<p>Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att klargöra hur omvärlden hanterar det skuldproblem som blir allt mer omfattande i många utvecklingsländer. Många afrikanska länder söder om Sahara har fastnat i en fattigdomsfälla och är i desperat behov av förändring. Det globala finansiella systemet, med IMF i spetsen, har uppmärksammat detta problem och genom omstruktureringar och avskrivningar av skulderna vill de ge länderna en möjlighet att komma på fötter igen. Många svårigheter uppkommer när externa parter kommer in och ska lösa skuldproblemen åt länderna. Hänsyn måste tas till de som har givit lånen, såväl som till de skuldsatta ländernas ekonomiska struktur. Min frågeställning i denna uppsats rör hur det finansiella systemet hanterar skuldkrisen och om det skulle kunna finnas bättre alternativ till de processer som används idag. Genom min avhandling kom jag fram till att det kommer att krävas att en extern part är närvarande i förhandlingarna mellan långivare och låntagare för att undvika obalans och orättvisa. Det som framförallt måste ändras är dock att göra de huvudsakliga aktörerna, långivarna och låntagarna, mer delaktiga i processerna för att bättre resultat ska uppnås.</p>

I study bailout policy in open economies and the relationship between openness and institutions. Chapter 1 studies jointly optimal bailout policy and monetary policy in open economies. I document that countries with larger foreign currency liability/GDP ratio before financial crises underwent larger currency devaluation, inflation and bailout in crises. I build a quantitative open economy model with both nominal rigidities and financial frictions. Using the model, I show that in a world without bailout while currency mismatch effect is present, larger foreign currency liability before crises calls for smaller currency devaluation in crises, embracing the notion of ``fear of floating''. The incorporation of optimal government bailout, whose cost needs to be financed by inflation tax, can overturn the above negative relationship between foreign currency liability and currency devaluation, delivering results consistent with the empirical findings. Finally, I use firm level data to show that whether firms suffer from currency mismatch effect or not during crises hinges on their chance of obtaining bailout. Chapter 2 examines the joint dynamics of private and public external debt for countries. We develop a model with the co-occurrence of banking crisis and sovereign debt crisis in open economies, formalizing Reinhart and Rogoff (2011) findings ``from financial crash to debt crisis". External interest rate spikes or sudden stop shocks force banks to cut down debt position and fire-sale capital. The existence of frictions in bank equity market creates incentives for the government to initiate a bailout. The government bails out banks by increasing external borrowing and implementing fiscal austerity to undo inefficiencies in the private sector. Under optimal bailout scheme, the model generates diverging external debt dynamics for the private sector and the government during a crisis, as we document in the European data. Finally, we investigate two rationales for ex-ante macro-prudential regulations on private external debt: fire-sale externalities between banks and moral hazard by banks.Chapter 3 (joint with Shang-Jin Wei) explores the relationship between openness and institutions. Quality of public institutions has been recognized as a crucial determinant of macroeconomic outcomes. We propose that a country's intrinsic level of openness (due to population size, geography, or exogenous trade opportunities) affects its incentives in investing in better institutions. We present a simple theory and extensive empirical evidence validating the role of intrinsic openness in determining institutional quality. This suggests an indirect but important channel for globalization to improve welfare by raising the quality of institutions.

This dissertation comprises two essays that attempt to determine, empirically, the fiscal response of governments’ to international assistance. The first essay examines whether an increasingly popular recommendation in international aid policy to switch from tied foreign assistance to untied foreign assistance affects investment in critical development expenditure sectors by developing countries. In the past, most international aid has been in the form of tied assistance as donors believed that tying aid will improve its effectiveness. It has been argued, that if tied aid is well designed and effectively managed then its overall effectiveness can be improved. On the contrary, it is also believed that tied aid acts as an impediment to donor cooperation and the building of partnership with developing countries. In addition, it is also argued that it removes the ‘feeling’ of ownership and responsibility of projects from partner countries in aid supported development. Two other more popular arguments used to challenge the effectiveness of foreign aid is that it is compromised when tied to the goods and services of the donor countries because almost 30 percent of its value is eliminated and also because it does not allow recipient countries to act on their priorities for public spending. These problems bring into question whether tied aid is truly the most effective way to help poor countries. A recommendation by the international community is that a switch to untied aid would be necessary. With untied aid, the recipient country is not obligated to buy the goods of the donor country neither is it compelled to pursue the public expenditure priorities of donors. Instead with untied aid they will have greater flexibility over spending decisions and can more easily pursue the priorities of their countries as they see fit. Hence, one could expect that a one dollar increase in untied aid will increase spending in the critical priority sectors by more than a one dollar increase in tied assistance. The question therefore is whether national domestic priorities coincide or not with what the international community has traditionally deemed should be priority. Empirically, we test this prediction using country-by-country data for 57 countries for the period 1973 to 2006. The results suggest that on average untied aid has a greater impact on pro-poor spending than do tied aid. In addition, the results also suggest that fungibility is still an issue even after accounting for the effects of untied aid. However, one could argue that fungibility may not be as bad as it appears since the switch to untied aid improves spending in the sectors that are essential for growth and development. The second essay explores the hypothesis that the expectations of debt forgiveness can discourage developing countries from attaining fiscal independence through an improvement of their tax effort. On the one hand, the international financial community typically advises poor countries to improve revenue mobilization but, on the other hand, the same international community routinely continues to bail-out poor countries that fail to meet their loan repayment obligations. The act of bailing-out these countries creates an expectation on the part of developing country governments that they will receive debt forgiveness time and again in the future. Therefore, the expectation of future bail outs creates a moral hazard that leads to endemic lower tax efforts. The key prediction of our simple theoretical model is that in the presence of debt forgiveness, tax ratios will decline and this decline will be stronger the higher the frequency and intensity of the bailouts. Empirically, we test this prediction using country-level data for 66 countries for the period 1989 to 2006. The results strongly suggest that debt forgiveness plays a significant role in the low tax effort observed in developing countries. Our empirical model allows for the endogeneity of tax effort and debt forgiveness. Interestingly we find that more debt forgiveness is actually provided to countries with lower tax effort. The results are robust to various specifications.

This dissertation consists of two parts. The theme connecting the two parts is the role of uncertainty. The first part focuses on the role of uncertainty in cooperative bargaining and public decision making. I provide an axiomatic characterization of the normalized utilitarian solution to bargaining problems involving uncertainty. In addition to three basic axioms that are common in the bargaining literature, I propose the axiom of weak linearity to characterize the solution. In the second part I study uncertainty in non-cooperative games by designing a principal agent model of public bailouts. The first essay in this part sets up the model and shows that the moral hazard problem, namely the Samaritan's dilemma, exists without an altruistic principal. The second essay in this part builds upon the previous essay and focuses on the informational elements in a bailout game. Mainly, I show the existence of a separating equilibrium, where public bailouts serve as a mechanism to reveal essential information to outsiders and in which the good-type agents can benefit from rejecting a bailout offer.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att klargöra hur omvärlden hanterar det skuldproblem som blir allt mer omfattande i många utvecklingsländer. Många afrikanska länder söder om Sahara har fastnat i en fattigdomsfälla och är i desperat behov av förändring. Det globala finansiella systemet, med IMF i spetsen, har uppmärksammat detta problem och genom omstruktureringar och avskrivningar av skulderna vill de ge länderna en möjlighet att komma på fötter igen. Många svårigheter uppkommer när externa parter kommer in och ska lösa skuldproblemen åt länderna. Hänsyn måste tas till de som har givit lånen, såväl som till de skuldsatta ländernas ekonomiska struktur. Min frågeställning i denna uppsats rör hur det finansiella systemet hanterar skuldkrisen och om det skulle kunna finnas bättre alternativ till de processer som används idag. Genom min avhandling kom jag fram till att det kommer att krävas att en extern part är närvarande i förhandlingarna mellan långivare och låntagare för att undvika obalans och orättvisa. Det som framförallt måste ändras är dock att göra de huvudsakliga aktörerna, långivarna och låntagarna, mer delaktiga i processerna för att bättre resultat ska uppnås.

This dissertation comprises two essays that attempt to determine, empirically, the fiscal response of governments’ to international assistance. The first essay examines whether an increasingly popular recommendation in international aid policy to switch from tied foreign assistance to untied foreign assistance affects investment in critical development expenditure sectors by developing countries. In the past, most international aid has been in the form of tied assistance as donors believed that tying aid will improve its effectiveness. It has been argued, that if tied aid is well designed and effectively managed then its overall effectiveness can be improved. On the contrary, it is also believed that tied aid acts as an impediment to donor cooperation and the building of partnership with developing countries. In addition, it is also argued that it removes the ‘feeling’ of ownership and responsibility of projects from partner countries in aid supported development. Two other more popular arguments used to challenge the effectiveness of foreign aid is that it is compromised when tied to the goods and services of the donor countries because almost 30 percent of its value is eliminated and also because it does not allow recipient countries to act on their priorities for public spending. These problems bring into question whether tied aid is truly the most effective way to help poor countries. A recommendation by the international community is that a switch to untied aid would be necessary. With untied aid, the recipient country is not obligated to buy the goods of the donor country neither is it compelled to pursue the public expenditure priorities of donors. Instead with untied aid they will have greater flexibility over spending decisions and can more easily pursue the priorities of their countries as they see fit. Hence, one could expect that a one dollar increase in untied aid will increase spending in the critical priority sectors by more than a one dollar increase in tied assistance. The question therefore is whether national domestic priorities coincide or not with what the international community has traditionally deemed should be priority. Empirically, we test this prediction using country-by-country data for 57 countries for the period 1973 to 2006. The results suggest that on average untied aid has a greater impact on pro-poor spending than do tied aid. In addition, the results also suggest that fungibility is still an issue even after accounting for the effects of untied aid. However, one could argue that fungibility may not be as bad as it appears since the switch to untied aid improves spending in the sectors that are essential for growth and development. The second essay explores the hypothesis that the expectations of debt forgiveness can discourage developing countries from attaining fiscal independence through an improvement of their tax effort. On the one hand, the international financial community typically advises poor countries to improve revenue mobilization but, on the other hand, the same international community routinely continues to bail-out poor countries that fail to meet their loan repayment obligations. The act of bailing-out these countries creates an expectation on the part of developing country governments that they will receive debt forgiveness time and again in the future. Therefore, the expectation of future bail outs creates a moral hazard that leads to endemic lower tax efforts. The key prediction of our simple theoretical model is that in the presence of debt forgiveness, tax ratios will decline and this decline will be stronger the higher the frequency and intensity of the bailouts. Empirically, we test this prediction using country-level data for 66 countries for the period 1989 to 2006. The results strongly suggest that debt forgiveness plays a significant role in the low tax effort observed in developing countries. Our empirical model allows for the endogeneity of tax effort and debt forgiveness. Interestingly we find that more debt forgiveness is actually provided to countries with lower tax effort. The results are robust to various specifications.

This thesis studies the emergence of financial exposures between banks and introduces a novel game of financial network formation. It shows empirically that governance structures influence how banks use the interbank market to manage liquidity and that strategic factors are additional drivers of interbank lending for private banks (Ch. 2). It further develops a model of optimal bank behaviour in the absence of liquidity shocks considering the effect of an exogenous bailout probability (Ch. 3), and introduces a model of endogenous liquidity co-insurance formation (Ch. 4). The first chapter, The Purpose of Interbank Markets, tests competing theories of interbank lending using 43 quarters (2002-2012) of confidential data on the German banking sector and interbank market. It shows that banks use the interbank market for liquidity co-insurance as traditionally assumed. However, the importance of the liquidity management function is higher for regionally-focused credit cooperatives and savings banks than for private commercial banks. A distinct effect for private banks is identified; for private banks, increases in interbank liabilities are shown to correlate with a proxy for the bailout probability of banks. The chapter thus offers empirical support for an emerging literature on strategic behaviour in interbank markets and highlights the need to extend the traditional model of liquidity co-insurance. The second chapter, The Emergence of Interbank Exposures, develops a model showing that, even in the hypothetical absence of liquidity shocks, under some conditions the presence of conditional liability guarantees can lead to interbank exposures as an equilibrium outcome. It shows that such an equilibrium is characterised by banks of different sizes and asymmetric bank behaviour. Some banks are active only as lenders with others investing in a productive technology while borrowing in the interbank market. An equilibrium interbank rate is derived which depends on parameters characterising the bailout probability, including different parameters of government behaviour. The third chapter, Coordination and Competition in the Formation of Financial Networks, introduces a generalisation and extension of the seminal work of Allen and Gale (2000). It studies liquidity co-insurance between deposit-taking banks in an n-region economy. Both a static and a dynamic model of the endogenous formation of interbank liquidity co-insurance links are examined. Using a novel approach to model liquidity co-insurance, it is shown that contrary to previous findings it is not possible for banks with limited information to insure optimally against liquidity shocks. However, in a dynamic formulation of the model with best-response dynamics and learning, socially optimal insurance is an evolutionary stable equilibrium. The chapter also studies an extension to the model that introduces non-zero bailout probabilities, which endogenously leads to interbank networks consistent with the structure of interbank exposure networks documented empirically.

M.Com. (Financial Economics) / This paper studies the efficacy of bank bailouts in restoring financial stability during financial crises. Stability is measured in terms of stock market volatility. The volatility dynamics associated with banking crises in South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the United States (US) are investigated. Using daily returns data from 1 January 1997 to 8 October 2012, two specific methods are used to measure the impact of bailouts on financial stability. Firstly, dummy variables that account for the timing of bailout policies are included in the variance equation of Exponential Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Hetereoskedasticity (EGARCH) models that are estimated for the overall stock market index of each of the affected countries. Secondly, EGARCH models are estimated using 30-day rolling windows in order to control for shifts in unconditional volatility that may result from bailouts. The Spearman Rank-Order correlation test is used to assess the rank-order relationship between the EGARCH 30-day rolling window conditional volatility and actual volatility, which is estimated as a 30-day moving average of squared returns. Three main findings form the conclusion of this study. The first is that, in some cases, bailouts are successful in reducing volatility in some of the East Asian and US stock markets. Secondly, although the creation of centralised asset management companies and the implementation of guarantees of liabilities as bailout policies are effective at reducing volatility in the East Asian markets, closures of, and interventions in, banks and other financial institutions, liquidity support, and capital support are not effective in reducing volatility in the East Asian markets. This illustrates that different bailout policies have different impacts on volatility. Finally, although bailout policies reduce volatility, liquidity support, and capital support, bailout policies are more effective at reducing volatility in the United States than in the East Asian countries. This illustrates that the same bailout policies cannot be used in different types of economies, namely developed and developing economies, with the hope of the same outcome being realized.

No description available.

This research has studied bank risk management in relation to efficient bank regulation in the form of optimal bank financial reorganization. Efficient banking regulation can be achieved only if it includes closure policies which prevent moral hazard behaviour; in turn, they should enhance bank regulators' accountability. Yet, Basel II gives more discretion to domestic banking authorities and focuses more on the implementation of best practices of risk management. This creates a gap between the needs of efficient banking regulation and the objectives of Basel II, on the one hand, and Indonesian bank regulation on the other. To fill the gaps, the Fries, Mella-Barral, Peraudin (FMP) model, under a robust regulatory regime concept, is used to provide a framework for banking regulation. Optimal bank reorganization aims at achieving efficient bank regulation, where bank regulators are assumed to act as social planners. In this thesis, optimal bank reorganization is analysed within the concept of a "robust regulatory regime". Optimal bank reorganization comprises closure rules and bailout policies arising endogenously through the interaction of two factors, namely regulators' attempts to minimize discounted, expected bankruptcy costs, and equity-holders' incentives to recapitalise banks. The shareholders will be allowed to continue to control the bank if the bank is well capitalized. The cash flow approach to optimal bank financial reorganization is adopted. The subsidy policies for financially ailing banks consider the implementation of socially-optimal closure rules at minimum financial cost to regulators and which reduce moral hazard. The FMP model implies that optimal bank reorganization requires a deposit insurance scheme. The FMP model involves capital and risk management as crucial factors. This research includes an empirical study of the implementation of the FMP model in Indonesia using the American call option approach. Maximum likelihood estimates in VAR and GARCH are applied to monthly data on the market return and equity and deposit values for relatively-large Indonesian banks, including regional banks and foreign banks. The results indicate that the authorities can establish an optimal closure rule for each bank, levy fair deposit insurance premiums that can be adjusted to take account of quantitative and qualitative factors, estimate optimal subsidies at different deposit insurance premiums, and identify the banks' imminence to bankruptcy. (Continues...).