第1个回答 2008-12-23
Global financial crisis of 2008.Germanyduring theGreat Depression: sellingwelfarestamps on the streetThe termfinancial crisisis applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated withbanking panics, and manyrecessionscoincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises includestock market crashesand the bursting of other financialbubbles,currency crisis, andsovereign defaults.[1][2]Many economists have offered theories about how financial crises develop and how they could be prevented. There is little consensus, however, and financial crises are still a regular occurrence around the world.Contents[hide]1Types of financial crises1.1Banking crisis1.2Speculative bubbles and crashes1.3International financial crises1.4Wider economic crises2Causes and consequences of financial crises2.1Strategic complementarities in financial markets2.2Leverage2.3Asset-liability mismatch2.4Regulatory failures2.5Fraud2.6Œcopathy2.7Contagion2.8Recessionary effects3Theories of financial crises3.1World systems theory3.2Minsky's theory3.3Coordination games4History5See also6Literature7References8External links[edit]Types of financial crises[edit]Banking crisisMain articles:Bank runandCredit crunchWhen acommercial banksuffers a sudden rush of withdrawals by depositors, this is called abank run. Since banks lend out most of the cash they receive in deposits (seefractional-reserve banking), it is difficult for them to quickly pay back all deposits if these are suddenly demanded, so a run may leave the bank inbankruptcy, causing many depositors to lose their savings unless they are covered bydeposit insurance. A situation in which bank runs are widespread is called asystemic banking crisisor just abanking panic. A situation without widespread bank runs, but in which banks are reluctant to lend, because they worry that they have insufficient funds available, is often called acredit crunch.Examples of bank runs include therun on the Bank of the United States in 1931and the run onNorthern Rockin 2007. The collapse ofBear Stearnsin 2008 is also sometimes called a bank run, even though Bear Stearns was aninvestment bankrather than acommercial bank. The U.S.savings and loan crisisof the 1980s led to a credit crunch which is seen as a major factor in the U.S. recession of 1990-1991.[edit]Speculative bubbles and crashesMain articles:Stock market crashandBubble (economics)Economists say that a financial asset (stock, for example) exhibits abubblewhen its price exceeds thevalueof the future income (such asinterestordividends) that would be received by owning it tomaturity.[3]If most market participants buy the asset primarily in hopes of selling it later at a higher price, instead of buying it for the income it will generate, this could be evidence that a bubble is present. If there is a bubble, there is also a risk of acrashin 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 tell in practice 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.[4]Well-known examples of bubbles (or purported bubbles) and crashes in stock prices and other asset prices include the Dutchtulip mania, theWall Street Crash of 1929, theJapanese property bubbleof the 1980s, the crash of thedot-com bubblein 2000-2001, and the now-deflatingUnited States housing bubble.[5][6][edit]International financial crisesMain articles:Currency crisis,Capital flight, andSovereign defaultWhen a country that maintains afixed exchange rateis suddenly forced todevalueits currency because of aspeculative attack, this is called acurrency crisisorbalance of payments crisis. When a country fails to pay back itssovereign debt, this is called asovereign 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 asudden stopin capital inflows or a sudden increase incapital flight.Several currencies that formed part of theEuropean Exchange Rate Mechanismsuffered crises in 1992-93 and were forced to devalue or withdraw from the mechanism. Another round of currency crises took place inAsia in 1997-98. ManyLatin American countries defaultedon their debt in the early 1980s. The1998 Russian financial crisisresulted in a devaluation of the ruble and default on Russian government debt.[edit]Wider economic crisesMain articles:RecessionandDepression (economics)A downturn in economic growth lasting several quarters or more is usually called arecession. An especially prolonged recession may be called adepression, while a long period of slow but not necessarily negative growth is sometimes calledeconomic stagnation. Since these phenomena affect much more than the financial system, they are not usually considered financial crisesper se. But some economists have argued that many recessions have been caused in large part by financial crises. One important example is theGreat Depression, which was preceded in many countries by bank runs and stock market crashes. Thesubprime mortgage crisisand the bursting of other real estate bubbles around the world is widely expected to lead to recession in the U.S. and a number of other countries in 2008.Nonetheless, some economists argue that financial crises are caused by recessions instead of the other way around. Also, even if 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 FriedmanandAnna Schwartzarguedthat the initial economic decline associated with thecrash of 1929and 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,[7]andBen Bernankehas acknowledged that he agrees.[8][edit]Causes and consequences of financial crises[edit]Strategic complementarities in financial marketsMain articles:Strategic complementarityandSelf-fulfilling prophecyIt is often observed that successful investment requires each investor in a financial market to guess what other investors will do.George Soroshas called this need to guess the intentions of others 'reflexivity'.[9]Similarly,John Maynard Keynescompared financial markets to abeauty contest gamein which each participant tries to predict which modelotherparticipants will consider most beautiful.[10]Furthermore, in many cases investors have incentives tocoordinatetheir choices. For example, someone who thinks other investors want to buy lots ofJapanese yenmay expect the yen to rise in value, and therefore has an incentive to buy yen too. Likewise, a depositor inIndyMac Bankwho 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 othersstrategic complementarity.[11]It has been argued that if people or firms have a sufficiently strong incentive to do the same thing they expect others to do, thenself-fulfilling propheciesmay occur.[12]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.[13]Therefore, financial crises are sometimes viewed as avicious circlein which investors shun some institution or asset because they expect others to do so.[14][edit]LeverageMain article:Leverage (finance)Leverage, which means borrowing to finance investments, is frequently cited as a contributor to financial crises. When a financial institution (or an individual) 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 ofbankruptcy. 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. For example, borrowing to finance investment in thestock market("margin buying") became increasingly common prior to theWall Street Crash of 1929.[edit]Asset-liability mismatchMain article:Asset-liability mismatchAnother factor believed to contribute to financial crises isasset-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 reasonbank runsoccur (when depositors panic and decide to withdraw their funds more quickly than the bank can get back the proceeds of its loans).[15]Likewise,Bear Stearnsfailed in 2007-08 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 ofsovereign defaultdue to fluctuations in exchange rates.[16][edit]Regulatory failuresMain articles:Financial regulationandBank regulationGovernments have attempted to eliminate or mitigate financial crises by regulating the financial sector. One major goal of regulation istransparency: making institutions' financial situation publicly known by requiring regular reporting under standardized accounting procedures. Another goal of regulation is making sure institutions have sufficient assets to meet their contractual obligations, throughreserve requirements,capital requirements, and other limits onleverage.Some financial crises have been blamed on insufficient regulation, and have led to changes in regulation in order to avoid a repeat. For example, the Managing Director of theIMF,Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has blamed the financial crisis of 2008 on 'regulatory failure to guard against excessive risk-taking in the financial system, especially in the US'.[17]Likewise, the New York Times singled out the deregulation ofcredit default swapsas a cause of the crisis.[18]However, excessive regulation has also been cited as a possible cause of financial crises. In particular, theBasel II Accordhas been criticized for requiring banks to increase their capital when risks rise, which might cause them to decrease lending precisely when capital is scarce, potentially aggravating a financial crisis.[19][edit]FraudMain articles:Ponzi schemeandSecurities fraudFraud has played a role in the collapse of some financial institutions, when companies have attracted depositors with misleading claims about their investment strategies, or have embezzled the resulting income. Examples includeCharles Ponzi's scam in early 20th century Boston, the collapse of theMMMinvestment fund in Russia in 1994, and the scams that led to theAlbanian Lottery Uprisingof 1997.Manyrogue tradersthat have caused large losses at financial institutions have been accused of acting fraudulently in order to hide their trades. Fraud in mortgage financing has also been cited as one possible cause of the 2008subprime mortgage crisis; government officials stated on Sept. 23, 2008 that theFBIwas looking into possible fraud by mortgage financing companiesFannie MaeandFreddie Mac,Lehman Brothers, and insurerAmerican International Group.[20][edit]ŒcopathyMain articles:Economic psychologyandPersonality DisorderSwedish psychologist Torbjorn K A Eliazon[21]have proposed a new psychological concept of œcopathy, when economic smartness or greed crosses the borders to an extreme blinding speed and computational proposal unit. Œcopathy is an economic understanding without moral values, where the word "more" has become a central existential position and have no ulterior border in the same manner as that of drug abusers or people denying humanity and mortality. Œcopathy can be both existing in an individual subject (as a personality disorder) and been developed as a structurally built-in-operative - an esprit de corps - within organizations.[edit]ContagionMain articles:Financial contagionandSystemic riskContagionrefers to the idea that financial crises may spread from one institution to another, as when a bank run spreads from a few banks to many others, or from one country to another, as when currency crises, sovereign defaults, or stock market crashes spread across countries. When the failure of one particular financial institution threatens the stability of many other institutions, this is calledsystemic risk.[22]One widely-cited example of contagion was the spread of theThai crisis in 1997to other countries likeSouth Korea. However, economists often debate whether observing crises in many countries around the same time is truly caused by contagion from one market to another, or whether it is instead caused by similar underlying problems thatwould have affectedeach country individually even in the absence of international linkages.[edit]Recessionary effectsSome financial crises have little effect outside of the financial sector, like theWall Street crash of 1987, but other crises are believed to have played a role in decreasing growth in the rest of the economy. There are many theories why a financial crisis could have a recessionary effect on the rest of the economy. These theoretical ideas include the 'financial accelerator', 'flight to quality' and 'flight to liquidity', and theKiyotaki-Moore model. Some'third generation' models of currency crisesexplore how currency crises and banking crises together can cause recessions.[23][edit]Theories of financial crises[edit]World systems theoryRecurrent major depressions in the world economy at the pace of 20 and 50 years have been the subject of empirical and econometric research especially in theworld systems theoryand in the debate aboutNikolai Kondratievand the so-called 50-yearsKondratiev waves. Major figures ofworld systems theory, likeAndre Gunder FrankandImmanuel Wallerstein, consistently warned about the crash that the world economy is now facing. World systems scholars and Kondratiev cycle researchers always implied thatWashington Consensusoriented economists never understood the dangers and perils, which leading industrial nations will be facing and are now facing at the end of the longeconomic cyclewhich began after theoil crisisof 1973.[edit]Minsky's theoryHyman Minskyhas proposed a neo-Keynesian explanation that is most applicable to a closed economy. He theorized that financial fragility is a typical feature of anycapitalisteconomy. High fragility leads to a higher risk of a financial crisis. To facilitate his analysis, Minsky defines three types of financing firms choose according to their tolerance of risk. They are hedge finance, speculative finance, andPonzifinance. Ponzi finance leads to the most fragility.Financial fragility levels move together with thebusiness cycle. After arecession, firms have lost much financing and choose only hedge, the safest. As the economy grows and expectedprofitsrise, firms tend to believe that they can allow themselves to take on speculative financing. In this case, they know that profits will not cover all theinterestall the time. Firms, however, believe that profits will rise and the loans will eventually be repaid without much trouble. More loans lead to more investment, and the economy grows further. Then lenders also start believing that they will get back all the money they lend. Therefore, they are ready to lend to firms without full guarantees of success. Lenders know that such firms will have problems repaying. Still, they believe these firms will refinance from elsewhere as theirexpected profitsrise. This is Ponzi financing. In this way, the economy has taken on much risky credit. Now it is only a question of time before some big firm actually defaults. Lenders understand the actual risks in the economy and stop giving credit so easily.Refinancingbecomes impossible for many, and more firms default. If no new money comes into the economy to allow the refinancing process, a real economic crisis begins. During the recession, firms start to hedge again, and the cycle is closed.[edit]Coordination gamesMain article:Coordination gameMathematical approaches to modeling financial crises have emphasized that there is oftenpositive feedback[24]between market participants' decisions (seestrategic complementarity). Positive feedback implies that there may be dramatic changes in asset values in response to small changes in economic fundamentals. For example, some models of currency crises (including that ofPaul Krugman) imply that a fixed exchange rate may be stable for a long period of time, but will collapse suddenly in anavalanche of currency salesin response to a sufficient deterioration of government finances or underlying economic conditions.[25][26]According to some theories, positive feedback implies that the economy can have more than oneequilibrium. There may be an equilibrium in which market participants invest heavily in asset markets because they expect assets to be valuable, but there may be another equilibrium where participants flee asset markets because they expect others to flee too.[27]This is the type of argument underlyingDiamond and Dybvig's modelofbank runs, in which savers withdraw their assets from the bank because they expect others to withdraw too.[28]Likewise, in Obstfeld's model of currency crises, when economic conditions are neither too bad nor too good, there are two possible outcomes: speculators may or may not decide to attack the currency depending on what they expect other speculators to do.[29][edit]HistoryA short list of some major financial crises since 20th century*.1910:Shanghai rubber stock market crisis*.1980s:Latin American debt crisis, beginning in Mexico*.1989-91:United States Savings & Loan crisis*.1990s: Collapse of theJapanese asset price bubble*.1992-3:Speculative attackson currencies in theEuropean Exchange Rate Mechanism*.1994-5:1994 economic crisis in Mexico: speculative attack and default on Mexican debt*.1997-8:Asian Financial Crisis: devaluations and banking crises across Asia*.1998:1998 Russian financial crisis: devaluation of the ruble and default on Russian debt*.2001-2:Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002): breakdown of banking system*.2008:Global financial crisisandUSA, Europe: spread of the U.S.subprime mortgage crisis