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Weathering the financial crisis: good policy or good luck?

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  • Stephen Cecchetti
  • Michael R King
  • James Yetman

Abstract

The macroeconomic performance of individual countries varied markedly during the 2007-09 global financial crisis. While China's growth never dipped below 6% and Australia's worst quarter was no growth, the economies of Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom suffered annualised GDP contractions of 5-10% per quarter for five to seven quarters in a row. We exploit this cross-country variation to examine whether a country's macroeconomic performance over this period was the result of pre-crisis policy decisions or just good luck. The answer is a bit of both. Better-performing economies featured a better-capitalised banking sector, lower loan-to-deposit ratios, a current account surplus, high foreign exchange reserves and low levels and growth rates of private sector credit-to-GDP. In other words, sound policy decisions and institutions reduced their vulnerability to the financial crisis. But these economies also featured a low level of financial openness and less exposure to US creditors, suggesting that good luck played a part.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Cecchetti & Michael R King & James Yetman, 2011. "Weathering the financial crisis: good policy or good luck?," BIS Working Papers 351, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:351
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    Keywords

    financial crisis; principal components;

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