Banking crisis
Main article: Bank run
When a bank suffers a sudden rush of withdrawals by depositors, this is called a bank run. Since
banks lend out most of the cash they receive in deposits (see fractional-reserve banking), it is
difficult for them to quickly pay back all deposits if these are suddenly demanded, so a run
renders the bank insolvent, causing customers to lose their deposits, to the extent that they are
not covered by deposit insurance . An event in which bank runs are widespread is called a
systemic banking crisis or banking panic .[3]
Examples of bank runs include the run on the Bank of the United States in 1931 and the run on
Northern Rock in 2007. Banking crises generally occur after periods of risky lending and
resulting loan defaults .[4]
Currency crisis
There is no widely accepted definition of a currency crisis, which is normally considered as part
of a financial crisis. Kaminsky et al. (1998), for instance, define currency crises as when a
weighted average of monthly percentage depreciations in the exchange rate and monthly
percentage declines in exchange reserves exceeds its mean by more than three standard
deviations. Frankel and Rose (1996) define a currency crisis as a nominal depreciation of a
currency of at least 25% but it is also defined at least 10% increase in the rate of depreciation. In
general, a currency crisis can be defined as a situation when the participants in an exchange
market come to recognize that a pegged exchange rate is about to fail, causing speculation
against the peg that hastens the failure and forces a devaluation or appreciation, see Al-Assaf et
al. (2013).[5]
Speculative bubbles and crashes
Main articles: Stock market crash and Bubble (economics)
A speculative bubble exists in the event of large, sustained overpricing of some class of assets.[6]
One factor that frequently contributes to a bubble is the presence of buyers who purchase an
asset based solely on the expectation that they can later resell it at a higher price, rather than
calculating the income it will generate in the future. If there is a bubble, there is also a risk of a
crash in asset prices: market participants will go on buying only as long as they expect others to
buy, and when many decide to sell the price will fall. However, it is difficult to predict whether
an asset's price actually equals its fundamental value, so it is hard to detect bubbles reliably.
Some economists insist that bubbles never or almost never occur.[7]
Black Friday, 9 May 1873, Vienna Stock Exchange. The Panic of 1873 and Long Depression
followed.
Well-known examples of bubbles (or purported bubbles) and crashes in stock prices and other
asset prices include the Dutch tulip mania, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Japanese property
bubble of the 1980s, the crash of the dot-com bubble in 20002001, and the now-deflating
United States housing bubble.[4][8][9] The 2000s sparked a real estate bubble where housing prices
were increasing significantly as an asset good.[10]
International financial crises
Main articles: Currency crisis and Sovereign default
When a country that maintains a fixed exchange rate is suddenly forced to devalue its currency
due to accruing an unsustainable current account deficit, this is called a currency crisis or
balance of payments crisis. When a country fails to pay back its sovereign debt, this is called a
sovereign default. While devaluation and default could both be voluntary decisions of the
government, they are often perceived to be the involuntary results of a change in investor
sentiment that leads to a sudden stop in capital inflows or a sudden increase in capital flight.
Several currencies that formed part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism suffered crises in
199293 and were forced to devalue or withdraw from the mechanism. Another round of
currency crises took place in Asia in 199798. Many Latin American countries defaulted on their
debt in the early 1980s. The 1998 Russian financial crisis resulted in a devaluation of the ruble
and default on Russian government bonds.
Wider economic crisis
Main articles: Recession and Depression (economics)
Negative GDP growth lasting two or more quarters is called a recession. An especially
prolonged or severe recession may be called a depression, while a long period of slow but not
necessarily negative growth is sometimes called economic stagnation.
Declining consumer spending.
Some economists argue that many recessions have been caused in large part by financial crises.
One important example is the Great Depression, which was preceded in many countries by bank
runs and stock market crashes. The subprime mortgage crisis and the bursting of other real estate
bubbles around the world also led to recession in the U.S. and a number of other countries in late
2008 and 2009.
Some economists argue that financial crises are caused by recessions instead of the other way
around, and that even where a financial crisis is the initial shock that sets off a recession, other
factors may be more important in prolonging the recession. In particular, Milton Friedman and
Anna Schwartz argued that the initial economic decline associated with the crash of 1929 and the
bank panics of the 1930s would not have turned into a prolonged depression if it had not been
reinforced by monetary policy mistakes on the part of the Federal Reserve,[11] a position
supported by Ben Bernanke.[12]
Causes and consequences of financial crisis
Strategic complementarities in financial markets
Main articles: Strategic complementarity and Self-fulfilling prophecy
It is often observed that successful investment requires each investor in a financial market to
guess what other investors will do. George Soros has called this need to guess the intentions of
others 'reflexivity'.[13] Similarly, John Maynard Keynes compared financial markets to a beauty
contest game in which each participant tries to predict which model other participants will
consider most beautiful.[14] Circularity and self-fulfilling prophecies may be exaggerated when
reliable information is not available because of opaque disclosures or a lack of disclosure.[15]
Furthermore, in many cases investors have incentives to coordinate their choices. For example,
someone who thinks other investors want to buy lots of Japanese yen may expect the yen to rise
in value, and therefore has an incentive to buy yen too. Likewise, a depositor in IndyMac Bank
who expects other depositors to withdraw their funds may expect the bank to fail, and therefore
has an incentive to withdraw too. Economists call an incentive to mimic the strategies of others
strategic complementarity.[16]
It has been argued that if people or firms have a sufficiently strong incentive to do the same thing
they expect others to do, then self-fulfilling prophecies may occur.[17] For example, if investors
expect the value of the yen to rise, this may cause its value to rise; if depositors expect a bank to
fail this may cause it to fail.[18] Therefore, financial crises are sometimes viewed as a vicious
circle in which investors shun some institution or asset because they expect others to do so.[19]
Leverage
Main article: Leverage (finance)
Leverage, which means borrowing to finance investments, is frequently cited as a contributor to
financial crises.[15] When a financial institution (or an individual) only invests its own money, it
can, in the very worst case, lose its own money. But when it borrows in order to invest more, it
can potentially earn more from its investment, but it can also lose more than all it has. Therefore
leverage magnifies the potential returns from investment, but also creates a risk of bankruptcy.
Since bankruptcy means that a firm fails to honor all its promised payments to other firms, it may
spread financial troubles from one firm to another (see 'Contagion' below).
The average degree of leverage in the economy often rises prior to a financial crisis[citation needed].
For example, borrowing to finance investment in the stock market ("margin buying") became
increasingly common prior to the Wall Street Crash of 1929. In addition, some scholars have
argued that financial institutions can contribute to fragility by hiding leverage, and thereby
contributing to underpricing of risk.[15]
Asset-liability mismatch
Main article: Asset-liability mismatch
Another factor believed to contribute to financial crises is asset-liability mismatch, a situation in
which the risks associated with an institution's debts and assets are not appropriately aligned. For
example, commercial banks offer deposit accounts which can be withdrawn at any time and they
use the proceeds to make long-term loans to businesses and homeowners. The mismatch between
the banks' short-term liabilities (its deposits) and its long-term assets (its loans) is seen as one of
the reasons bank runs occur (when depositors panic and decide to withdraw their funds more
quickly than the bank can get back the proceeds of its loans).[18] Likewise, Bear Stearns failed in
200708 because it was unable to renew the short-term debt it used to finance long-term
investments in mortgage securities.
In an international context, many emerging market governments are unable to sell bonds
denominated in their own currencies, and therefore sell bonds denominated in US dollars instead.
This generates a mismatch between the currency denomination of their liabilities (their bonds)
and their assets (their local tax revenues), so that they run a risk of sovereign default due to
fluctuations in exchange rates.[20]
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