JEL Code: E58

Gerstenberger, Juliane; Schnabl, Gunther

Abstract

Gunther Schnabl and Juliane Gerstenberger analyse the impact of the Bank of Japan’s low-interest rate policy on the banking sector in the wake of the 1998 Japanese financial crisis. They provide evidence that the Japanese monetary policy has contributed to declining efficiency in the banking sector, despite – or possibly because of – the increasing concentration within this sector.

Keywords: Banking Sector, City Banks, concentration, Crisis Management, Japan, Monetary policy, regional banks, Shinkin Banks.

JEL Codes: E52, E58, E63, F42.

Erschienen in

Credit and Capital Markets – Kredit und Kapital, Bd. 54 (2021), Heft 4: S. 533–562.

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Karl-Friedrich Israel; Tim Florian Sepp; Nils Sonnenberg

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of monetary policy on household saving in Japan between 1993 and 2017. Using annual data from the Japan Panel Survey of Consumers it is shown that monetary expansion has contributed to a widening gap in households’ net saving through an adverse effect on the volume of saving of non-academic households. In contrast, households with at least one academic tend to be able to compensate these adverse effects of monetary expansion or can even benefit from it. The article documents how inequality in terms of the ability to build up wealth has increased in Japan over the past decades. The statistical analysis controls for household size as well as potential spatial effects in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy on household saving.

Keywords: household saving, inequality, interest rate, Japan, Monetary policy.

JEL Codes: D31, D63, E52, E58.

Erschienen in

Applied Economics, 1-17.

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Gunther Schnabl; Nils Sonnenberg

Abstract

The paper analyses in light of Austrian and Keynesian economic theory the impact of conventional and unconventional monetary policies as therapies for financial crises. It compares the financial market stabilization measures of the Federal Reserve System and the European System of Central Banks in response to the US subprime crisis and the European financial and debt crisis. It is shown that the Federal Reserve System’s crisis measures were more directed towards stabilizing the banking system, whereas the European Central Bank had a stronger focus on the stabilization of the debt affordability of euro area crisis countries. In both cases, household credit growth remained under control despite renewed monetary expansion, while new imbalances emerged in the corporate sector. In the euro area, loose monetary policy had a destabilizing impact on the financial sector.

Keywords: financial crisis, Financial cycles, financial stability, Hayek, Keynes, Monetary policy.

JEL Codes: B53, E12, E14, E30, E44, E58, G10, G20, H30, H50.

Erschienen in

Working Paper, No. 166.

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Karl-Friedrich Israel; Sophia Latsos

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of conventional and unconventional monetary policy on income inequality in Japan, using hitherto unexplored data from the Japan Household Panel Survey. Empirical evidence shows that expansionary monetary policy in Japan has contributed to diminishing the gender pay gap through an increase in working time of women relative to men, but also to increasing the education pay gap. These effects may have materialized via the aggregate demand channel and the labour productivity channel. In contrast, expansionary monetary policy has had no significant impact on the development of the age pay gap.

Keywords: income inequality, Japan, low interest rate policy, Monetary policy, unconventional monetary policy.

JEL Codes: D31, D63, E52, E58.

Erschienen in

Applied Economics Volume 52, 2020 - Issue 40.

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Gunther Schnabl

Abstract

For a long time, China's impressive growth performance has been driven by investment and high productivity gains. Based on a discussion of possible overcapacities and overinvestment in China, this paper investigates the sustainability of China's investment and export‐driven growth model. Since the turn of the millennium, buoyant capital inflows and low interest rates have been at the root of overinvestment and misallocation of capital, which necessitated export subsidies to clear markets. The overinvestment boom is argued to have ended around 2014. Since then, the overcapacities have weakened China's bargaining position in the US–Chinese trade conflict and have tempted Chinese authorities to postpone the restructuring of the Chinese economy by providing low‐interest credit. The gradual reemergence of quasi‐soft budget constraints is seen to undermine China's long‐term growth potential.

Keywords: credit growth, overinvestment, rebalancing, soft budget constraints, trade policy, zombification.

JEL Codes: E22, E43, E58, F13.

Erschienen in

China & World Economy, Vol. 27, Issue 5, pp. 37-62, 2019.

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David Herok; Gunther Schnabl

Abstract

Während die Arbeitslosigkeit in Europa stetig sinkt und immer weniger Unternehmen Insolvenz anmelden, wächst im Schatten der anhaltenden Flut des billigen Geldes durch die EZB die Anzahl von sogenannten Zombie -Banken, Zombie-Unternehmen und Zombie Staaten. Diese Entwicklung erinnert an eine Rückkehr zu planwirtschaftlichen Strukturen und erschwert den Ausstieg aus der sehr lockeren Geldpolitik. Nur ein Ausstieg kann jedoch entscheidend der fortschreitenden Zombiefizierung Einhalt zu gebieten, die die marktwirt-schaftlichen Prinzipien unterhöhlt, das Wachstum lähmt und den sozialen Frieden stört.

While unemployment and bankruptcies in Europe are steadily on decline, the number of so-called zombie banks, zombie companies and zombie states is growing in the shadow of the ECB's persistent ultra-easy monetary policy. This development is reminiscent of a return to planned economic structures and makes it much more difficult to exit from the very loose monetary policy. However, an exit is crucial to halting the zombification process which un-dermines free-market principles and growth, and disrupts social peace.

Keywords: Bank Regulation, ECB, Hayek, Interest Rates, Joseph Schumpeter, Monetary policy, Resource Allocation in Planning Economies, Zombie-Firms, Zombie-Lending.

JEL Codes: B31, E58, G28.

Erschienen in

Austrian Institute Paper 21 (2018).

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Gunther Schnabl

Abstract

The paper analyzes the role of monetary policy for cyclical movements of investment and asset markets in East Asia and Europe based on a Mises-Hayek overinvestment framework. It is shown how the gradual global decline of interest rates has triggered wandering overinvestment cycles in Japan, Southeast Asia, and China. Similarly, it is shown how a one-size monetary policy within the European Monetary Union has not preserved the European Monetary Union from idiosyncratic economic development and crisis because of uncoordinated fiscal policies. With monetary policy crisis management being argued to impede financial and economic restructuring, a timely exit from ultra-expansionary monetary policies is recommended for both East Asia and Europe to reconstitute economic stability and growth.

JEL Codes: E52, E58, E63, F42.

Erschienen in

Asia Europe Journal (December 2017), Volume 15, Issue 4, pp 445–462.

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Gunther Schnabl

Abstract

Das Papier identifiziert auf der Grundlage der monetären Überinvestitionstheorien von Wicksell (1898), Mises (1912) and Hayek (1929, 1937) expansive Geldpolitik als Ursache für Boom-und-Krisen-Zyklen auf den Finanzmärkten sowie für langfristige Stagnation. Das Absenken der Leitzinsen gegen Null wird als Ursache für eine sinkende Grenzleistungsfähigkeit der Investitionen gesehen, da der Bankensektor schleichend nationalisiert wird und strukturelle Verzerrungen zementiert werden. Eine asymmetrische Geldpolitik begünstigt eine Substitution von Realinvestitionen durch Finanzinvestitionen, von privaten Investitionen durch öffentliche Investitionen sowie Umverteilung von mittleren und unteren Einkommensschichten hin zu oberen Einkommensschichten. Der von strukturell sinkenden Zinsen begünstigte Anstieg der Staatsverschuldung sowie eine durch Umverteilungseffekte der Geldpolitik verursachte Reallohnrepression werden als Gründe für die Hysterese sehr expansiver Geldpolitik identifiziert. Es wird ein Anheben der Leitzinsen empfohlen, um die Allokations- und Signalfunktion der Zinsen, das Haftungsprinzip, eine hohe Grenzleistungsfähigkeit der Investitionen und damit eine nachhaltige Wachstumsdynamik wiederherzustellen.

Keywords: asymmetrische Geldpolitik, Finanzmarktkrisen, Grenzleistungsfähigkeit der Investitionen, Hayek, Mises, monetäre Überinvestitionstheorie, Stagnation.

JEL Codes: E52, E58, E63, F42.

Erschienen in

Universität Leipzig Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät Working Paper Series.

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Gunther Schnabl

Abstract

Historisch niedrige Inflationsraten und Warnungen vor Deflation gehen in den großen Industrieländern mit Exzessen auf den Finanzmärkten einher. Um Wachstum und In-flation wiederzubeleben, werden im Zuge der quantitativen Lockerung die Zentral-bankbilanzen aufgeblasen, ohne dass es zum einem maßgeblichen Anstieg der Inflati-onsraten kommt. Der Artikel argumentiert, dass gemäß Goodharts Gesetz Inflations-ziele als geldpolitische Regelwerke zur Kontrolle von Konsumentenpreisinflation ihre Wirkung verloren haben. Durch die Etablierung der Regeln ist der zugrundeliegende Transmissionsmechanismus von einer Ausweitung der Geldbasis zu Konsumenten-preisinflation zusammengebrochen. Rationale gewinnmaximierende Finanzinstitute umgehen die Regel, indem sie zusätzliche Zentralbankliquidität in die Finanz- statt in die Gütermärkte lenken. Dies führt zu Umverteilungseffekten zugunsten der Akteure in den Finanzmärkten und den Haltern von Vermögenswerten, die mit Reallohnrepres-sion im Rest der Volkswirtschaften verbunden sind. Die wirtschaftspolitische Konse-quenz ist die Reform der bestehenden geldpolitischen Regelwerke.

Keywords: Geldpolitik, Goodharts Gesetz, Inflationsziele, Reallohnrepression, Regelbindung, Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, Zeitkonsistenz.

JEL Codes: E31, E44, E52, E58, E61.

Erschienen in

Working Papers on Global Financial Markets 55.

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