G18 - General Financial Markets: Government Policy and RegulationNávrat zpět

This paper deals with the problem of how the risk perception among retail customers is affected by the consumer protection regulation on the financial market. Through a questionnaire survey, we have measured the effect of selected consumer protection measures on banking or investment decisions taken by a young (student) population. These measures included the most common elements of financial regulation, such as bank deposit insurance, corporate bond prospectus, licenced fund management and securities broker indemnity insurance. Our results show that protective state intervention represents strong stimuli for customer decision-making with a widely misleading effect. It overshadows other factors, including individual qualification, risk-reward preference and demographic attributes, all of which were found to be insignificant. Since the surveyed measures reached a similar level of effect yet they offer different substance, this outcome has important policymaking implications.

We explore the procyclicality of monetary policy decisions towards the financial cycle in the 1995-2015 period on a sample of seven central banks. Using the real interest rate gap and the credit-to-GDP gap, we provide evidence that monetary policy procyclicality is a material issue occurring in more than 50% of observations in expansionary phase of financial cycle. It indicates that the central bank faces conflicting objectives of price and financial stability (as proxied by cyclical systemic risk). Nevertheless, taking into consideration all financial cycle phases, complementariness between price and financial stability is more frequent than cases with conflicting objectives in the UK, Euro Area and the US. The occurrence of potential procyclical behaviour of monetary policy (especially in the financial cycle expansion phases) underlines the need for proactive macroprudential policy.

This study offers a scientific and methodical approach to identifying systemically important domestic banks based on the indicator-based measurement approach recommended by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. By improving both a set of criteria and indicators of a bank's systemic importance it is offered to distinguish its five levels - low, moderate, medium, significant and high. The approach was tested on 26 Ukrainian banks representing different groups (depending on the size of assets) according to the classification of the National Bank of Ukraine. We have discovered the absence of banks with high systemic importance in the period 2007-2011 - the majo-rity of banks are characterized by their moderate or low level. In our opinion, the best solution for systemic risk regulation would be the introduction of a differentiated regime of supervision over banks depending on their level of systemic importance and risk profile.

The 2007-2009 global financial turmoil was exacerbated by a low level of financial market regulatory coordination. Historical experience has shown that despite implementing regulations, supervision and macroeconomic policies, the financial industry regularly experiences crises. Consequently, a similar impact might be expected from the Basel III new bank regulatory framework. The aim of this paper is two-fold; in the first part dedicated to theory we describe the Basel III regulatory standards and argue that this regulation is not sufficient and will not prevent financial markets from experiencing future crises. Moreover, we discuss implementation of new banking regulation in Europe: the Capital Requirements Directive IV and stricter capital requirements for European banks set by the European Banking Authority in 2011. In the second part, we focus on an empirical analysis of the impact of stricter capital requirements as defined in the Basel III framework on the market value of European banks. Our analysis employs the fixed effects methodology on the financial data collected from 172 banks listed on European stock exchanges during the 2005-2011 period. We conclude that the impact of the Basel III regulation on the value of bank shares will probably be perceived negatively by the market, which could be reflected in a drop in the market value of the observed banks.

This essay describes the Czech pension system, provides a brief history of its modern transformation and mentions some of its drawbacks which should be the subject of a future policy debate. Particular attention is devoted to the third pillar and to the importance of a well-functioning capital market as one of the key conditions for the further development of funded pillars. The question of the timing of the enhancement of the funded pillars in a robustly growing economy with a limited capital market is opened. A lack of new private shares and bonds issues on the domestic capital market may be one of the arguments for postponement of the funded pillars' strengthening. A focus of policymakers who will set up the pension system reform strategy should be concentrated on comparing transitional and transaction costs of each reform alternative and on the building of an efficient regulatory and supervisory infrastructure. They should, instead of enforcing involuntary savings in pension funds, seek measures that will help to create a savings-friendly and growth-oriented economic environment.

This paper describes the development and the current state of debt management in the Czech Republic. The basic principles on which it was built during the1990s and the importance of the monetary and fiscal policy co-ordination in effective debt management implementation are discussed. The authors try to explain the main factors that are behind the substantial state debt increases in the course of several recent years and to discuss some of the topical issues connected to the debt management targets and procedures. The paper provides a basic description of the instruments used and the conceptual and institutional framework of the Czech Republic debt management system with a particular emphasis on the role of the central bank.

The article presents an empirically tested assessment of the Bank of Slovenia (BS), national central bank, adjustment policy to surges in capital flows during the last decade. Exchange rate appreciation, undeveloped banking sector, immoderate money market oscillation, unstable economic trends (all phenomena that can also be found in other transition countries) are just some of the detrimental effects that can be provoked by surges in capital flows if the national economy is faced with some fundamental sectoral deficiencies. Empirical results indicated that BS quite successfully mitigated listed effects of excessive foreign currency inflows during the last decade. With the suitable combination of direct and indirect adjustment methods, BS succeeded in preventing, still vulnerable Slovenian economy from a major form of financial crisis and stronger nominal tolar appreciation (this was not the case in some other countries like Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Croatia) although there was some real appreciation.