How Much Fiscal Backing Must the ECB Have?: The Euro Area Is Not the Philippines
Abstract
The ECB has accepted increasing amounts of rubbish collateral since the crisis started leading to exposure to serious private sector credit risk (i.e. default risk) on its collateralised lending and reverse operations ("repo"). This has led some commentators to argue that the ECB needs "fiscal back-up" to cover any potential losses to be able to continue pursuing price stability. This Brief argues that fiscal backing is not necessary for the ECB for three reasons. Firstly, the ECB balance sheet risk is small compared to the FED and BoE as it neither increased its quasi-fiscal operations as much as the Fed or the BoE nor did it engage to a very large extent in outright bond purchases during the financial crisis. Secondly, the ECB's specific accounting principles of repo operations provide for more clarity and earlier recognition of losses. Thirdly, the ECB can draw on substantial reserves of the euro area national banks.Download Info
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Paper provided by DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research in its series Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin with number 996.Length: 15 p.
Date of creation: 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp996
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Related research
Keywords: Central bank independence; central bank capital; counterparty risk; repurchase agreements; collateral; fiscal backing; liquidity; haircuts;Other versions of this item:
- Ansgar Belke, 2010. "How Much Fiscal Backing Must the ECB Have? – The Euro Area is not the Philippines," Ruhr Economic Papers 0184, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
- G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
- E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
- E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
- E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
- E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2010-05-02 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBA-2010-05-02 (Central Banking)
- NEP-EEC-2010-05-02 (European Economics)
- NEP-MAC-2010-05-02 (Macroeconomics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Christian Fahrholz & Andreas Freytag, 2011. "Realwirtschaftliche Aspekte der gegenwärtigen Krise im Eurosystem: Ursachen, Wirkungen und Reformansätze," Global Financial Markets Working Paper Series 21-2011, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
- Ansgar Belke & Christian Dreger, 2011.
"Ramifi cations of Debt Restructuring on the Euro Area – The Example of Large European Economies’ Exposure to Greece,"
Ruhr Economic Papers
0273, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
- Ansgar Belke & Christian Dreger, 2011. "Ramifications of Debt Restructuring on the Euro Area: The Example of Large European Economies' Exposure to Greece," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1141, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
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