In a talk to European bankers last month, the governor of the Bank of Spain cited a Bible story to illustrate how modern economies might ameliorate the tendency for busts to follow booms in the business cycle.<\/p>\n
Miguel Fern\u00c3\u00a1ndez Ord\u00c3\u00b3\u00c3\u00b1ez spoke of Joseph’s interpretation of a dream by Egypt’s Pharaoh of seven fat and seven lean cows as indicating seven years of “great plenty” followed by seven years of “famine” (Genesis 41). As a result, Joseph was put in charge of the kingdom and set aside a fifth of the harvest in the years of plenty. Thereby, he got Egypt through the following hard times and saved his own family from starvation.<\/p>\n
Bringing the biblical idea up to date, Governor Ord\u00c3\u00b3\u00c3\u00b1ez suggested financial regulators insist that banks build up their capital at an enhanced rate during prosperous years to put them in better financial shape should a serious slump follow with many boom-time loans turning sour.<\/p>\n
Actually, a predecessor of Ord\u00c3\u00b3\u00c3\u00b1ez in the 1990s, Governor Luis Angel Roja, did just that. He put into practice a regulatory mechanism termed “dynamic provisioning.” This, notes Ord\u00c3\u00b3\u00c3\u00b1ez, has reinforced the present stability of the Spanish banking system “and today commands wide recognition.”<\/p>\n