Contenu du sommaire : The Global Crisis and Financing Strategies

After much of the financial market was immersed in a severe credit crunch caused by U.
S. subprime mortgages, a theme that is most opportune for proper discussion is the absence of the role of banking system regulation. Technological enhancements, financial innovations and deregulation have over the last two decades exerted intense pressure on the financial system, with the result that banks now bear no resemblance to banks of the past, and actually seem to have very little in common with banks of a decade ago. These changes occurred not only in regard to actors and the speed of change, but mainly in the banking business profile and have generated a number of different approaches which highlight various causes, such as the characterization of market structure with a degree of banking concentration, or the effective participation of regulatory provisions with a view to correcting inherent systemic weaknesses and their effects. This article aims to examine the role played by these phenomena in the banking industry to help the understanding of the different attempts at regulation.JEL codes: G21, G28, G32

The global imbalances are one of the causes of the current financial and economic crisis. The financial flows associated to these imbalances are in the origin of the generalized crisis in the international financial markets, which are incapable of absorbing efficiently these huge capital inflows. The current experience shows that export-led strategies of growth are unsustainable if they are implemented by big economies whose external disequilibria can generate big systemic risks. An additional element of risk is the fact that the adjustment of these imbalances can not be made with changes in the exchange rate of the main currencies involved (US dollar and Chinese renmimbi).JEL codes: F010, F360, F490, G010

We examine whether the restrictive prudential reregulation has reached its goal in terms of the banking sector's soundness in Spain. The analysis shows the ability of the central bank to foresee the risks of the lending boom. Two main instruments, used during “good times” (2000-2007), distinguish the Spanish regulatory framework from most of its peers. (1) The capital adequacy ratios and the consolidation accounting rules related to off-balance sheet securitization have been stricter than in other countries. Unlike in U.S.A., using securitization for arbitrary purposes and reckless credit origination has been largely deterred. (2) Besides specific loan loss allowances, banks were required to make dynamic provisions on the basis of the business cycle average. By raising the reserves cushion against loans losses during the phase of high liquidity and fast credit growth, dynamic provisioning has acted as a countercyclical “insurance policy”. These measures can explain the absence of major bank bailouts, up to June 2010.JEL codes: E65, G21, G28

The 2008 financial crisis hit the Brazilian economy by two financial channels – capital flight from stock market and (some) reduction in the domestic supply of credit caused by the international credit crunch to the Brazilian big commercial and investment banks, with effects on the supply of interbank credit to the small and medium size banks and, as a consequence, on the ability of the banking system to serve the demand of credit of their clients – and one real channel, that is, the decrease in exports with impacts on the GDP growth. Despite the adoption of counter-cyclical monetary and fiscal policies by the Brazilian government, the Brazilian banking sector remained sound in comparison to what happened in industrial countries. This soundness can be explained by some varied factors that include the still low development of the securities (mainly private securities) market, the banking regulation that prevented the development of toxic assets and high banking leverage – in spite of some critics related to the functionality (in the Post Keynesian sense) of the Brazilian banking regulation – and the combination of still high interest rate with public indexed (and very liquid) bonds. Those factors helped to keep the domestic savings pretty stable with positive impacts on the reduction of the supply of credit. The paper, thus, aims at analyzing the role played by the Brazilian banking regulation as a reason why the banking sector was not deeply affected by the crisis, as well as some aspects that characterize the Brazilian banking behavior in order to understand why Brazil did not have a Minsky's crisis.JEL codes: E44, E58, G21, G28

The main purpose of this note is to question the relevance of trying to strengthen a fiscal framework which has been ineffective over the years; doing so, we compare the SGP with a possible alternative, a golden rule of public finance. We take the classification proposed by Kopits and Symansky (1998) as a benchmark. Our assessment shows that a golden rule would be superior to the actual EU fiscal framework. A counterfactual experiment does not contradict this outcome.JEL codes: E61, H30, H60, H70

Asian Finance is not just about the formal organized sector. It is also about the billions of small savers and small borrowers, often known as microfinance. Today, technology is building the bridge between the organized formal finance sectors and the informal poor borrowers. Two major technologies are online lending and mobile banking. This paper focuses on online lending in India and uses this setting to explore ethical issues in governance, pricing and marketing. Two case studies are used: a for-profit company and a not-for-profit. The paper finds that both models are being practiced in different kinds of MFIs. Both are trying to be ethically correct. The main value added by this paper is to highlight how ethical debates in microfinance are influencing the online lending operators.JEL codes: G21, I31, O16

Two eras can be distinguished in the history of innovation: era of inventor and era of researcher, even if they recover one another partially. During the first era R&D was rather “reactive”; the inventor imagining solutions to technical problems, especially in manufactures (textile, steam and locomotives...). During the second era, the R&D is rather “pro-active”; being initiated more and more to find new products able to generate turnover. The types of finance also changed between the two eras. During the first, own saving, family saving and help of associates were the only ways to finance innovation. In the second one, big firms' self-financing and recently risk-capital are more important. Although the part of R&D spending in GDP is well correlated with part of them issued from firms, the part of administration will probably increase in the future with the increase of risk and the necessity of a long term view.JEL codes: N20, O14, O31

This paper examines the effect of the exogenous information on stock prices. The analysis contributes in literature on the semi strong efficiency. It brings the informational nature nearer information, defined as informative coloration, which strikes the financial market to its underlying credit. The proposed test model is based on the nonparametric statistics. This model develops the possibility to examine the whole exogenous information on stock prices variations. The statistical performance of the model during the empirical application shows its ability to anticipate correctly the movements of prices. It challenges the semi strong form of efficiency markets.JEL codes: C14, D83, G14

I compare here fixed fee and royalty licensing in a linear model where a duopoly is located symmetrically. One of the firms, called the patent holder, owns a patented cost-reducing innovation and will decide, according to its total revenue, to share or not its new technology with the non innovative firm. The difference with other papers in the literature is that here firms are not located at the end points of the city but are symmetric. Results show that royalty licensing is better than fixed fee licensing for a non drastic innovation while a fixed fee is better than a royalty when the innovation is very high. I also find that non licensing is always better than fixed fee licensing independently of the size of the innovation. Finally, when innovation is non drastic, the patent holder license its patent under a royalty and do not license when innovation is drastic.JEL codes: C21, L24, O31, O32