亚洲商业银行房地产金融危机【外文翻译】.doc

1、 外文翻译 原文 Asia Commercial Bank Real Estate Financial Crisis Material Source:University of California Berkeley Author:John M. Quigley Abstract This paper suggests that activities in the real estate markets in Southeast and East Asian economies were an important contributing force to the financial cris

2、es of 1997 in the Asian economies. The analysis relies upon unpublished data reported contemporaneously by financial institutions and market watchers to document the extent of the imbalances in the real property market that were evident to informed observers at the time of the financial collapse. Th

3、e analysis argues that a series of reforms in the regulation of the property market and the treatment of real property loans by financial institutions are necessary to prevent the recurrence of the kind of speculative bubble that contributed to the financial crises in Asia. Given the recentness of t

4、he crisis, the nature of the data and the absence of definitive statistical sources, the results are tentative, but they are certainly consistent with a financial collapse whose proximate cause was unchecked activity in the property market. Keywords:Asian Financial Crisis, Speculative Bubbles, Prope

5、rty Markets. I. Introduction The linkage between the real estate market and the general conditions of the economy has been studied extensively.However, most academic research is focussed on the ways in which economic “ fundamentals” affect property prices or the ways in which expectations about fund

6、amentals affect property markets. (See Mankiw and Weil, 1989, for a celebrated example of this research.) Research also compares the importance of economic “ fundamentals,” relative to the importance of “ history,” in affecting outcomes in the real estate market.(See Quigley, 1999, for recent eviden

7、ce.) Economic models arising from this line of research are capable of generating patterns of price change over time in property markets in response to variations in economic conditions and to exogenous shocks. (See, for example,DiPasquale and Wheaton, 1992, or Case and Shiller, 1988.) There has, ho

8、wever, been much less attention given to the opposite line of causation - the potential for exogenous changes in property markets to affect the subsequent economic performance of the economy. This paper explores this latter line of causation with special reference to the collapse of the Southeast As

9、ian economy in the late 1990s. We consider the potential effects of bubbles in the property market upon the broader economy and present some evidence suggesting that conditions in the real estate market played a major role in the rapid melt down in Asian economies2 beginning in 1997. Given the lags

10、in official statistics, especially in the developing world, most of the evidence presented below comes from private sources or from financial observers. Thus the evidence is hardly definitive;nevertheless, the argument may be a cause for real concern. The concluding part of the paper presents some i

11、mplications for policy - especially policy with respect to the real property market - which arise from this perspective. I. Bubbles and Property Markets Bubbles in financial markets and in real asset markets are not new - as investors in Britains South Sea Company in the 1720s and as real estate dev

12、elopers in Texas in the 1980s could attest. Garber (1990) reviews a diverse set of historically significant speculations - runups and subsequent crashes in prices suggesting a variety of ways in which investor behavior can lead to a bubble in asset prices which subsequently bursts. The first and mos

13、t straightforward of his examples is that of an entrepreneur who incorrectly (or falsely) claims that a venture will pay great future dividends. Subsequent investors base their decisions upon these perceptions of market fundamentals. This situation - asymmetric information in which one player has an

14、 incentive to dissemble - may yield a runup in asset prices if this player is successful. The second example is that of an entrepreneur who uses some of the capital deposited by early investors to pay high dividends, “ confirming” the prospective returns to subsequent investors in the (so-called Pon

15、zi) scheme. Another possibility arises when the great future dividends actually materialize but only for a brief period. In this case,capital stock prices will eventually suffer an abrupt decline,causing later investors, perhaps especially vociferously, to regret their involvement. Finally, each ind

16、ividual investor may understand clearly that the undertaking as a whole is doomed, but each may also speculate that a sequence of new buyers at higher prices is potentially available. This chain letter may yield a stream of high returns for awhile, but eventually it cannot be sustained. Consider the

17、 most straightforward of these bubble paradigms: the entrepreneur who erroneously claims that an investment will yield high returns. The incentives and opportunities to adopt this delusion may have been unusually strong in real capital markets in Asia in the mid-1990s: First, by extrapolating from t

18、wo decades of robust export demand, firms had incentives to increase leverage and to borrow against the book value of assets for business expansion, for retail and office construction as well as plant and equipment. Second, existing real capital assets are notoriously hard to value. Markets are thin

19、, and the problems of appraisal and valuation are great. Real estate markets were unusually thin in many Asian economies because they were largely closed to outsiders. Many countries (for example, Korea) had made it quite difficult for foreign entities to invest in real capital at all. Indeed, it wa

20、s not until the middle of 1998 that Thai citizens married to foreigners could own real property. Freer trade and economic integration has exposed most Asian markets to world competition. Real estate was a conspicuous exception. Third, it is alleged that patterns of asset ownership and reciprocal bus

21、iness transactions among lites (a.k.a. “ crony capitalists” ) made it easy to conceal unreasonably high property appraisals and thus to gain greater leverage by mortgaging properties at inflated assessed values. The proceeds of these transactions could be invested in new businesses as well as expans

22、ions in the current line of business. Developers, anxious to fuel the general expansion of the economy, applied for construction loans, bridge loans, takeout financing. If the lending institutions operated under an implicit guarantee - the way lending institutions in Texas were allowed to operate in

23、 the 1980s - then it follows inexorably that investment in real property was excessive and the potential for default on loans was increased. Under such circumstances, rational and prudent lending institutions have clear self-interests in sponsoring and undertaking excessively risky real capital inve

24、stments. Under these conditions, the diagnosis of a “ currency crisis” could arise without any of the macroeconomic conditions or current-account balance-of-payments problems that normally lead to such crises (e.g., without persistent budget deficits financed by printing currency). The inevitable “

25、bad luck” that follows ultimately from the moral hazard facing lending institutions could place enterprises and ultimately banks in the position of defaulting on the loans they obtained from world capital markets. The financial consequences of these defaults would have to be made up by central gover

26、nment or international agencies, but foreign capital would also subsequently be withdrawn. Existing firms with excessive loans on their plant and equipment would be squeezed, and the bubble could simply burst. Contagion could quickly lead the economy from one equilibrium to another disastrous equili

27、brium. There seems to be no formal description of this alternative to a “ currency crisis” model of the Asian financial crisis (although Paul Krugman 1998 has sketched out a couple of these issues on his website, emphasizing the potential importance of the implicit guarantees afforded to early inves

28、tors). A recent working paper by Edison, et al (1998)introduces a model emphasizing that the response of creditconstrained firms to exogenous shocks can greatly amplify the effect of these shocks upon the larger economy. II. Some Empirical Evidence Systematic empirical analysis about the importance

29、of real estate in the timing and the severity of the Asia collapse is not generally available. After all, the crisis had barely begun in early 1997, and it was not until May 1997 that the Thai Bhat came under massive speculative attack. Nevertheless,scattered information is available from financial

30、institutions and market watchers. A summary of the available historical information on real estate markets in the region is presented in the appendix. Based on the historical data and the contemporary information reported below, eight generalizations and conclusions seem warranted. First, the ratio

31、of new office supply to historical increases in supply was known to be large in many parts of Southeast Asia by 1996. Further, the likely effects of these supply increases upon vacancy rates in many markets was well known or was forecastable. Figure 1 indicates, for example,market conditions for off

32、ice space as reported by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in June, 1996 in the Kuala Lumpur office market. At the time, the new supply forecast for 1997 was almost 4.5 million square feet, almost twice the increase expected in 1996, the year of the forecast. Estimates of new supply created during the five

33、-year period 1993-1998 were about five times as large as had been put in place during the previous five-year period. As illustrated in Figure 2, projected increases in office supply were even larger in Bangkok. In 1995, new office supply reached an all time high of about 850,000 square feet, and the

34、 projection for 1997 was a net addition of almost 1.6 million square feet. The latter figure was more than four times the largest increase in supply in the Thai capital in any year before 1993. In June 1996, office vacancy rates in Bangkok were projected to exceed 25 percent for the year. In the cen

35、tral business district, new supply was also forecast to expand, with additions in 1998 forecast to exceed those in 1997 by forty percent, roughly four times the level in 1995 - all this in a period of rising vacancy rates. (This is reported in Figure 3.) Figure 4 reports analogous forecasts for Jaka

36、rta. In 1996, office supply was projected to increase by the largest amount in history - some 450,000 square feet - about fifty percent more than in 1995. In 1995, the new supply was roughly three times the net addition of 1994. Again, office market vacancies recorded in 1996 were 14 percent and ris

37、ing. Similarly, Figure 5 reports office supplies in Makati in the Philippines. Very large increases were projected for 1998 and 1999. Finally, as noted in Figure 6, analogous increases in supply were observed and forecast for Singapore - a steady increase in net supply from a million square feet in

38、1993, to 2.5 million in 1994, to 3 million in 1995, to 5 million in 1996 to 6.5 million estimated for 1997. During this period, vacancy rates almost doubled. By 1997 the stock of newly built office supply was large, by absolute and relative standards,to 6.5 million estimated for 1997. During this pe

39、riod, vacancy rates almost doubled. By 1997 the stock of newly built office supply was large, by absolute and relative standards,throughout South East Asia, and vacancy rates had already increased substantially. Second, this apparent imbalance between new supply and vacancy rates was evident in the

40、residential market as well.Figure 7 reports the steady increase in condominium supply in the Klang Valley in Malaysia, together with the projected vacancy rate, as forecast in January 1997 by Morgan Stanley.The number of new units forecast in 1999 was more than twice as large as the increase in 1996

41、, and vacancy rates were forecast to triple. Increases in new residential dwellings in urban areas in Southeast Asia were at record levels. Third, the ratio of asset prices to market rents for commercial and retail real estate, as well as residential properties, was at historic highs well before the

42、 Asian crash of 1997. Again, the evidence is not definitive, but financial analyses reported by Morgan Stanley in early 1997 show similar patterns across markets and property types. Figures 8 and 9 report these trends for Hong Kong retail properties and office buildings, respectively. In both market

43、s, prices diverged from rents, moving up more rapidly in the early 1990s and again in 1996. They were forecast to increase even more in 1997. Office rents in Singapore, shown in Figure 10, diverged even more from rents than was the case in Hong Kong. Finally, Figure 11 reports condominium rents and

44、selling prices in Jakarta. Rents for prime condominiums were quite flat from 1995 onwards. Yet asset prices were forecast to increase by forty percent between 1995 and 1997. Standard economic theory linking rents to asset prices implies that, in the long run, capitalized rents can deviate from selli

45、ng prices of comparable properties only by the expected capital gains of properties. (See Meese and Wallace,1994, for a discussion.) The figures presented above strongly imply that further capital gains were anticipated in each of these markets. But this is hard to imagine, given the information tha

46、t was publicly available in early 1997. With large increases in supply forecast and with rising vacancy rates also forecast, it is quite difficult to see how increased capital gains in existing properties could have been anticipated. Fourth, there is pervasive evidence that bank credit growth rates

47、in Southeast Asian countries had substantially exceeded GNP growth and that the ratio of non-performing real estate loans to total loans was large - well before the Asian crisis hit in 1997. Barth, et al (1998) estimate, for example,that the growth in bank credit in the private sector, relative to G

48、DP growth, was 48 percent in Hong Kong during 1990-1996, 62 percent in Indonesia, 40 percent in Malaysia, 115 percent in the Philippines, and 70 percent in Thailand. (By way of comparison, growth was 19 percent in Germany, 3 percent in Japan, 16 percent in the U.K. and minus 15 percent in the U.S.)I

49、n 1995, non-performing loans were 10.4 percent of all bank loans in Indonesia, 7.7 percent in Thailand, and almost 6 percent in Malaysia. (Barth et al., 1998, p. 32). Fifth, by the mid 1990s the size of the real estate sector was large relative to the size of these emerging economies.For example, it was estimated that in 1997 the value of real estate in the Bangkok metropolitan region was almost half as large as the GNP of the entire economy of Thailand (Renaud, et al., 1998). 译文 亚洲商业银行房地产金融危机 资料来源 :美国 加州大学 伯克利分校 作者： 约翰 M 奎格利 摘要 本文认为，