By Gary Duncan
LACK of financial understanding among households may have led them to take on unintended risks in a way that threatens an “unprecedented” backlash should prices for shares or other investments tumble, the IMF’s chief markets official told governments and regulators.
Gerd Häusler said that the use of complex credit derivatives had allowed a welcome spreading of financial risks from banks to a much wider range of institutions and, in turn, to households, making the financial system as a whole more resilient. However, he gave warning that this “brave new world” meant that households in developed economies may be shouldering greater risks than they generally understand through their investments in financial products and institutions.
The IMF official, who heads the Fund’s International Capital Markets division, argued that “a low level of financial literacy, combined with extensive risk-taking, is politically an explosive brew.”
He added that the situation of markets offloading extra risk to households who were unaware of the reality could lead to demands for governments to bail them out if asset prices suffered a slump. That could create a risk of so-called moral hazard if an expectation arose that this made some investments a “one-way bet”.
“If (households’) expectations, explicit or only implicit, are not met, their dissatisfaction and disappointment may turn into a political liability to the authorities, prompt(ing) them to support markets which are ‘too important to fall’ — as opposed to the old-fashioned moral hazard pertaining to institutions ‘too big to fail’.”
More generally, Herr Häusler called for central banks and regulators to do more to discourage “exuberant” financial markets’ expectations that they would step in to bail out investors if prices for equities, bonds or other assets fell.
“It is crucial, in my view, to remind bullish markets regularly about the nature of two-way risks and to support such language with a rigorous no bail-out policy . . . Any tendency to bail out investors sets a dangerous precedent of moral hazard and encourages one-way speculation.”
:) Falkor
LACK of financial understanding among households may have led them to take on unintended risks in a way that threatens an “unprecedented” backlash should prices for shares or other investments tumble, the IMF’s chief markets official told governments and regulators.
Gerd Häusler said that the use of complex credit derivatives had allowed a welcome spreading of financial risks from banks to a much wider range of institutions and, in turn, to households, making the financial system as a whole more resilient. However, he gave warning that this “brave new world” meant that households in developed economies may be shouldering greater risks than they generally understand through their investments in financial products and institutions.
Herr Häusler compared the situation to an “implicit Faustian pact”, in which retail investors paid a hidden, but huge potential price for the more obvious benefits of bigger returns than they would otherwise receive. “The household sector is invited to participate in the search for yield, to enhance their returns . . . But the ‘dark side’ of such a pact is to be included in the risk-sharing as well — visible only when asset prices start to fall significantly, visible only when Mephisto asks for his side of the bargain to be fulfilled.”
He added that the situation of markets offloading extra risk to households who were unaware of the reality could lead to demands for governments to bail them out if asset prices suffered a slump. That could create a risk of so-called moral hazard if an expectation arose that this made some investments a “one-way bet”.
“If (households’) expectations, explicit or only implicit, are not met, their dissatisfaction and disappointment may turn into a political liability to the authorities, prompt(ing) them to support markets which are ‘too important to fall’ — as opposed to the old-fashioned moral hazard pertaining to institutions ‘too big to fail’.”
More generally, Herr Häusler called for central banks and regulators to do more to discourage “exuberant” financial markets’ expectations that they would step in to bail out investors if prices for equities, bonds or other assets fell.
“It is crucial, in my view, to remind bullish markets regularly about the nature of two-way risks and to support such language with a rigorous no bail-out policy . . . Any tendency to bail out investors sets a dangerous precedent of moral hazard and encourages one-way speculation.”
:) Falkor
Comments
Post a Comment