Topic: International Financial Integration and Crisis Contagion

Speaker: Changhua Yu, Assistant Professor and Research Fellow, China Center for Economic Research, National School of Development, Peking University

Date: November 9th (Wednesday.)

Time: 2:30-4:00pm

Location: Building 4, Room 101

Language: English

Abstract:

International financial integration helps to diversify risk but also may spread crises across countries. We provide a quantitative analysis of this trade-off in a two-country general equilibrium model with collateral-constrained borrowing using a global solution method. Borrowing constraints bind occasionally, depending upon the state of the economy and levels of inherited debt. We examine different degrees of international financial integration, moving from financial autarky, to bond and equity market integration. Financial integration leads to a significant increase in global leverage, doubles the probability of crises for any one country, and dramatically increases the degree of ‘contagion’ across countries. Outside of crises, the impact of financial integration on macro aggregates is relatively small. But the impact of a crisis with integrated international financial markets is much less severe than that under financial market autarky. Thus, a trade-off emerges between the probability of crises and the severity of crises. Using a large cross country database of banking crises in developing and developed economies over a forty-year period, we find strong evidence in support of the model.

About the speaker:

Changhua Yu is currently an Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at China Center for Economic Research, National School of Development, Peking University. Before joining Peking University, he was formerly an Assistant Professor at University of International Business and Economics from 2012 to 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from University of British Columbia in 2012. Professor Yu’s research interests include international finance and macroeconomics, monetary economics and financial macroeconomics. He has published a research paper in top economics journal Journal of International Economics. He also worked as a Visiting Research Fellow at Hong Kong Institute of Monetary Research in June-July 2015.