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Mantas Dirma
and
Jaunius KarmelaviÄŤius
Despite having introduced borrower-based measures (BBM), Lithuania's housing and mortgage markets were booming during the low-interest-rate period, casting doubt on the macroprudential toolkit's ability to contain excessive mortgage growth. This paper assesses the adequacy of BBMs’ parametrization in Lithuania. We do so by building a novel lifetime expected credit loss framework that is founded on actual loan-level default and household income data. We show that the BBM package effectively contains mortgage credit risk and that housing loans are more resilient to stress than in the preregulatory era. Our BBM limit calibration exercise reveals that (1) in the low-rate environment, income-based measures could have been tighter; and (2) borrowers taking out secondary mortgages rightly are and should be required to pledge a higher down payment.
Mr. Wolfgang Bergthaler
,
Jose M Garrido
, and
Anjum Rosha
The European debt crisis in the early to mid 2010s brought to the fore the issue of household debt distress: in the countries affected, widespread over-indebdtedness resulted in serious financial and social challenges. The crisis was primarily a mortgage debt crisis, but in several cases, the legal response was based on the introduction of personal insolvency procedures. This paper examines the challenges in designing and implementing legal reforms in this area to promote a better understanding of the main considerations in resolving personal insolvency and distressed mortgage debt in the context of crises. Lessons from the European crisis may prove valuable when dealing with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine on household debt distress.
Nina Biljanovska
and
Sophia Chen
We explore the differential effects of lender-based macroprudential policies on new mortgage borrowing for households of different income using a comprehensive dataset that links macroprudential policy actions with household survey data for European Union countries. The main results suggest that higher-income households on average experience a larger reduction in mortgage loan size than lower-income households when regulation targeting total lenders’ assets tightens. In contrast, lower-income households on average experience a larger reduction in mortgage loan size than higher-income households when regulation targeting lenders’ capital requirements tightens. We also provide evidence of the different channels through which the differential effects operate.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
Ireland is a small open economy that is part of a monetary union and has a major financial system. Within the Euro Area (EA), Ireland comprises a relatively small proportion of aggregate GDP (3.4 percent), of which a significant portion is attributable to foreign-owned multinational enterprises (MNEs). Yet, the Irish financial system holds assets of EUR 7.9 trillion, over 18 times GDP. Since monetary policy is carried out by the European Central Bank (ECB) for the entire EA, macroprudential policy has the potential to play a critical stabilizing role for the Irish financial system.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
This note analyzes select aspects of the system for insolvency and creditors’ rights in the context of an overall assessment of the Irish financial sector. It focuses on two areas: (1) the use and effectiveness of the corporate restructuring regime and (2) the resolution of mortgage related nonperforming loan NPLs. Ireland’s corporate insolvency regime is largely in line with international best practice, although the regime is little used, and a review is in order. The issue of long-term mortgage arrears is complex and will require further development of an overall strategy, with multiple government bodies playing a role. While mortgage arrears are largely a legacy issue from the 2008 crisis, the failure to fully resolve these arrears has the potential to undermine credit growth and affordability, given the impact on credit risk of higher uncertainty of realizing collateral. The Government should adopt a coordinated, multi-agency strategy for resolving mortgage arrears, informed by the granular data available on the financial situation and debt servicing capacity of borrowers. Published guidance on expected solutions based on financial indicators, and broader social support would be critical to this approach and possible strategy.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
While Norway’s institutional arrangement for macroprudential policy is uncommon, the authorities have shown strong willingness to act. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is the sole macroprudential decision-maker in Norway, which is rare in international comparison. However, Norges Bank and the Finanstilsynet (FSA) play important advisory roles. In recent years, the authorities have taken substantive and wide-ranging macroprudential policy actions in response to growing systemic vulnerabilities—and these seem to have been effective in slowing down some of the riskier trends. The macroprudential policy toolkit is well stocked and actively used.
Giancarlo Corsetti
,
Joao B. Duarte
, and
Samuel Mann
We study the transmission of monetary shocks across euro-area countries using a dynamic factor model and high-frequency identification. We develop a methodology to assess the degree of heterogeneity, which we find to be low in financial variables and output, but significant in consumption, consumer prices, and variables related to local housing and labor markets. Building a small open economy model featuring a housing sector and calibrating it to Spain, we show that varying the share of adjustable-rate mortgages and loan-to-value ratios explains up to one-third of the cross-country heterogeneity in the responses of output and private consumption.
Viral V. Acharya
,
Katharina Bergant
,
Matteo Crosignani
,
Tim Eisert
, and
Fergal McCann
We analyze how regulatory constraints on household leverage—in the form of loan-to-income and loan-to-value limits—a?ect residential mortgage credit and house prices as well as other asset classes not directly targeted by the limits. Supervisory loan level data suggest that mortgage credit is reallocated from low-to high-income borrowers and from urban to rural counties. This reallocation weakens the feedback loop between credit and house prices and slows down house price growth in “hot” housing markets. Consistent with constrained lenders adjusting their portfolio choice, more-a?ected banks drive this reallocation and substitute their risk-taking into holdings of securities and corporate credit.
Ms. Nan Geng
House prices in many advanced economies have risen substantially in recent decades. But experience indicates that housing prices can diverge from their long-run equilibrium or sustainable levels, potentially followed by adjustments that impact macroeconomic and financial stability. Therefore there is a need to monitor house prices and assess whether they are sustainable. This paper focuses on fundamentals expected to drive long run trends in house prices, including institutional and structural factors. The scale of potential valuation gaps is gauged on the basis of a cross-country panel analysis of house prices in 20 OECD countries.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This 2018 Article IV Consultation highlights that the Irish economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, well above the European Union average. Although headline data are distorted by the volatility of multinationals’ activity, the broad recovery of (modified) domestic demand (4 percent in 2017) underpins the expansion. Strong labor market performance brought the unemployment rate down to below 6 percent by April 2018. Although wage pressures emerged in some sectors, inflation remained subdued, mainly reflecting the pass-through of pound sterling depreciation. Public finances continued to improve on the back of strong output growth, while the public debt burden declined slightly to 68 percent of GDP. The outlook remains broadly positive but with externally-driven downside risks.