F33 - International Monetary Arrangements and InstitutionsReturn

Using developing countries in Europe for context, this study examines the complex relationship between financial crises and financial integration. We use panel data comprising 37 countries in Europe, including Iceland, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, and Russia from 2000-2019 and the general method of moments. Our findings show that there is a positive relationship between financial integration and development and economic growth. In addition, the results suggest that a higher degree of financial integration is not necessarily increasing financial fragility during a financial crisis. Therefore, the results show that it is a self-defeating policy for developing countries to apply a strategy of financial protectionism over a financial crisis.

The paper examines determinants of sovereign bond spreads (in relation to Germany) of the peripheral euro area countries in the period 2007Q3-2015Q3. The study indicates that the introduction of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs) by the ECB in the third quarter of 2012 led to a change in the sensitivity of the spreads to the developments of certain macroeconomic fundamentals of these economies. In particular, the ratio of public debt to GDP, which significantly and strongly determined the spreads in the period 2007Q3-2012Q2, proved to be insignificant in the period 2012Q3-2015Q3. In addition, the counterfactual analysis carried out shows that the spreads in the analysed countries would have been much higher if the ECB had not decided to introduce this programme.

Computed fundamental real exchange rates in four new EU members point to difficulties in jointly entering the ERM II soon after the EU entry. Three currencies out of the four were overvalued prior to EU entry. Computations suggest that it is unlikely that the Czech, Hungarian and Polish economies will maintain low inflation during 2004 - 2010 and at the same time keep their currencies within the ERM II easily. Moreover, the experience of Greece, Portugal and Spain - viewed through fundamental real exchange rate goggles - indicates more stable real exchange rate paths and smaller currency misalignments prior to euro adoption than can be expected from the newcomers in the forthcoming years. If the newcomers sail too fast towards the euro, their sailing may not be as smooth as that of the front runners.

The issue of determining inter-market foreign exchange flows under dual exchange markets has been hotly debated. Typically the literature has concentrated on the behavior of the financial premium, leaving aside equally important aspects such the reasons for and characteristics of incomplete separation. Our analytical results suggest that cross transactions arise as long as the government changes the commercial rate. Time inconsistency of policy brings opportunity for leakages between two markets. We also find that the more patient the government, the less likely the occurrence of commercial depreciation and leakages will be. Then reputation could be as a deterrent to leakages

Since the mid-1990s, the IMF has provided large financial assistance to a number of member countries affected by serious financial and exchange rate crises. Because of the unprecedented size of these packages and possible negative side effects, the desirability of such assistance has become a hotly discussed issue. A consensus is now forming that official lending to country in crisis should not cease completely, but at the same time, official funds cannot be expected to fill in any existing financing gap. The article evaluates the risk of moral hazard connected with IMF lending. Although the substantial assistance inevitably influences the behavior and expectations of all players, there is little support for argument that lending created serious moral hazard. The role of the IMF conditionality as the traditional tool of reducing moral hazard is described in the circumstances of the new capital account developments.