This note outlines the basic economics of the shadow banking system, highlights (systemic) risks related to it, and suggests implications for measurement and regulatory approaches.

On a credit rating-adjusted basis, spreads on U.S. high-yield debt have typically been regarded as a lower bound for emerging market debt. However in the C-rated and defaulted segment, emerging market debt has traded at lower spreads than similarly rated U.S. high yield debt. We show that the...

The paper finds significant deviations between short-term emerging market real interest rates and world real interest rates primarily due to the inflationary expectations of the local investor base. We test for long-run real interest convergence in emerging markets using a time varying panel...

This paper focuses on the use of participatory notes (PNs) by foreign investors, as a conduit for portfolio flows into Indian equity markets for more than a decade. The broadening of India's foreign investor base, in recent years, has a bias towards hedge funds/unregistered foreign investors who...

The present way of thinking about financial intermediation does not fully incorporate the rise of asset managers as a major source of funding for banks through the shadow banking system. Asset managers are dominant sources of demand for non-M2 types of money and serve as source collateral...

Since recent debt restructurings that constitute credit events have been more frequent than outright defaults, sovereign bond prices may not collapse during distress. In this case, the likely high recovery values after restructuring suggest that the cost of credit-default-swap (CDS) contracts to...

The financial market turmoil of recent months has highlighted the importance of counterparty risk. Here, we discuss counterparty risk that may stem from the OTC derivatives markets and attempt to assess the scope of potential cascade effects. This risk is measured by losses to the financial...

In times of distress when a country loses access to markets, there is evidence that credit default swap (CDS) spreads are a leading indicator for sovereign risk than the EMBI+ sub-index for the country. However, it is not easy to discern the variables that determine the level of CDS spreads in...

This paper focuses on asset allocation decisions of life insurance companies in emerging markets. Mature market insurers allocate only a small fraction of their assets to emerging markets because of regulatory constraints, rating pressures, and currency risk. However, global insurers invest...

Credit Default Swap spreads have been used as a leading indicator of distress. Default probabilities can be extracted from CDS spreads, but during distress it is important to take account of the stochastic nature of recovery value. The recent episodes of Landbanski, WAMU and Lehman illustrate...