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International Seminar on Timeliness, Methodology
and Comparability of Rapid Estimates of Economic
Trends Ottawa, Canada, 27 - 29 May 2009

• Statistics used by the BIS in monitoring and
  research of the economic and financial crises
• Gert Schnabel

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BIS as a data user

• Natural BIS focus
• aggregated respectively cross-country work
• central bank focus (ie focus on monetary and
  financial stability)
• BIS is also a compiler of statistics
  (international banking, derivatives and security
  statistics)

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Within the Monetary and Economic Department of
the BIS, the financial market crises has
triggered an adjustment in business direction.
The aim is to get a better understanding of the
dynamics and the implications of the crisis and
the economic slowdown by implementing the
following

• Monitoring financial and macroeconomic indicators
  
• Focussing the research on new or revised research
  fields

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Monitoring

• Financial markets
• Standard daily financial market indicators
• Central bank balance sheets
• Credit market developments
• Bank rescue packages
• Banks performance
• Financial market news
• Macroeconomic indicators
• Standard monthly and quarterly indicators
• Surveys
• Forecasts

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Example for daily monitoring of financial markets
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Example for monitoring central bank balance sheets
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Example for monitoring macro situations
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ResearchGiven the severity of the current
financial crisis and the synchronised economic
downturn, historical models and data will prove
to be a poor reference for the future as future
business cycles will certainly be different. The
MED has thus partly refocused its research
strategy on banking sector related projects and
on the economic impact of the crisis.
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Example for research (i)The market reaction to
bank rescue packages

• Event study on the announcement of bank rescue
  packages
• Focus on impact on creditors versus impact on
  shareholders
• Data looked at share prices, CDS spreads,
  government rescue data micro data

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Rescue database example for BIS data collection
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Example for research (ii)

• Some further projects
• Banks early warning indicators
• Banking crisis now and in perspective (eg
  comparison with Nordic crisis)
• Sudden stops and monetary policy in Asia
• Needed data
• Macroeconomic aggregates
• Domestic credit data
• Banks balance sheets
• Asset prices
• BIS international banking statistics

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Data sources

• Central banks
• National statistical offices
• International organisations (IMF, OECD, Eurostat,
  World Bank, United Nations)
• Thomson Reuters
• Bloomberg
• Moodys
• Bureau van Dijk Bankscope
• Markit
• BIS International Financial Statistics

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An example of timeliness at the expense of
quality

• BIS real effective exchange rates (REER)
• Timeliness to what extent is the extrapolation
  of previous months y-o-y changes of CPI still
  acceptable to gain timeliness?

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Selection of BIS activities in international
groups and coordination to discuss statistical
data issues

• Regular exchange with central banks at various
  levels meeting of experts (International
  Financial Statistics, BIS Data bank, Special Task
  Forces)
• Participation at international groups with formal
  membership (eg Inter-agency Task Force on Finance
  Statistics, Working Group on Securities
  databases, SDMX)
• Irving Fisher Committee (IFC)

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Selection of projects/ initiatives underway in
which the BIS is involved

• Review of OTC derivative statistics
• Publication of a handbook on securities
  statistics (IMF, ECB, BIS)
• Joint work with the IMF as a follow-up to FSB/G20
  recommendations on identifying and addressing
  possible data gaps