Inside the Libra Ecosystem, Other Financial Products Could Arise” 8 Interview with Maik Schmeling
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Newsletter Q4 2019 “Inside the Libra ecosystem, other financial products could arise”_8 Interview with Maik Schmeling The long-term viability of sovereign bond-backed securities_10 Jan Pieter Krahnen • Christian Wilde Do leveraged loans herald the next financial crisis?_14 Claudio Borio Imprint About SAFE Publisher: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang König • Executive Board Research Center SAFE House of Finance • Goethe University Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 3 The Research Center SAFE – “Sustainable Architecture for 60323 Frankfurt am Main • Germany Finance in Europe” – is a cooperation of the Center for Fi- [email protected] nancial Studies and Goethe University Frankfurt. It is funded by the LOEWE initiative of the State of Hessen (Landes- Editors: Offensive zur Entwicklung wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Dr. Muriel Büsser Exzellenz). SAFE brings together more than 40 professors Prof. Dr. Wolfgang König and just as many junior researchers who are all dedicated Christopher Krämer to conducting research in support of a sustainable financial Laura Thomale architecture. The Center has two main pillars: the striving for excellent research on all important topics related to Internet: finance; and policy advice, including the dissemination of www.safe-frankfurt.de relevant research findings to European decision makers Twitter: https://twitter.com/SAFE_Frankfurt from the realms of politics, regulation and administration. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ researchcentersafe In order to promote a fruitful exchange with interested par- ties from politics, academia, business and the media, SAFE issues a newsletter on a quarterly basis. This aims to provide Design: an overview of the Center‘s ongoing research and policy ac- Novensis Communication GmbH tivities. The SAFE Newsletter succeeds the House of Finance Bad Homburg Newsletter, which was published between 2009 and 2012. 4th Edition SAFE is based at Goethe University’s House of Finance, however extends beyond by drawing on scholars from other Copyright © by the Research Center SAFE, parts of Goethe University as well as from fellow research Frankfurt am Main institutions. The Center builds on the reputation of the House of Finance institutions, serving as an interdisciplinary think Printed in Germany tank on the issue of finance. SAFE • Editorial • Quarter 4/2019 Building bridges between disciplines, and within: the Content new Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE architecture, capital markets, and banking. Besides having researchers from different Research We plan to work on savings and investment disciplines – mainly economics, law and po- Regulating tail-risks: When and how decisions, on pension politics, as well as bond litical science –, there is also a diversity of prudential regulation should apply to markets and their relation to monetary pol- methods at SAFE, ranging from theory to shadow banking _4 icy. In the field of banking and regulation, we empirical work, and laboratory experiments. Matthias Thiemann • Tobias H. Tröger will look at supervision and resolution, and Different fields and methods under one topi- how to prepare for a resilient, innovative and cal roof open the door widely for interdisci- Jan Pieter Krahnen competitive banking architecture. plinary research, and SAFE will make all efforts How horizontal links between industries Director, SAFE to foster such cross-fertilization. At the same can help to predict stock returns_6 Apart from research, SAFE will also engage time, we will be careful enough to preserve a Christian Schlag • Kailin Zeng „Everything is interconnected“ – without doubt, in policy advice. The SAFE Policy Center aims strong research footprint in the main fields the view of the famous German scientist to overcome the usual separation between of our discipline. Interview Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) on the academia and politics by exchanging perspec- “Inside the Libra ecosystem, other interdependencies between the environment tives and insights with governments, super- Research-based, diverse and independent – financial products could arise”_8 and human activities is more relevant than visory and legislative bodies at all levels, in these are basic principles underlying SAFE’s Maik Schmeling ever. Likewise, Finance as a discipline studies Germany and throughout Europe. The general work, already practiced for the past seven how people and institutions connect contrac- idea is to support high economic standards years under the Hessian LOEWE program. This Policy Center tually across space and over time. Questions when questions of institutional design and brings us back to another giant of German The long-term viability of sovereign of allocational efficiency and intergenerational regulatory framework are concerned, streng- intellectual history, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz bond-backed securities_10 fairness, the vitality of banks and markets, thening a sense of “Ordnungspolitik” in finan- (1646-1716), the name patron of the Leibniz the importance of innovation and capital for- cial markets at large. Association. Leibniz once said: “The more Jan Pieter Krahnen • Christian Wilde mation, and the impact of monetary policy we act according to reason, the freer we are, on interest rates, growth and wealth – those As an institute with staying power, we will and the more we are enslaved, the more we Guest Commentary issues are all in the area of Finance, and they have the privilege and the responsibility to allow ourselves to be governed by passions.” Do leveraged loans herald the are also connected among each other. address big questions and to initiate long- For me, this is a fitting motto for starting next financial crisis?_14 term projects which will help to improve the the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research Claudio Borio As a Leibniz Institute from 2020 onwards, role research can play in our society. In this SAFE. SAFE will provide academic support for such spirit, the Data Center, an infrastructure area News_12 topics of high social and political relevance. within SAFE, will cooperate with partners in Selected Publications_13 The key research questions for the next years several countries, aiming for better European Kind regards, Events_15 will cover the main fields in Europe’s financial financial market data. Jan Pieter Krahnen 3 SAFE • Research • Quarter 4/2019 Regulating tail-risks: When and how prudential regulation should apply to shadow banking In a new paper, we argue that supervi- provided by the regulated banking sector and supervision which focuses on the economic sors should prevent non-bank financial thus passing on tail-risks (i.e. very unlikely, but substance and the risk structure of NBFI trans- intermediation (NBFI) only viable due to severe events with highly negative market actions, rather than on their specific legal form. backing from public safety nets – cover- effects) to banks and, ultimately, into public In our view, the overarching policy objectives age which these institutions do not earn safety nets. Such access to public backstops underpinning prudential banking regulation Matthias Thiemann by complying with prudential banking distorts investors’ incentives, dulls market disci- are the same as those which should drive regula- Sciences Po & SAFE regulation. From this perspective, re- pline, and allows for risk-insensitive funding of tory intervention in NBFI: shadow banks which gulators should follow a normatively- shadow banking (see Adrian and Ashcraft, ultimately unload tail-risks onto public back- charged approach, looking deeper into 2012). Therefore, it is crucial that financial inter- stops should be regulated like banks, a change the transactional design of NBFI. If public mediaries who benefit from (indirect) access to which would remove the undue competitive safety nets carry tail-risks, prudential public safety nets also be subject to prudential advantages they derive from a lighter regula- rules should apply to NBFI just as they regulation as a counterbalance. tory burden. This approach would permit more would to regulated banks. Only supervi- efficient forms of financial intermediation, im- sors engaged in intense regulatory dia- Focusing on economic substance and risk peding regulatory arbitrage and thus enabling Tobias H. Tröger logue with the industry and gatekeepers structure beneficial innovation. Goethe University & SAFE will be able to arrive at informed and It follows that regulators should analyze the socially beneficial decisions. allocation of tail-risks involved in the trans- To understand the pivotal features of NBFI, i.e. actional structures of NBFI. For instance, banks the risk structure of financial innovation, we Shadow banking – now labeled NBFI by the pre-crisis carried the tail-risks of securitization suggest multipolar regulatory dialogues. These Financial Stability Board – maneuvers outside of transactions, but these transactions still provid- dialogues would bring together regulators, mar- the realm of prudential banking regulation. ed relief from regulatory capital requirements ket participants, and semi-public gatekeepers NBFI entities often refinance themselves on inasmuch as the securitized loan portfolios (lawyers, auditors, rating agencies). Efficient wholesale markets in a way that leads to fragili- were held by off-balance sheet vehicles and supervision of NBFI would require monitoring ties from leverage and liquidity/maturity trans- banks’ liquidity facilities were treated as low the production processes of financial innovation formation, just like in traditional