Development of micro- and macroeconomic analysis of financial intermediation Article 2. Macroeconomic analysis of the role of financial intermediaries in the works of B. Bernanke and the application of financial intermediation theory in combating financial crises

Abstract

The second of two articles which reveal the theoretical and practical significance of the researches awarded 2022 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. The author shows the theoretical and practical influence of B. Bernanke's research on the non-monetary effects of the banking crisis on the course of the Great Depression, which marked the beginning of recognition and measurement of the macroeconomic effects of financial intermediaries as institutions performing important functions under information asymmetry. The peculiarities of the global financial crisis and the latest crisis processes in the banking sector, which are taking place in the conditions of a change in the global monetary environment, are considered in light of the laureates' works. This change – a rapid tightening of monetary policy in developed economies was a reaction not only to global price shocks associated with the full-scale Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but also to the previous delay in anti-inflationary efforts in the conditions of a combination of supply shocks with monetary demand stimulation and monetary authorities' faith in well-anchored inflationary expectations. The article considers the extent to which the crisis processes at Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, First Republic Bank and Credit Suisse are described by the models developed by the 2022 Nobel laureates. Based on that analysis, the author adjusts the answer to the question about the role of banking panics in the market economy. Probable directions for reforming banking regulation in the USA are characterized. It is substantiated that the government faces a complex set of tasks: to minimize social losses from banking panics; to prevent large business losses that would have broad macroeconomic consequences; and to prevent irrational contagion with panic moods and panic as a self-fulfilling prophecy, without eliminating the very possibility of depositors fleeing from a bank with poor management. It is shown that increasing and complicating the public presence in the financial sector has an extremely powerful and difficult to assess influence on the incentives of financial intermediaries, which embody the latter’s nature as special economic entities.