This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. 2 | ECO/WKP(2020)21 CAPITAL FLOW DEFLECTION UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS Unclassified OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the author(s). Working Papers describe preliminary results or research in progress by the author(s) and are published to stimulate discussion on a broad range of issues on which the OECD works.
The OECD Economic Policy Paper Series is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries.
Complete document available on OLIS in its original format This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. ECO/WKP(2016)64 Unclassified English-Or. English ECO/WKP(2016)64 2 OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the author. Working Papers describe preliminary results or research in progress by the author(s) and are published to stimulate discussion on a broad range of issues on which the OECD works.
Leveraging on a new quarterly dataset of capital control adjustments, we find renewed evidence that the introduction or tightening of capital controls in one economy increases capital inflows to other similar borrowing economies, an effect often called capital flow deflection. However, not all flows are deflected alike. Capital flow deflection is primarily driven by portfolio investment and bank credit, and only controls targeting these types of flows generate this externality. Moreover, analysing bilateral capital flows in order to capture investing countries' characteristics, we find that capital controls tend to deflect flows from advanced economies' portfolio equity investors, while controls on bank‐related flows primarily deflects lending from emerging market banks.
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the nexus between banks’ foreign assets and sovereign default risk in a panel of 15 developed economies. The empirical evidence suggests that banks’ foreign exposure is an important determinant of sovereign default probability.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from the consolidated banking statistics (total foreign claims on ultimate risk basis) by the Bank of International Settlements, the author constructs a measure of bank international exposure to peer countries. This measure is then used as the target variable in a panel regression for sovereign credit default swaps. The model includes 15 European and non-European developed economies. Identification is discussed extensively in the paper.
Findings
Quantitatively, a 1% increase in banks’ cross-border claims increases sovereign default risk by about 0.19%. The relationship is weaker when banks are more capitalised. On the other hand, governments are more vulnerable to credit risk spillovers from banks’ international portfolios when having higher debt to GDP ratios.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper that attempts explicitly to establish an empirical connection between banks’ international assets and sovereign default risk. To the author’s opinion, this paper represents a contribution to our understanding of how sovereign credit risk spills over across countries. It also extends significantly the existing literature on the determinants of sovereign risk (that primarily focused on fundamentals, market characteristics – such as liquidity – and global factors). This paper ultimately sheds some new light on the role of intermediaries in the international transmission of credit risk, also adding to today’s discussion about the linkages between banks and sovereigns.
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