IMF Staff Papers
2009
November 4, 2009
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 56, No. 4
Description: This paper empirically evaluates four types of costs that may result from an international sovereign default: reputational costs, international trade exclusion costs, costs to the domestic economy through the financial system, and political costs to the authorities. It finds that the economic costs are generally significant but short-lived, and sometimes do not operate through conventional channels. The political consequences of a debt crisis, by contrast, seem to be particularly dire for incumbent governments and finance ministers, broadly in line with what happens in currency crises.
July 31, 2009
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 56, No. 3
Description: Studies of the impact of trade openness on growth are based either on crosscountry analysis—which lacks transparency—or case studies—which lack statistical rigor. This paper applies a transparent econometric method drawn from the treatment evaluation literature (matching estimators) to make the comparison between treated (that is, open) and control (that is, closed) countries explicit while remaining within a statistical framework. Matching estimators highlight that common cross-country evidence is based on rather far-fetched country comparisons, which stem from the lack of common support of treated and control countries in the covariate space. The paper therefore advocates paying more attention to appropriate sample restriction in crosscountry macro research.
June 1, 2009
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 56, No. 1
Description: This special issue brings together world-renowned experts to provide a systematic and critical analysis of the costs and benefits of financial globalization. Contributors include Kenneth Rogoff, Maurice Obstfeld, Dani Rodrik, and Frederic S. Mishkin.
2008
August 5, 2008
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 55, No. 3
Description: This special issue on exchange rates is drawn from the Eighth Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference held at the International Monetary Fund in Washington in November 2007. The Mundell-Fleming Lecture by Stanley Fischer focuses on exchange rate systems, surveillance, and advice. Jeffrey Frankel and Shang-Jin Wei examine the techniques for estimating de facto exchange rate regimes, while J. Lawrence Broz, Jeffry Frieden, and Stephen Weymouth review survey data to discern exchange rate policy attitudes. In a paper entitled "Fear of Declaring", Adolfo Barajas, Lennart Erickson, and Roberto Steiner try to determine the extent to which markets care about what countries say regarding their exchange rate policies.
June 18, 2008
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 55, No. 2
Description: This special issue is devoted to the Global Economy Model (GEM), a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models widely used by the IMF and central banks worldwide to study issues that cannot be adequately addressed with reduced-form econometric models or an earlier generation of macromodels whose dynamic equations were not based on strong choice-theoretic foundations. Douglas Laxton discusses the GEM philosophy and explains how its modelers find solutions to their systems of nonlinear equations. Paolo Pesenti then lays out the structure of model in detail, explaining how the various equations in GEM are derived from individual and firm-level self-interested maximizing behavior and how individual decisions interact with government policy rules. The remaining six papers are specific applications of the GEM structure to a variety of real problems and policy issues.
June 18, 2008
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 55, No. 1
Description: In this issue, a team of economists look at approaches to modeling the use of IMF resources in order to gauge whether the recent decline in credit outstanding is a temporary or permanent phenomenon. Era Dabla-Norris and Gabriela Inchauste examine what drives the growth of firms, with a focus on informality and regulations. Evan Tanner and Issouf Samake use a vector autoregression approach to examine the probabilistic sustainability of public debt in Brazil. Mexico, and Turkey. And Rachel Glennerster and Yongseok Shin ask whether transparency pays?that is, does the frequency and accuracy of macroeconomic information released to the public lead to lower borrowing costs in sovereign debt markets?
April 18, 2008
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 55, No. 4
Description: In this issue, John T. Cuddington and Daniel Jerrett from the Colorado School of Mines examine whether metals prices are in a "super cycle" upswing driven by intensive economic growth in China, in particular. Using evidence from U.S. Social Security records, James E. Duggan, Robert Gillingham, and John S. Greenlees look at the empirical relationship between mortality and lifetime income. Pär Österholm and Jeromin Zettelmeyer analyze the effect of external conditions on growth in Latin America, while Junko Koeda presents a debt overhang model for low-income countries. The issue also includes a comprehensive index for Volume 55 (2008) by author, subject, and title.
April 7, 2008
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 54, No. 4
Description: In this issue, authors from the IMF and from Argentine institutions team up to review how different banks behaved and were hurt during the country's crisis. Atsushi Iimi looks at how countries can escape from the resource curse in a comparative analysis that focuses on Botswana. John Cady and Jesus Gonzalez-Garcia examine the relationship between exchange rate volatility and the transparency of reserves. The issue also includes a comprehensive index of all Volume 54 papers by author, title, subject, and JEL classification.
2007
September 26, 2007
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 54, No. 2
Description: Vol. 54, No. 2 includes three notable contributions from the Seventh Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference (ARC) hosted by the IMF in November 2006. Its lead paper, by Olivier Blanchard of Harvard University, is the 2006 Mundell-Fleming Lecture (delivered at the ARC), which analyzes current-account deficits in the advanced economies. Other papers in this issue look at the relationship between international financial integration and the real economy. Other papers discuss whether (or not): i) the next capital account crisis can be predicted; ii) accepted definitions of debt crises are adequate; iii) the Doha Round of trade talks (if they are ever successfully completed) will lead to preference erosion; and finally iv) there is room for political opportunism in countries deciding between money-based or exchange-rate-based stabilization programs.
September 26, 2007
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 54, No. 1
Description: This is the first issue of IMF Staff Papers published under a special partnership between the IMF and Palgrave Macmillan. Very little will change with regard to the journal's visual appearance, though significant service quality enhancements (e.g., an on-line interactive edition) will rollout before the end of 2007. For more information and regular updates, please access http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/index.html.