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Are the risk weights of banks in the Czech Republic procyclical?: evidence from wavelet analysis
Brož, Václav ; Pfeifer, Lukáš ; Kolcunová, Dominika
We analyze the cyclicality of risk weights of banks in the Czech Republic from 2008 to 2016. We differentiate between risk weights under the internal ratings-based and those under the standardized approach, consider both the business cycle and the financial cycle, and employ wavelet coherence as a means of dynamic correlation analysis. Our results indicate that the risk weights of exposures under the internal ratings-based approach, including risk weights related to exposures secured by real estate collateral, are procyclical with respect to the financial cycle. We also show that the effect of changing asset quality on risk weights is present for the internal ratings-based approach, in line with our expectations based on regulatory standards. Our results can be employed for the purposes of decision-making on the activation of supervisory and macroprudential instruments, including the countercyclical capital buffer.
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Wage dynamics and financial performance: evidence from Czech firms
Babecký, Jan ; Galuščák, Kamil ; Žigraiová, Diana
This paper examines how the financial performance of a firm affects its wage policy. For this purpose, we match data on Czech firms from the Wage Dynamics Network survey covering the period 2010–2013 with balance sheet data. Controlling for a number of firm-specific characteristics and the environment in which firms operate, we find that financial performance matters for wage setting: contractual wages are more likely to grow in firms with a higher ratio of cash flow to total assets and in firms that invest more. Conversely, firms that froze or cut contractual wages during the survey period had lower cash flow over total assets, but not necessarily a lower investment ratio. The flexible wage component exhibits a similar pattern, but is more sensitive to demand shocks and firms’ financial conditions.
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Transmission of uncertainty shocks: learning from heterogeneous responses on a panel of EU countries
Claeys, Peter ; Vašíček, Bořek
Numerous recent studies, starting with Bloom (2009), highlight the impact of varying uncertainty levels on economic activity. These studies mostly focus on individual countries, and cross-country evidence is scarce. In this paper, we use a set of (panel) BVAR models to study the effect of uncertainty shocks on economic developments in EU Member States. We explicitly distinguish between domestic, common and global uncertainty shocks and employ new proxies of uncertainty. The domestic uncertainty indicators are derived from the Business and Consumer Surveys administered by the European Commission. The common EU-wide uncertainty is subsequently derived by means of a factor model. Finally, the global uncertainty indicator – inspired by Jurado et al. (2015) – is extracted as a common factor from a broad set of forecast indicators that are not driven by the business cycle. The results suggest that real output in EU countries drops after spikes in uncertainty, mainly as a result of lower investment. Unlike for the U.S., there is little evidence of activity overshooting following this initial fall. The responses to uncertainty shocks vary across Member States. These differences can be attributed not mainly to different shock sizes, but rather to cross-country structural characteristics. Member States with more flexible labour markets and product markets seem to weather uncertainty shocks better. Likewise, a higher manufacturing share and higher economic diversification help dampen the impact of uncertainty shocks. The role of economic openness is more ambiguous.
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Longer-term Yield Decomposition: an analysis of the Czech Government Yield Curve
Kučera, Adam ; Dvořák, Michal ; Komárek, Luboš ; Komárková, Zlatuše
The term structure of yields is an important source of information on market expectations about future macroeconomic developments and investors’ risk perceptions and preferences. This paper presents the methodology used by the Czech National Bank to obtain such information. It describes the decomposition of the Czech government bond yield curve into its components. The evolution of those components is interpreted in relation to the macro-financial environment, as embodied by selected variables. The practical use of the decomposition in estimating and interpreting the responses of the Czech government bond yield curve to macroeconomic and financial shocks is presented using a vector autoregression model.
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House Prices and Household Consumption: the case of the Czech Republic
Brůha, Jan ; Hlaváček, Michal ; Komárek, Luboš
In this paper, we investigate whether movements in property prices have detectable effects on Czech households’ consumption and saving decisions. We concentrate on three episodes of movements in house and apartment prices and ask whether property owners have significantly different consumption and saving choices from households living in rented properties. We found that, on average, property owners tend to have a lower propensity to consume and a higher saving rate independently of whether property prices move up or down. This casts doubts on the strength of the collateral channel linking the housing market to the macroeconomy in the Czech Republic.
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An empirical analysis of macroeconomic resilience: the case of the great recession in the European Union
Brůha, Jan ; Babecká Kucharčuková, Oxana
In this paper, we analyse macroeconomic developments in European economies since the Great Recession. We present evidence that macroeconomic developments in the EU countries can be classified into latent classes. Countries in a given class exhibit a similar pattern of economic and labour market developments during and after the crisis. We then present evidence that the latent classes of countries differ in terms of quality of institutions and regulation. Based on this, we conclude that quality of institutions and regulation are crucial for the resilience of countries to shocks. The most important country characteristics associated with a quick recovery after the initial shock are low protection of temporary contracts, political stability, regulatory quality and pre-crisis fiscal space. On the other hand, other types of employment protection and generosity of unemployment benefits seem to not influence resilience.
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Does monetary policy influence banks’ perception of risks?
Malovaná, Simona ; Kolcunová, Dominika ; Brož, Václav
This paper studies the extent to which monetary policy may affect banks’ perception of credit risk and the way banks measure risk under the internal ratings-based approach. Specifically, we analyze the effect of different monetary policy indicators on banks’ risk weights for credit risk. We present robust evidence of the existence of the risk-taking channel in the Czech Republic. Further, we show that the recent prolonged period of accommodative monetary policy has been instrumental in establishing this relationship. Finally, we obtain comparable results by extending the analysis to cover all the Visegrad Four countries. The presented findings have important implications for the prudential authority, which should be aware of the possible side-effects of monetary policy on how banks measure risk.
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Banks’ capital surplus and the impact of additional capital requirements
Malovaná, Simona
Banks in the Czech Republic maintain their regulatory capital ratios well above the level required by their regulator. This paper discusses the main reasons for this capital surplus and analyses the impact of additional capital requirements stemming from capital buffers and Pillar 2 add-ons on the capital ratios of banks holding such extra capital. The results provide evidence that banks shrink their capital surplus in response to higher capital requirements. A substantial portion of this adjustment seems to be delivered through changes in average risk weights. For this and other reasons, it is desirable to regularly assess whether the evolution and current level of risk weights give rise to any risk of underestimating the necessary level of capital.
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A BVAR Model for Forecasting of Czech Inflation
Brázdik, František ; Franta, Michal
Bayesian vector autoregressions (BVAR) have turned out to be useful for medium-term macroeconomic forecasting. Several features of the Czech economy strengthen the rationale for using this approach. These include in particular the short time series available and uncertainty about long-run trends. We compare forecasts based on a small-scale mean-adjusted BVAR with the official forecasts published by the Czech National Bank (CNB) over the period 2008q3–2016q4. The comparison demonstrates that the BVAR approach can provide more precise inflation forecasts over the monetary policy horizon. For other macroeconomic variables, the CNB forecasts either outperform or are comparable with the forecasts based on the BVAR model.
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Understanding rating movements in euro area countries
Brůha, Jan ; Karber, Moritz ; Pierluigi, Beatrice ; Setzer, Ralph
This paper investigates the link between sovereign ratings and macroeconomic fundamentals for a group of euro area countries that recorded rating downgrades during the euro area sovereign debt crisis. We apply an elaborated econometric estimation technique, based on a Bayesian ordered probit model, to understand how the decisions of rating agencies can be explained by economic developments. The estimated model reproduces historical ratings by using a small number of economic and institutional variables which seem to effectively summarize the large number of criteria used by Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch in their assignment of sovereign ratings. Our results suggest that the size of the downgrades observed since the start of the sovereign crisis has been broadly in line with the deterioration of economic fundamentals for most countries.
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