Research Newsletter - Fourth quarter of 2017

Editorial

Macroprudential Policy: Preventing Systemic Risk and Ensuring Financial Stability

According to the authors of this book, Taryk Bennani, Laurent Clerc, Virginie Coudert, Marine Dujardin and Julien Idier, "Whereas microprudential supervision seeks to ensure the soundness of institutions taken individually, macroprudential policy aims to prevent systemic risk by targeting the financial system as a whole."

Interviews

The Open Data Room of the Banque de France

Christian Pfister mentions that “The Banque de France grants free, effective access to its confidential data […] through a secure Open Data Room. At end-2017, almost 600 million data series were accessible to researchers.”

Itinerary of a professor seconded to the Bank

Erwan Gautier confirms his interest in the Bank by claiming “I have been on leave from the university and have a position as economist-researcher[…]which corresponds to my wish to contribute more to supporting monetary policy decision-making, while at the same time pursuing my research work.”

Focus

Household debt restructuring: the effect of debt suspensions

Henri Fraisse shows that “the results highlight the utility of debt restructuring programmes in helping households escape the poverty trap. They also argue for the introduction of policies for financial education and the regulation of standards governing consumer credit.”

Explaining and forecasting bank loans. Good times and crises.

Gregory Levieuge finds that “the growth rate of the CAC40 index is one of the fairest leading indicators of bank loans. This can be theoretically justified[…] stock prices represent for future cash flows an appropriate proxy for the quality of borrowers’ balance sheets. “

Disaster Risk and Preference Shifts in a New Keynesian Model

Marlène Isoré and Urszula Szczerbowicz show that “price stickiness, combined with an elasticity of intertemporal substitution smaller than unity, restores procyclical consumption while preserving countercyclical risk premia, in response to disaster risk shocks.“

Can France reach the Factor 4 objective? An assessment based on a stylised energy-economy model

For Fanny Henriet, Nicolas Maggiar and Katheline Schubert, “a carbon tax alone does not appear sufficient to trigger the necessary reductions. The objective cannot possibly be reached without implementing complementary public policies to foster technical progress and energy efficiency.”