Volumen 11 (2022): Edición 3 (September 2022)

Faced with COVID-19 crisis, central banks have once again become one of the key players in the economies. The aim of this article is to analyse the actions of Central and Eastern European central banks within all their roles (monetary policy, micro-and macroprudential policy, deposit guaranteeing and resolution) during the first coronavirus wave. The analysis shows that they were active in various fields, not only those that were traditionally always assigned to central banks (i.e. monetary policy, although this was the major field of activity). Scope of the intervention naturally depended on the shape of the national financial safety net. At the same time, the use of monetary policy tools depended on the adopted monetary policy strategy. Practice of central banks’ actions shows that central banks with a wide range of monetary tools reacted later. It seems that the scope and intensity of the use of monetary policy tools was not influenced by the general role of the central bank in the financial safety net. The monetary toolkit used by banks was based on a standard set of instruments with modified conditions of application (scale, transaction parameters and their type, collaterals and counterparties). Although transactions with specific parameters were sometimes implemented for the first time, they can still be included in the framework of classic monetary policy tools. In areas other than monetary policy, central banks were much less active. The most disturbing seems to be the passivity in the field of macroprudential policy.

Communication has become a vital part of modern monetary policy, and its importance is even higher during a crisis when a central bank has to calm the markets down. This paper studies the information content of different styles of communication from individual central bank policymakers in the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve during a period of very high economic uncertainty, and whether it differs depending on the role or position of the speaker. The findings suggest that during the financial crisis there was a large variance in the information content of different policymakers and styles of communication.

This study aims to explore the validity of Phillips curve for eight (8) countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), namely Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Malta, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia over the period of 1991–2019. The panel autoregressive distributed lag/pooled mean group (ARDL/PMG) estimation is employed in the study because of the nature of data. The results of ARDL/PMG reveal that there is no trade-off between inflation and unemployment rates in the panel of eight MENA countries in the long run, while there is a negative but insignificant relationship between these two variables in the short run. In addition, the trade-off between inflation and unemployment for each of the panel’s countries has also been investigated. The empirical results indicate that there is no trade-off in the short run as the estimated coefficients found are statistically insignificant. Hence, it is concluded that there is no empirical evidence of the trade-off between inflation and unemployment rates in MENA countries.

This scientific paper examines the relationship between macroeconomic variables whose performance is measured under the implementation of Quantitative Easing in the US, by estimating vector autoregression (VAR) and Impulse Response Function with monthly data from US Federal Reserve, observed during the period January 1994-January 2022. Variables include: Consumer Price Index (CPIAUCSL); Industrial Production (INDPRO); Unemployment Rate (UNRATE); Interest Rates, Government Securities, Government Bonds (INTGSBUSM193N); Volatility Index (VIXCLS), Real Broad Effective Exchange Rate (RBUSBIS), Federal Surplus or Deficit (MTSDS133FMS), Money Supply M1 (WM1NS), M2 (WMNS), M3 (MABMM301USM189S). An evidence on macroeconomic variables of Consumer Price Index and Industrial Production when evaluating the effectiveness of QE is provided.

The research objective of the study is to investigate the determinants of profitability of banks’ operating in GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries. The existing studies highlight the banks’ internal attributes and external factors that significantly influence profitability. The unbalanced panel data of 59 banks from the Bank scope database operating in six countries of GCC is used. Profitability is measured as return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) that have been used as dependent variables. Pooled OLS, fixed and random effects estimations are employed to explore the effect of explanatory variables internal factors, i.e. bank size, capital adequacy, asset quality, deposits ratio, asset management, operating efficiency and financial risk, and external factors, namely macroeconomic variables, GDP growth rate and inflation rate on dependent variables. Bank size and GDP growth have a significant and positive association with ROA. While Bank size and asset management have significant and positive impact, capital adequacy, financial risk, operating efficiency, and asset quality have a negative and significant impact on ROE. Fixed effects results are used for interpretation based on the Hausman test.

The objective of this research is to examine the inter-bank network of clients as a channel for credit risk transmission by groups of banks in Serbia characterized by different levels of credit risk (clusters). Two of the four observed groups of banks have experienced increase in NPLs through the channel of contagion spread in the interbank network. The spread of the infection through the banking network is a consequence of the impact of the economic connection among clients. The third group of banks (banks with high levels of credit risk) takes over the effects of systemic factors and transfers their influence to the second and the first group (banks with average and below-average credit risk level) through the banking network channel. There were different models of bank behaviour, from a group of banks that fully aligned their risk taking with risk capacity to a group of banks that exhibited an excessive risk propensity far beyond their own risk-taking capacity. There is also the confirmation that moral hazard was an important determinant of credit risk and an additional impulse to spread credit contagion.

Computerization of social life enabled market participants to search for new forms of electronic payments. The share of cash in total payments is systematically decreasing, which poses the risk of being supplanted by other instruments, including cryptocurrencies. Central banks, therefore, faced the challenge of adjusting their issuing activities to the current social and market conditions, which resulted in the emergence of the concept and discussion of the introduction of digital cash. The purpose of this paper is to examine the abovementioned issues and indication of potential scenarios for the introduction of central bank digital currency with an indication of potential consequences for the banking sector. The thesis of this paper is the following statement: The emergence of digital money of the central bank may significantly change the nature of commercial banks’ activities - including potentially eliminating their role in issuing cashless money.

This study investigates the effectiveness of ROM. We conducted the GARCH (1,1) Model to determine whether ROM contributed to decreasing the volatility of USD/TL exchange rate for the period 2013-2014. We construct four Models where four different variables are separately used that represent the ROM tool, i.e. the amount of FX reserves of CBRT via ROM, and the share of the FX reserves via ROM in Gross FX Reserves of CBRT. Our findings are convincing to say FX facility and the ratio of utilization for the FX facility to ensure the results are statistically meaningful during this period.

This research examines the potential impact of Basel IV capital requirements (CAR) on bank lending ability in Africa. To achieve the objective, the study simulated Basel IV capital ratio using historical data to create sample representative banks as if the selected banks had implemented Basel IV CAR for the period 2000 and 2018 and used actual data for existing Basel II and III CAR. Dynamic panel regression analyses, namely the System GMM and P-ARDL, were utilised. First, our results suggest that higher Basel CAR, particularly the new Basel IV, portends short-term negative impacts on bank lending while the long-term impact on bank lending is favorable. Second, the weight of non-performing loans tends to decline as banks transitioned from lower to higher Basel CAR. Lastly, this study shows that complying with Basel IV CAR will help African banks to achieve financial deepening and increase bank lending ability.

This study examines the impact of the quality of board members’ educational background on the financial performance of a group of Eurozone banks. Return on average assets (ROAA), Return on average equity (ROAE), and Tobin’s Q are used as measures to assess bank financial performance. Three indices are used as proxies for board members’ educational qualifications: Eduindex, for all academic qualifications in areas such as business or economics; Eduversal, for all qualifications from business schools ranked by Eduniversal; and EduFT, for all qualifications from business schools ranked by the Financial Times. Our study results offer relevant policy implications. Generally, there is a significant negative effect from Eduversal and EduFT qualifications on bank financial performance. This effect can be explained by the fact that some well-qualified board members use their expertise for their own interest, which, in most cases, is not favourable for bank financial performance. The implication is that the European Central Bank needs to implement more rigorous measures than those currently imposed to control bank board member behaviour and reduce agency problems.