330 Wirtschaft
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Since the global financial crisis of 2008/2009, there has been no challenge to the financial and banking system comparable to that during the Corona crisis.
Weak profitability, unresolved regulatory challenges and increasing competition in the digital sector pose further challenges for banks.
The stability of the financial system and access to financial markets was not at risk during the pandemic. Through joint efforts and better bank capitalisation, the financial system is now more resilient than during the financial crisis.
Provided that grants and loans in the “next generation EU” fund are well targeted for structural reforms and investments in the future, this should boost confi-dence and growth.
However, further improvements in financial stability, such as increased capital requirements, regulation of shadow banks or reforms in financial supervision, are needed.
Rare but extreme events, such as pandemics, terror attacks, and stock market collapses, pose a risk that could undermine cooperation in societies and groups. We extend the public goods game (PGG) to investigate the relationship between rare but extreme external risks and cooperation in a laboratory experiment. By incorporating risk as an external random variable in the PGG, independent of the participants’ contributions, we preserve the economic equilibrium of non-cooperation in the original game. Furthermore, we examine whether cooperation can be restored by the relatively simple intervention of informing about countermeasures while keeping the actual risk constant. Our experimental results reveal that on average extreme risks indeed decrease contributions by about 20%; however, countermeasure information increases contributions by about 10%. Specifically, in the first interactions, cooperation levels can even reach those observed in the riskless baseline. Our results suggest that countermeasure information could help reinforce social cohesion and resilience in the face of rare but extreme risks.
To remain relevant and mitigate disruption, traditional companies have to engage in multiple fast-paced experiments in digital offerings—revenue-generating solutions to what customers want and are willing to pay for, inspired by what is possible with digital technologies. After launching several digital offering initiatives, reinsurance giant Munich Re noticed that many experienced similar challenges. This case describes how Munich Re addressed these common challenges by building a foundation to help its digital offerings succeed. The foundation provided prioritized and staged funding; dedicated, hands-on expertise; and a digital platform of shared services. By 2020, this foundation was helping to support over seventy initiatives, including several that were in the market generating new sources of revenue for the company by enabling its clients—insurance companies—to better service their own customers.
This white paper builds a new financial theory of euro area sovereign bond markets under stress. The theory explains the abnormal bond pricing and increasing spreads during the recent market turmoil. We find that the strong disconnect of bond spreads from the respective bonds’ underlying fundamental values in 2010 was triggered by an increase in asymmetric information and weak reputation of government policies. Both factors cause a normal bond market to switch into a crisis mode. Finally, those markets are prone to self-fulfilling bubbles in which the economic effects are amplified by herding behaviour arising from animal spirits. Altogether, this produces contagious effects and multiple equilibria. Thus, we argue that government bond markets in a monetary union are more fragile and vulnerable to liquidity and solvency crises. Consequently, the systemic mispricing of sovereign debt creates more macroeconomic instability and bubbles in the euro area than in a single country. In other words, financial markets are partly blind to national default risks in a currency union. Therefore, the current European institutional framework puts the wrong incentives in place and needs structural changes soon. To tackle the root causes we suggest more market incentives via consistent rules, pre-emptive austerity measures in good economic times, and a resolution scheme for heavily indebted countries. In summary, our paper enhances the bond market theory and provides new insights into the recent bond market turmoil in Europe.