1

The Causes of Banking Crises: What Do We Know?

Pierre-Richard AgénorThe World Bank

University of Crete4th Conference in Macroeconomic Analysis

May 25-28, 2000

2

Role of banks in developing countries. Recent evidence on banking sector problems and why

we should care. Definition of a banking crisis. Causes of banking crises. Empirical studies of the determinants of crises. Some perspectives.

The Role of Banks

4

Transformation of short-term, liquid deposits held by households into illiquid liabilities issued by firms.

Delegated screening and monitoring of borrowers on behalf of depositors (mitigate information asymmetries).

Facilitate transactions by providing payment services.

Main Functions of Banks

5

Bank loans in percent of total financial assets: small in the United States, large in Japan and Europe.

Merrill Lynch estimates (April 2000): United States.19.1% (1990), 24.2% (1995), 10.1%

(1999). Japan. 36.8% (1991), 35.2% (1995), 36.5 (1999). Europe (Germany, France, and Italy). 46.9% in 1999.

Germany only: 86.9% in 1995.

Role in Industrial Countries

6

Bank credit: high in proportion of output and total credit allocated by financial institutions.

Highest ratios in Asia and Latin America. Large share of bank credit goes to firms, to finance

short-term working capital needs.

Role in Developing Countries

7

Equity and corporate bond markets: limited role in most developing countries as sources of finance. Equity finance remains confined to the largest firms;

not yet a significant competitor as an alternative to bank loans and retained earnings.

Corporate bonds markets remain quite narrow, concentrated, and relatively illiquid.

Banks often operate with high leverage (limited own capital).

Also low excess liquid reserves; higher volatility than in industrial countries would imply higher liquidity ratios than those actually observed.

Reason: often implicit bailout guarantees.

Banking Sector Problems:Recent Evidence

and why we Should Care

9

Banking Sector ProblemsRecent Evidence

Lindgren et al. (1996): at least two-thirds of IMF member countries experienced significant banking problems over 1980-96.

Caprio and Klingebiel (1996, 1999): evidence differs significantly from IMF estimates.

Nevertheless: incidence of banking crises in the 1980s and 1990s increased relative to the 1970s.

10

Banking Problems since Late 1970s

Systemic banking crises

No crisesEpisodes of non-systemic banking crises

Insufficient informationSource: Caprio and Klingebiel (1999).

11

Banking Sector ProblemsWhy we Should Care

Key role in the payments system. High resolution costs. Caprio and Klingebiel (1999):

Industrial countries. Most severe crises: Spain, 1977-85 (17% of GDP); Finland, 1991-94

(11%); Sweden, 1991-94 (4%). U.S. Savings and Loan crisis (1984-91): $175-

$225 bn. (2.4-3% of 1990 GDP).

12

Developing countries. More than a dozen episodes with resolution costs higher than 10% of GDP.

Venezuela, 1994-... (more than 20%), Mexico, 1995-... (20%).

Argentina, 1980-82 (over 55%) Chile, 1982-85 (41%), Côte d'Ivoire, 1988-91 (25%).

East Asia crisis: large fiscal costs induced by bank restructuring (recapitalization and guarantees to depositors).

In Indonesia, bonds totaling some $68 bn. (around 45% of GDP) may need to be issued for the recapitalization of banks and resolution of closed institutions.

13

In Thailand, total cost of bank restructuring (in terms of public debt issued) is estimated at 32% of GDP; for Korea, 15-16%.

Pressure on fiscal deficits, public debt, and domestic interest rates (default risk premium).

Adverse incentive effects. Intervention may reduce private incentives to monitor

the behavior of banks in the future. Expectation of future rescues creates incentives for

excessive risk taking.

14

Reduction in bank credit and higher interest rates: adverse supply-side effects (small firms).

During a financial crisis: Worsening of information and adverse selection

problems. Reason: only the least creditworthy borrowers are

prepared to pay higher interest rates. Adverse effect on the quality of loan portfolios and

investment.

15

Constrains the conduct of monetary policy. Limits on the possibility to raise interest rates. Problematic when such response is needed to fend

off speculative pressures. Contraction in output that accompanies financial crises:

asymmetric effect on poverty rates.

Definition of a Banking Crisis

17

Definition of a Banking Crisis Problematic. Example: (Detragiache and Demirguc-Kunt (1998a)). A distress episode is a crisis when

Ratio of nonperforming assets to total bank assets exceeded 10%.

Cost of the rescue operation was at least 2% of GDP. Episode involved a large-scale nationalization of

banks. Extensive bank runs took place or emergency

measures (deposit freezes, prolonged bank holidays, or generalized deposit guarantees) were enacted by the government.

18

Information on nonperforming loans: often not reliable and timely. Evergreening problem.

Cost of rescue operations is often difficult to measure. Importance of quasi-fiscal costs and contingent liabilities.

Problems

19

Estimating the net costs of banking sector restructuring is difficult; requires assumptions about amount of liquidity support; present and future incidence of nonperforming loans

and their recovery rate. Estimates are often calculated on a gross basis; lead to

overestimation by excluding future proceeds from reprivatization; loan recovery; repayment of the liquidity assistance provided by the

government.

20

“Run” or “event” criterion: A crisis can indeed, in some cases, be dated that way. Examples: Massive bank runs in Ecuador, following the currency

crisis of February 1999. The crisis in Indonesia, dated in reference to the

closure of 16 banks in late 1997.Problems Runs are often short lived. Dramatic “events” rarely represent either the beginning,

or the end, of the crisis. In most cases insolvency problems were already present

and worsened over a period of time; event itself is merely the point at which underlying problems are revealed (either to the regulator or the public).

Causes of Banking Crises

22

Causes of Banking Crises

Mismatches between assets and liabilities. Government intervention. Weaknesses in the regulatory and legal framework. Government guarantees and incentive failures. Premature financial liberalization.

Microeconomic Distortions and Institutional Failures

Macroeconomic Factors Domestic and exogenous shocks. Lending booms. The exchange rate regime.Self-Fulfilling Panics and Information-Based Runs

23

Macroeconomic FactorsA. Macroeconomic Shocks Both external and domestic.

Example 1: capital outflows induced by an increase in world interest rates or loss of confidence.

If these flows are intermediated, to begin with, via the banking system:

drop in deposits; may force banks to liquidate long-term assets to

raise liquidity or cut lending abruptly. May entail a recession and a rise in default rates.

24

Example 2: increase in domestic interest rates (to reduce inflation or defend the currency).

Also weakens the ability of bank customers to service their loans and may lead to an increase in nonperforming assets or a full-blown crisis.

Clearly, the impact of these shocks on the banking system depends on their duration.

But volatility matters also. With highly volatile shocks, it is more difficult for banks to assess project quality and credit risk (distorted price signals).

Example: Jamaica (1994-99).

25

Macroeconomic FactorsB. Lending Booms

Rapid increases in bank credit growth to the economy. Source of increase in banks' capacity to lend: often

large capital inflows. Often at the expense of credit quality. Distinguishing between good and bad credit risks is

harder when the economy is expanding rapidly because many borrowers are temporarily profitable and liquid (Gavin and Hausman (1996)).

Boom is often accompanied by asset price bubbles.

26

Banking crisis may occur when the bubble bursts. Collapse in equity prices:

affects overall confidence. reduces profitability of bank debtors.

Collapse in real estate prices: may also affect confidence. reduces the value of collateral.

Crisis often exacerbated by a high degree of loan concentration (to groups and sectors).

Examples: East Asia, Latin America.

27

Fixed exchange rate regime with high degree of capital mobility: increases the fragility of the banking system to adverse external shocks.

Example: adverse shock that leads to a balance-of- payments deficit. Lowers (with no sterilization) the money supply and

leads to higher interest rates. Higher cost of credit: increases the incidence of

default and leads to a deterioration in the quality of bank portfolios.

Macroeconomic FactorsC. The Exchange Rate Regime

28

Reserve losses may result from excessive expansion of domestic credit (Krugman-Flood-Garber model).

Rigid exchange rate regime (e.g. currency board): also constrains the lender-of-last-resort function of the central bank; prevents it from reacting quickly to stop a bank run by injecting liquidity.

Example: Argentina, 1994-95 (Tequila crisis).

29

Self-Fulfilling Panicsand Information-Based Runs

Costly panics may arise from sunspots. Canonical model: Diamond and Dybvig (1983). Ingredients for a bank run in the model:

Fractional reserves banking. Sequential service constraint, that is, deposits can only

be withdrawn sequentially. Changes in expectations can be self-fulfilling.

30

For instance, depositors think that other depositors think that there will be a significant amount of cash withdrawals in the very near future.

With both fractional reserves and a first-come, first-served rule: depositors understand that if they are at the end of the sequential service line, they may not be able to withdraw their deposits and would suffer losses.

To avoid these losses all depositors try to place themselves at the head of the line, causing a panic in the process.

Extension to an open-economy setting: Chang and Velasco (1999).

31

Problems Various analytical limitations; see Dowd (1992) and

Freixas and Rochet (1997). What kind of shocks would cause agents to decide that

massive withdrawals are likely? In practice, panic-induced runs tend to be short-lived

and/or do not always have systemic implications for the banking system.

Banks are typically run after they become insolvent; healthy (solvent) banks are generally not run, and when they are, they do not go bankrupt.

No testable restrictions (at least no obvious ones).

32

Information-Based Runs Empirical studies: e.g. Gorton (1988), Calomiris and

Gorton (1991)) for the United States. Practical importance of self-fulfilling runs is limited;

what often triggers a run is a noisy signal (e.g. a recession) that nonetheless contains useful information about the bank's returns on its assets and its ability to redeem deposits at par.

Models stressing that runs may be triggered by changes in fundamentals: Gorton (1985), Jacklin and Bhattacharya (1988), and Allen and Gale (1998).

33

Example: Allen and Gale (1998). Banks hold illiquid assets with risky returns. A run on a particular bank may occur if depositors

expect low returns on the bank's assets. A run can turn into a crisis as a result of contagion or

spillover effects on asset markets. Reason: the banks that are subject to the initial run may

attempt to sell their risky assets in order to meet depositors' demand for liquidity.

“Sunspot” view and information-based view: can be integrated, as in Chari and Jagannathan (1988).

Model that dwells on heterogeneity among depositors.

Determinants of Banking Crises:Empirical Evidence

35

The signals approach. Eichengreen and Rose (1998). Kaminsky and Reinhart (1999); evidence on both

banking and currency crises. Limited dependent regression models.

Demirguc-Kunt and Detragiache (1998a, 1998b, 1999);

Glick and Hutchinson (1999); also evidence on both banking and currency crises.

36

The Signals Approach

Methodology Starts with the selection of a set of variables based on

economic priors and data availability. For each  variable, the average level (or growth) in the

period preceding a crisis is compared to that in tranquil periods.

Value that exceeds a threshold before a crisis: provides a warning signal.

Threshold calculated so as to minimize the number of false signals, relative to the number of crises predicted accurately (optimal noise-to-signal ratio).

37

Threshold level: either the same for all countries, or based on the country-specific empirical distribution of the variable.

Given individual warning signals, a composite leading indicator can be constructed as a weighted average of these individual signals (see Kaminsky (1999)).

In this procedure both the crisis indicator and the explanatory variables are transformed into dummies, larger or smaller than a given threshold.

Should work well if there are sharp changes between crisis episodes and periods of tranquility.

Applications: Eichengreen and Rose (1998), Kaminsky and Reinhart (1999), and Kaminsky (1999).

38

Focus: links between banking and exchange rate crises. Covers period 1970-95. Based on a group of 20

countries (14 developing countries); total of 26 banking crises.

Incidence of both types of crises increased sharply since the early 1980s. Average number per year of banking crises in the sample rose from 0.3 during 1970-79 to 1.4 in 1980-95.

Banking crises are identified by an event: either a bank run, or in the absence of a run, the closure, merging, takeover, or large-scale government assistance to at least one important financial institution.

Kaminsky and Reinhart (1999)

39

Variables used as predictor of banking crises include: Output and stock prices. Financial sector variables.

Broad money multiplier, domestic credit-to-GDP ratio,

real deposit interest rates, bank lending rate spread, broad money-official reserves ratio.

External sector variables. Exports, imports, terms of trade, real exchange rate, changes in net foreign assets, interest rate differentials.

40

Main findings Banking and currency crises appear to share common

causes. Before a crisis episode, several of the indicators begin to send stress signals.

Best predictors of banking crises are (in that order) real exchange rate, broad money multiplier; stock market prices, output, and real interest rates.

On average, earliest signals provided by the best predictors are between 6 to 18 months before a banking crisis occurs.

Banking crises: often preceded by financial liberalization. In Latin America: collapse of bank deposits (relative to

currency holdings) following a banking crisis.

41

Sample: 39 crises in developing countries; period: 1975 to 1992.

Measures of banking crises from Caprio-Klingebiel. Statistical tests for differences in the behavior of various

macroeconomic and structural variables at a variety of leads and lags between crisis and non-crisis cases.

Eichengreen and Rose (1998)

42

Main findings Domestic macro conditions (slow domestic output

growth, real appreciation) are significant but do not entirely explain banking crises.

Domestic credit growth, fiscal deficits, the current account, international reserves, and external debt are not significant.

Measures of financial fragility (ratio of broad money to reserves, the share of bank reserves in total bank assets, and the share of bank lending directed to the public sector) are also not significant.

43

Large and significant correlation between changes in interest rates in industrial countries and banking crises in developing countries.

Possible reasons: rising world interest rates worsen access of banks

from developing countries to offshore funds; large capital outflows reduce the deposit base of

domestic banks and precipitate a run.

44

Econometric Studies

Methodology Limited dependent regression models (probit models). The banking crisis indicator is modeled as a zero-one

variable, as in the signals approach. Explanatory variables are not transformed into dummy

variables, however, but are usually included in a linear fashion.

The probit function ensures that the predicted outcome of the model is always between zero and one.

45

Advantages of the regression approach over the signals approach: Predictions of the model can be interpreted as

measuring the probability of a crisis. Method considers the significance of all the variables

simultaneously; the additional information provided by new variables can easily be checked.

Indicators that are statistically significant are used to calculate the probability of a crisis occurring in a specific period.

Disadvantage of this approach: less easy to detect the impact of an individual variable on the probability of a crisis;

46

due to the nonlinearity of the probit function, the contribution of a particular variable depends on all the other variables as well.

Other practical problem: the number of crises is usually limited. Consequently, there are only a few ones in the sample, compared to a large number of zeros.

May result in poor estimation results. To increase the number of ones: studies combine data

from industrial and developing economies. Pooling may not be valid due to significant structural

differences among financial systems. Applications: Detragiache and Demirguc-Kunt (1998a,

1998b, 1999); Glick and Hutchinson (1999).

47

Study of 45-65 banking crises for the period 1980-94. Sample includes both developed and developing

countries. Basic source of banking crisis episodes: Caprio and

Klingebiel (1996). Multivariate probit regressions.

Detragiache and Demirguc-Kunt (1998a)

48

Main findings Banking crises tend to erupt when growth is low and

inflation and real interest rates are high. Vulnerability to currency crises (e.g. high ratio of broad

money to official reserves) also play a role. Subsequent work (Detragiache and Demirguc-Kunt

(1998b)): banking crises are more likely to occur in liberalized financial systems--when the institutional environment is weak (poor rule of law, quality of bureaucracy, contract enforcement).

Deposit insurance: also raises the probability of crisis in a weak institutional environment (Detragiache and Demirguc-Kunt (1999)).

49

Evidence on both banking and currency crises. Sample of 90 countries (with at least 72 with a serious

banking problem), covering the period 1975-97. 90 banking crises, of which 37 (41%) are “twin” crises. Basic source of banking crisis episodes: Caprio and

Klingebiel (1996). Banking and twin crises have occurred mostly in

developing countries. Multivariate probit regressions.

Glick and Hutchinson (1999)

50

Main findings Decline in output growth, greater financial liberalization,

(more flexible interest rate structure), and higher inflation are highly significant.

Currency crises are not significant in explaining the onset of banking crises (reverse is true).

Note: no out-of-sample test of predictability.

Perspectives

52

How financial sector inefficiencies can magnify the incidence and cost of banking crises (see Agénor, Miller, Vines, and Weber (1999)).

Specific example: Agénor and Aizenman (2000). Limitations of the econometric evidence.

53

See Agénor and Aizenman (2000). Focuses on a particular type of financial sector

inefficiencies: high verification and enforcement costs associated with loan contracts.

Combines costly state verification approach (Townsend (1979)) and the model of limited enforceability of contracts used in the sovereign debt literature (e.g. Helpman (1989)).

Townsend’s approach: creditors can observe a debtor's performance only by bearing a (fixed) monitoring cost.

Financial Sector Inefficienciesand Information-Based Bank Runs

54

In good states of nature, borrower honors his contractual commitments, and creditors incur no costs.

In bad states of nature, borrower cannot honor its commitments, creditors must verify at a cost the debtor's performance.

Features of the model Risk-neutral producers, banks, and consumers. Producers demand bank credit to finance investment and

cannot issue claims on future output (no collateral). Productivity shocks (both idiosyncratic and aggregate) are

random. Producer repays in good states of nature, and defaults in

bad states.

55

In case of default, creditors can confiscate a fraction of the realized value of output; involves costly recourse to the legal system.

Main result: the juxtaposition of macroeconomic volatility and costly financial intermediation magnifies the incidence of “fundamentals-based” bank runs.

More costly intermediation also compounds the losses associated with greater aggregate volatility.

Argument: a mean-preserving spread of the distribution of the aggregate shock raises the probability of default, expected monitoring and enforcement costs, and the lending rate; this lowers investment today and the expected rate of return on bank assets--which may be large enough to trigger a run.

56

If consumers are risk averse, the bank's equilibrium deposit contract provides partial insurance against adverse macroeconomic shocks, thereby mitigating the incidence of fundamentals-based bank runs.

Framework can be extended in various directions; e.g. effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing the incidence of bank runs: Policies aimed at improving the efficiency of the

banking system; entry by foreign banks; more efficient (lower

verification and enforcement costs) and better be able to diversify away domestic macroeconomic shocks.

57

Existing studies are subject to serious caveats. “Basic” datasets in many studies: IMF and World Bank

estimates; results are sensitive to sample chosen. Partly a result of the lack of reliable banking data (e.g. on non- performing loans).

Variables are often incorrectly measured (exemple: real exchange rate “overvaluation”: captured by the deviation of the actual rate from a deterministic trend).

Most studies use annual data--limited usefulness for understanding the dynamics leading up to crises.

Econometric Evidence: Limitations

58

“Pooling” problem: cross-county studies typically assume that the parameters characterizing the behavior of (potential) indicators or explanatory variables in the periods preceding crises are similar across time and across countries.

Paucity of data on crisis episodes: remains a major problem in the refinement of current models.

Both the signals and regression approaches define a crisis as a discrete event; this does not account for the depth of the crisis.

Studies do not capture the possibility of nonlinearities.

59

Existing models: do not reliably predict the timing of banking crises. Example: out-of-sample probabilties for the East Asia crisis generated by Demirguc-Kunt and Detragiache (1998a).

However, some indicators do affect significantly the probability of a crisis; they should alert policymakers. Studies therefore have some value.

References

61

Agénor, Pierre-Richard, Banking Crises in Developing Countries: Causes, Effects, and Prevention, unpublished, the World Bank (Washington DC: May 2000).

Agénor, Pierre-Richard, and Joshua Aizenman, “Costly Financial Intermediation and Information-Based Bank Runs,” unpublished, the World Bank (May 2000).

Agénor, Pierre-Richard, Marcus Miller, David Vines, and Axel Weber, eds., The Asian Financial Crisis: Contagion and Market Volatility (Cambridge University Press: 1999).

Allen, Franklin, and Douglas Gale, ‘Optimal Financial Crises,’ Journal of Finance, 53 (August 1998), 1245-84.

Alonso, Irasema, ‘On Avoiding Bank Runs,’ Journal of Monetary Economics, 37 (February 1996), 73-87.

Caprio, Gerard, Jr., and Daniela Klingebiel, “Bank Insolvencies: Cross Country Experience,” Policy Research Working Paper No. 1620, the World Bank (July 1996).

62

------, ‘Episodes of Systemic and Borderline Financial Crises,” unpublished, the World Bank (October 1999).

Chang, Roberto, and Andrés Velasco, “Liquidity Crises in Emerging Markets: Theory and Policy,” Working Paper No. 7272, National Bureau of Economic Research (July 1999).

Demirguc-Kunt, Asli, and Enrica Detragiache, “The Determinants of Banking Crises in Developing Countries,” IMF Staff Papers, 45 (March 1998a), 81-109.

------, “Financial Liberalization and Financial Fragility,” Policy Research Working Paper No. 1917, the World Bank (May 1998b).

------, “Does Deposit Insurance Increase Banking System Stability? An Empirical Investigation, P olicy Research Working Paper No. 2247, the World Bank (November 1999).

Diamond, Douglas W., and Philip H. Dybvig, “Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity,” Journal of Political Economy, 91 (June 1983), 401-19.

63

Dowd, Kevin, ‘Models of Banking Instability: A Partial Review of the Literature,’ Journal of Economic Surveys, 6 (- 1992), 107-32.

Eichengreen, Barry, and Andrew K. Rose, “Staying Afloat when the Wind Shifts: External Factors and Emerging-Market Banking Crises,” Discussion Paper No. 1828, Centre for Economic Policy Research (April 1998).

Chari, V. V., and R. Jagannathan, ‘Banking Panics, Information, and Rational Expectations Equilibrium,’ Journal of Finance, 43 (- 1988), 749-61.

Diamond, Douglas W., and Philip H. Dybvig, ‘Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity,’ Journal of Political Economy, 91 (June 1983), 401-19.

Freixas, Xavier, and Jean-Charles Rochet, Microeconomics of Banking, MIT Press (Cambridge, Mass.: 1997).

Glick, Reuven, and Michael Hutchison, ‘Banking and Currency Crises: How Common are Twins?,’ FRBSF (Sept. 1999).

64

Jacklin, Charles J., and Sudipto Bhattacharya, ‘Distinguishing Panics and Information Based Bank Runs: Welfare and Policy Implications,’ Journal of Political Economy,96 (June 1988), 568-91.

Kaminsky, Graciela, ‘Currency and Banking Crises: The Early Warnings of Distress,’ Working Paper No. 99/178, International Monetary Fund (December 1999).

Kaminsky, Graciela, and Carmen M. Reinhart, ‘The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems,’ American Economic Review, 89 (June 1999), 473-500.

Lindgren, Carl-Johan, Gillian Garcia, and Matthew I. Saal, Bank Soundness and Macroeconomic Policy, by International Monetary Fund (Washington D.C.: 1996).

Townsend, Robert M., ‘Optimal Contracts and Competitive Markets with Costly State Verification, ’ Journal of Economic Theory, 21 (October 1979), 265-93.