Leading indicators of crisis incidence: Evidence from developed countries

Abstract

MaRs is to develop core conceptual frameworks, models and/or tools supporting macro-prudential supervision in the EU. The research is carried out in three work streams: 1) Macro-financial models linking financial stability and the performance of the economy; 2) Early warning systems and systemic risk indicators; 3) Assessing contagion risks. MaRs is chaired by Philipp Hartmann (ECB). Paolo Angelini (Banca d'Italia), Laurent Clerc (Banque de France), Carsten Detken (ECB), Cornelia Holthausen (ECB) and Katerina Šmídková (Czech National Bank) are workstream coordinators. Xavier Freixas (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and Hans Degryse (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Tilburg University) act as external consultant. Angela Maddaloni (ECB) and Kalin Nikolov (ECB) share responsibility for the MaRs Secretariat. The refereeing process of this paper has been coordinated by a team composed of Cornelia Holthausen, Kalin Nikolov and Bernd Schwaab (all ECB). The paper is released in order to make the research of MaRs generally available, in preliminary form, to encourage comments and suggestions prior to final publication. The views expressed in the paper are the ones of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB or of the ESCB. Acknowledgements 1 AbstractWe search for early warning indicators that could indicate important risks in developed economies. We therefore examine which indicators are most useful in explaining costly macroeconomic developments following the occurrence of economic crises in EU and OECD countries between 1970 and 2010. To define our dependent variable, we bring together a (continuous) measure of crisis incidence, which combines the output and employment loss and the fiscal deficit into an index of real costs, with a (discrete) database of crisis occurrence. In contrast to recent studies, we explicitly take into account model uncertainty in two steps. First, for each potential leading indicator, we select the relevant prediction horizon by using panel vector autoregression. Second, we identify the most useful leading indicators with Bayesian model averaging. Our results suggest that domestic housing prices, share prices, and credit growth, and some global variables, such as private credit, are risk factors worth monitoring in developed economies. When the global turmoil demonstrated that developed economies can be also among those hit significantly by a crisis, it was not obvious whether the previously identified early warning indicators should be employed again. We try to take up this challenge and contribute to the early warning literature by focusing solely on developed economies and by offering several methodological improvements for explaining crisis incidence.In the first step, we refine the measure of the real costs of crises to the economy by combining a continuous index of real costs with a binary index of crisis occurrence. The continuous index reflects the output and employment loss along with the fiscal deficit, while the binary index captures the occurrence of various (bank...

Macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in the European Union, with particular reference to transition countries

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Comparing logit-based early warning systems: Does the duration of systemic banking crises matter?

“…On the one hand, banking crises are more persistent than currency crises as they tend to last longer (Babecký et al, 2013). On the other hand, due to the credit crunch and the generalized loss of confidence that typically accompany a banking crisis, economic recovery takes longer than after a currency crisis (Frydl, 1999), disproportionately affecting…”

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