Will the Proposed Regulatory Reforms by the Basel Committee Improve Economic Performance in Emerging Economies? An Empirical Application to Egypt and Ukraine

Abstract

The aim of this research is to assess the efficacy of the prospective reforms proposed by the Basel Committee on emerging market economies. Egypt and Ukraine are selected as comparative case studies representing middle-income developing nations and transition economies that have shown diverse reactions to the global crisis. Using a small-scale DSGE model, the projected changes to capital adequacy measures, minimum liquidity requirements and Corporate Governance are tested on a set of macroeconomic outputs: GDP growth, employment, inflation and interest rates over the period of 2000:01-2010:03. The results reveal that the DSGE model is an inaccurate forecasting tool for both nations. Also, the impacts of the proposed regulatory reforms are quite detrimental for Ukraine, but better weathered by the Egyptian economy, implying that emerging nations that were well geared up through meeting requirements of Basel II will show more resilience to the costliness of future reforms.

Keywords: Conditional Economic Forecasting; Recapitalization; Corporate Governance in Banks; Financial Risk Management

JEL Classification: G17; G30; G32; G38; C32