How Interest Rates Changed Under Financial Liberalization

Financial liberalization was expected to make interest rates, and asset prices more volatile, with distributional consequences, such as reduced, or relocated rents, and increased competition in financial services. The author examines available data on money market, and bank interest rates for evidence of whether these things happened. He shows that as more and more countries liberalized, the level and dynamic behavior of developing-country interest rates converged to industrial-country norms. In the short term, volatility increased in both real, and nominal money market interest rates. Treasury bill rates, and bank spreads, evidently the most repressed, showed the greatest increase as liberalization progressed - shifting substantial rents from the public sector, and from favored borrowers. Whereas quoted bank spreads in industrial countries contracted somewhat in the late 1990s, spreads in developing countries remained much higher, presumably reflecting both market power, and the higher risks of lending in the developing world. There was no clear-cut change in mean rates of inflation, monetary depth, or GDP growth. If anything, there was a small average improvement in inflation, but a decline in monetary depth, and economic growth, relative to trends in industrial countries.

This paper undertakes a survey of theoretical considerations and an analysis of the experience of five African countries with interest rate liberalization. Despite substantial progress in monetary policy reforms, liberalization has only partially affected the level and variability of interest rates. Several factors—macroeconomic instability, oligopolistic financial markets, the absence of developed capital markets, as well as the sequencing of the liberalization programs and the asymmetric availability of information—explain the increase in the spread between lending and deposit rates as well as the rather inflexible pattern of interest rates during the transition to a market-based financial system.

As financial liberalization progressed, the general level of real interest rates increased more in developing countries than it did in industrial countries. Volatility in wholesale interest rates also jumped, often markedly, in most liberalizing countries. Treasury bill rates and bank spreads showed the greatest increase in developing countries, shifting substantial rents from the public sector and from favored borrowers.

This paper discusses the transition strategy from administratively set interest rates to market rates. Despite worldwide trends toward financial liberalization, few monetary authorities are prepared to accept as reasonable any interest rate level that is market-determined. The paper suggests some helpful indicators to assess the adequacy of interest rates. It discusses factors which contribute to a smooth liberalization process. The main conclusion is that interest rate liberalization is not synonymous with laissez-faire policies. It requires, however, the replacement of the administratively set interest rates by indirect monetary management techniques which operate through the market.

China has been moving to a more market oriented financial system, which has implications for the monetary policy environment. The paper investigates the stability of the money demand function (MDF) in light of progress in financial sector reforms that, for example, have resulted in significant financial innovation (so-called shadow banking) and more liberalized interest rates. The analysis of international experience suggests that rapid development of the financial system often leads to structural shifts in the MDF. For example, financial innovation and liberalization alter the sensitivity of money balances to income and the interest rate. For China, we find that the stable long-run relationship between money demand, output, and interest rates that existed between 2002 and 2008 disappears after 2008. This coincides with the period of rapid financial innovation, especially the growth in off-balance sheet and nonbank financial intermediation. The results suggest that usefulness of M2 as an intermediate monetary target has declined with financial innovation and reform. A result that underscores the importance of moving toward increased reliance on more price-based targets such as interest rates.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2011 in the subject Economics - Monetary theory and policy, grade: A, Xiamen University (School of Economics), course: Economics, language: English, abstract: Money market refers to an exchange for buying and selling of financial and money market instruments where financial institutions make transactions of short-term financial instruments for short-term financing and liquidity management. China’s money market is mainly made up of interbank funding market and bond repurchase agreement market commonly referred to as repo market.Since the market-oriented economic reform in 1978, China has entered into a stage of financial deregulation and liberalization. With the growth of the national economy and change of national income structure, China’s finance has increased rapidly, which has brought a great deal of changes in the financial structure. In 1978, broad money (M2) balance was near RMB150 billion yuan. By the end of 2001, M2 balance was up to RMB16,000 billion yuan, an increase of over 100 times in the past twenty years, implying a growth rate of 5 percent a year in 20 years. However, with this financial development and deepening, China needs to liberalize the financial market further and let the liquidity conditions reflect the market realities and integrity. Some scholars argue that China’s financial liberalization remains incomplete as the behavior of short-term market-determined interest rates is influenced by regulated rates. This paper argues that to have integrity of the market China should further liberalize its retail interest rates to allow all interest rates to better reflect liquidity conditions and the scarcity of capital. China has taken important steps to liberalize its interest rates. Short-term interbank interest rates were liberalized initially, financial and treasury bond yields were liberalized soon after, followed later by the liberalization of the corporate fixed income market. The creation of the short-term financing bond in 2005 and medium-term financing note in 2008, with unregulated interest rates and liberal issuance criteria, were major advances in the development of the corporate financing market. In 2007, seeking to make interest rates better reflect market conditions and create a more stable benchmark yield curve at longer maturities, the Chinese authorities also launched the Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (SHIBOR) benchmark rate system.In so doing we hope this will reflect a better and genuine financial Liberalization with integrity of the market that is more aspiring and creates market confidence. Keywords: Financial Liberalization, Integrity of the Market.

In this study, the author hopes to add to the literature concerning the distributional consequences of financial integration by focusing on the rise of non-state actors within a transformed international system. In it, he argues that structural change brought on by transnational production and post-industrialization has created space for non-state actors to acquire autonomy from sovereign entities. While finance is by no means the only specialized sector to achieve autonomy, it has perhaps the most immediate impact on the ability of governments to pursue policy. First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,5, Utrecht University (Utrecht School of Economics), language: English, abstract: Financial liberalization stimulates competition and thereby supposedly increases the efficiency of investment. A simple credit market model is developed to show that such efficiency improvements may be disturbed by competition-induced incentives for banks to accept higher default rates, which result in instability of the financial system. Thereby we offer a complementary explanation to the relationship between competition and stability in financial markets. Consequently we argue that government intervention, in the form of intelligent regulation, is necessary to ensure the development of sustainable financial markets.