interact with monetary policy.
List of Publications

The international transmission of monetary policy: Financial linkages and domestic policy responses (2016-17)

This project of the IBRN investigates the impact of conventional and unconventional monetary policy actions on (domestic and international) bank lending, using each country team’s individual bank-level data set. Country teams provide evidence from the point of view of the base country and from the recipient country. In this sense, the project will examine outward and inward transmission. Researchers focus on the period from 2000 through 2015, capturing a number of distinct monetary policy regimes.

Cross-Border Prudential Policy Spillovers: How Much? How Important? (2014-16)

The IBRN’s second research topic explores the changing scale, type, and location of banking activity stemming from shifts in micro- and macroprudential regulatory policy. The initiative considers how bank lending responds to prudential policies implemented in home and foreign markets. Researchers examine evidence on the inward transmission of policy changes to the domestic economy as well as outward spillovers to foreign economies.

International Banking and Liquidity Risk Transmission: Lessons from across Countries (2013)

Activities of international banks have been at the core of discussions on the causes and effects of the international financial crisis. Yet we know little about the actual magnitudes of and mechanisms of liquidity shocks transmitted through international banks, including the reasons for heterogeneity in transmission. The IBRN’s first joint research initiative is based on empirical studies conducted in eleven countries to explore liquidity risk transmission.

DATA

Comparative and comparable research across countries require equivalency in data. Projects of the IBRN have their starting point with regulatory, bank-level data that are available in central banks or other supervisory agencies. Often, additional data on policy measures are needed in order to obtain comparable results. In the course of their work, IBRN participants have been involved in significant efforts to integrate and standardize data from diverse sources and are committed to making the tools and results publicly available.

Macroprudential Database

The instruments covered include different types of prudential regulations: capital requirements, concentration limits, interbank exposure limits, loan-to-value ratio limits, and changes in reserve requirements. To construct this database, the IBRN and IMF collaboratively worked with regulatory sources in the individual countries, and extended and utilized the Global Macro Prudential Instruments (GMPI) survey which the IMF conducted in 2013. Stress tests, which may give incentives for banks to adjust their foreign exposures, are not covered in this project. Changes in reserve requirements are included since they are sometimes used explicitly by countries for prudential purposes, instead of as monetary policy instruments. The current version of the database covers the period between 2000 and 2018.

For an overview, see Eugenio Cerrutti, Ricardo Correa, Elisabetta Fiorentino, and Esther Segalla, “Changes in Prudential Policy Instruments—A New Cross-Country Database,” International Journal of Central Banking 11, no. 2 (2017).

Download the database

RELATED ACTIVITIES

International Banking Library
The Halle Institute for Economic Research, together with scholars associated with the IBRN, launched the International Banking Library, which offers access to data sources, theoretical and empirical research on global banking themes, and information on regulatory initiatives.