IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/snb/snbwpa/2016-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The banking sector and the Swiss financial account during the financial and European debt crises

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael A. Auer
  • Prof. Dr. Cédric Tille

Abstract

The US financial crisis and the later eurozone crisis have substantially impacted capital flows into and out of financial centers like Switzerland. We focus on the pattern of capital flows involving the Swiss banking industry. We first rely on balance-of-payment statistics and show that net banking inflows rose during the acute phases of the crises, albeit with a contrasting pattern. In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, net inflows were driven by a substantial retrenchment into the domestic market by Swiss banks. By contrast, net inflows from mid-2011 to mid-2012 were driven by large flows into Switzerland by foreign banks. We then use more detailed data from Swiss banking statistics which allow us to differentiate the situation across different banks and currencies. We show that, during the US financial crisis, the bank flows cycle was driven strongly by exposures in US dollars, and to a large extent by Swiss-owned banks. During the eurozone crisis, by contrast, the flight to the Swiss franc and move away from the euro was also driven by banks that are located in Switzerland, yet are foreign-owned. In addition, while the demand for the Swiss franc was driven by both foreign and domestic customers from mid-2011 to early 2013, domestic demand took a prominent role thereafter.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael A. Auer & Prof. Dr. Cédric Tille, 2016. "The banking sector and the Swiss financial account during the financial and European debt crises," Working Papers 2016-05, Swiss National Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2016-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.snb.ch/en/publications/research/working-papers/2016/working_paper_2016_05
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bénétrix, Agustin S. & Lane, Philip R. & Shambaugh, Jay C., 2015. "International currency exposures, valuation effects and the global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 98-109.
    2. Lane, Philip R. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2012. "External adjustment and the global crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 252-265.
    3. Ralph De Haas & Neeltje Van Horen, 2013. "Running for the Exit? International Bank Lending During a Financial Crisis," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(1), pages 244-285.
    4. Mr. Luca A Ricci & Mr. Jonathan David Ostry & Mr. Jaewoo Lee & Mr. Alessandro Prati & Mr. Gian M Milesi-Ferretti, 2008. "Exchange Rate Assessments: CGER Methodologies," IMF Occasional Papers 2008/002, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Pınar Yeşin, 2015. "Capital Flow Waves to and from Switzerland before and after the Financial Crisis," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 151(I), pages 27-75, March.
    6. Olivier Jeanne, 2013. "Macroprudential policies in a global perspective," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov, pages 1-38.
    7. Philip Lane, 2013. "Financial Globalisation and the Crisis," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 555-580, July.
    8. Forbes, Kristin J. & Warnock, Francis E., 2012. "Capital flow waves: Surges, stops, flight, and retrenchment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 235-251.
    9. Emmanuel Farhi & Iván Werning, 2014. "Dilemma Not Trilemma? Capital Controls and Exchange Rates with Volatile Capital Flows," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 62(4), pages 569-605, November.
    10. Gian-Maria Milesi-Ferretti & Cédric Tille, 2011. "The great retrenchment: international capital flows during the global financial crisis [‘The great trade collapse: what caused it and what does it mean?’]," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 26(66), pages 289-346.
    11. Linda S. Goldberg, 2013. "Banking Globalization, Transmission, and Monetary Policy Autonomy," NBER Working Papers 19497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Raphael A. Auer, 2014. "What drives TARGET2 balances? Evidence from a panel analysis [What drives Target2 balances? Evidence from a panel analysis]," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 29(77), pages 139-197.
    13. Thomas Nitschka, 2016. "Risk premia on Swiss government bonds and sectoral stock indexes during international crises:," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 67(02), pages 51-67, August.
    14. Adrien Alvero & Andreas M. Fischer, 2016. "Exchange rate floor and central bank balance sheets: Simple spillover tests of the Swiss franc," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 67(02), pages 31-50, August.
    15. Filippo Brutti & Philip U. Sauré, 2014. "Repatriation of Debt in the Euro Crisis: Evidence for the Secondary Market Theory," Working Papers 2014-03, Swiss National Bank.
    16. Valentina Bruno & Hyun Song Shin, 2015. "Cross-Border Banking and Global Liquidity," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 535-564.
    17. Emmanuel Farhi & Ivan Werning, "undated". "Dilemma not Trilemma? Capital Controls and Exchange Rates with Volatile Capital Flows," Working Paper 133566, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cappelletti, Giuseppe & Ponte Marques, Aurea & Varraso, Paolo & Budrys, Žymantas & Peeters, Jonas, 2019. "Impact of higher capital buffers on banks’ lending and risk-taking: evidence from the euro area experiments," Working Paper Series 2292, European Central Bank.
    2. Tille, Cédric, 2017. "The Changing International linkages of Switzerland: An Overview," CEPR Discussion Papers 12176, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Reto Föllmi & Angela Fuest & Philipp an de Meulen & Martin Micheli & Torsten Schmidt & Lina Zwick, 2018. "Openness and productivity of the Swiss economy," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-21, December.
    4. Raphael Auer & Ariel Burstein & Sarah M. Lein, 2021. "Exchange Rates and Prices: Evidence from the 2015 Swiss Franc Appreciation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(2), pages 652-686, February.
    5. Nicolas Stoffels & Cédric Tille, 2018. "Do Swiss foreign assets hedge the business cycle?," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 69(01), pages 1-40, December.
    6. Agust n S. B n trix & Philip R. Lane, "undated". "Cross-Country Exposures to the Swiss Franc," Trinity Economics Papers tep0116, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    7. Agustín S. Bénétrix & Philip R. Lane, "undated". "Cross-Country Exposures to the Swiss Franc," Trinity Economics Papers tep0116, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Georgiadis, Georgios & Zhu, Feng, 2021. "Foreign-currency exposures and the financial channel of exchange rates: Eroding monetary policy autonomy in small open economies?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    2. Kristin Forbes & Ida Hjortsoe & Tsvetelina Nenova, 2017. "Current Account Deficits During Heightened Risk: Menacing or Mitigating?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(601), pages 571-623, May.
    3. Hélène Rey, 2016. "International Channels of Transmission of Monetary Policy and the Mundellian Trilemma," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(1), pages 6-35, May.
    4. Georgiadis, Georgios & Jančoková, Martina, 2020. "Financial globalisation, monetary policy spillovers and macro-modelling: Tales from 1001 shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    5. Norring, Anni, 2022. "Taming the tides of capital: Review of capital controls and macroprudential policy in emerging economies," BoF Economics Review 1/2022, Bank of Finland.
    6. Jeffrey Frankel, 2021. "Systematic Managed Floating," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Steven J Davis & Edward S Robinson & Bernard Yeung (ed.), THE ASIAN MONETARY POLICY FORUM Insights for Central Banking, chapter 5, pages 160-221, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Bouvatier, Vincent & Delatte, Anne-Laure, 2015. "Waves of international banking integration: A tale of regional differences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 354-373.
    8. Fabiani, Andrea & Piñeros, Martha López & Peydró, José-Luis & Soto, Paul E., 2022. "Capital controls, domestic macroprudential policy and the bank lending channel of monetary policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2016. "International Coordination," NBER Working Papers 21878, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Valerio Nispi Landi & Alessandro Schiavone, 2021. "The Effectiveness of Capital Controls," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 183-211, February.
    11. Ricardo J. Caballero & Alp Simsek, 2020. "A Model of Fickle Capital Flows and Retrenchment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2288-2328.
    12. Philip R. Lane, 2013. "Cross-Border Financial Integration in Asia and the Macro-Financial Policy Framework," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 14(2), pages 37-52, April.
    13. Korinek, Anton & Sandri, Damiano, 2016. "Capital controls or macroprudential regulation?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(S1), pages 27-42.
    14. Avdjiev, Stefan & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Goldberg, Linda S. & Schiaffi, Stefano, 2020. "The shifting drivers of global liquidity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    15. Philip R. Lane & Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, 2018. "The External Wealth of Nations Revisited: International Financial Integration in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 66(1), pages 189-222, March.
    16. McQuade, Peter & Schmitz, Martin, 2017. "The great moderation in international capital flows: A global phenomenon?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PA), pages 188-212.
    17. Wang, Jian & Wu, Jason, 2021. "Is capital flow management effective? Evidence based on U.S. monetary policy shocks," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    18. Giovanni Ricco & Riccardo Degasperi & Seokki S. Hong, 2020. "The Global Transmission of U.S. Monetary Policy," Working Papers 814, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    19. Philip Lane, 2013. "Financial Globalisation and the Crisis," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 555-580, July.
    20. Georgiadis, Georgios & Mehl, Arnaud, 2016. "Financial globalisation and monetary policy effectiveness," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 200-212.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Capital flows; safe haven; Switzerland; financial globalization; international banking.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • F65 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Finance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2016-05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Enzo Rossi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/snbgvch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.