Working Papers
2018
November 2, 2018
Balancing Financial Stability and Housing Affordability: The Case of Canada
Description: Housing market imbalances are a key source of systemic risk and can adversely affect housing affordability. This paper utilizes a stylized model of the Canadian economy that includes policymakers with differing objectives—macroeconomic stability, financial stability, and housing affordability. Not surprisingly, when faced with multiple objectives, deploying more policy instruments can lead to better outcomes. The results show that macroprudential policy can be more effective than policies based on adjusting propertytransfer taxes because property-tax policy entails excessive volatility in tax rates. They also show that if property-transfer taxes are used as a policy instrument, taxes targeted at a broader-set of homebuyers can be more effective than measures targeted at a smaller subset of homebuyers, such as nonresident homebuyers.
November 2, 2018
The Expansionary Lower Bound: Contractionary Monetary Easing and the Trilemma
Description: We provide a theory of the limits to monetary policy independence in open economies arising from the interaction between capital flows and domestic collateral constraints. The key feature of our theory is the existence of an “Expansionary Lower Bound” (ELB), defined as an interest rate threshold below which monetary easing becomes contractionary. The ELB can be positive, thus acting as a more stringent constraint than the Zero Lower Bound. Furthermore, the ELB is affected by global monetary and financial conditions, leading to novel international spillovers and crucial departures from Mundell’s trilemma. We present two models under which the ELB may arise, the first featuring carry-trade capital flows and the second highlighting the role of currency mismatches.
November 2, 2018
Monetary and Macroprudential Policy Coordination Among Multiple Equilibria
Description: The notion of a tradeoff between output and financial stabilization is based on monetary-macroprudential models with unique equilibria. Using a game theory setup, this paper shows that multiple equilibria lead to qualitatively different results. Monetary and macroprudential authorities have tools that impose externalities on each other's objectives. One of the tools (macroprudential) is coarse, while the other (monetary policy) is unconstrained. We find that this asymmetry always leads to multiple equilibria, and show that under economically relevant conditions the authorities prefer different equilibria. Giving the unconstrained authority a weight on "helping" the constrained authority ("leaning against the wind") now has unexpected effects. The relation between this weight and the difficulty of coordinating is hump-shaped, and therefore a small degree of leaning worsens outcomes on both authorities' objectives.
November 2, 2018
Tax Revenue Mobilization Episodes in Emerging Markets and Low-Income Countries: Lessons from a New Dataset
Description: How do countries mobilize large tax revenue—defined as an average increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio of 0.5 percent per year over three years or more? To answer this question, we build a novel dataset covering 55 episodes of large tax revenue mobilization in low-income countries and emerging markets. We find that: (i) reforms of indirect taxes and exemptions are the most common tax policy measures; (ii) multi-pronged tax administration reforms often go hand in hand with tax policy measures or are stand alone; and (iii) sustainability of the episodes hinges on tax administration reforms in the key compliance areas (risk-based audits, registration, filing, payment, and reporting).
November 1, 2018
Macro-Fiscal Implications of Climate Change: The Case of Djibouti
Description: This paper reviews the significant macro-fiscal challenges posed by climate change in Djibouti and the costs of mitigation and adaptation policies. The paper concludes that Djibouti is susceptible to climate change and related costs are potentially large. Investing now in adaptation and mitigation has large benefits in terms of reducing the related costs in the future. Reforms to generate the fiscal space are therefore needed and investment for mitigation and adaptation to climate change should be built into the long-term fiscal projections. Finally, concerted international efforts and stepping up regional cooperation could help moderate climate-related macro-fiscal risks.
November 1, 2018
The Labor Market Integration of Migrants in Europe: New Evidence from Micro Data
Description: This paper presents novel empirical evidence on the labor market integration of migrants across Europe. It investigates how successfully migrants integrate in 13 European countries by applying a unified framework to analyze a rich micro dataset with over ten million individuals surveyed between 1998 and 2016. Focusing on employment outcomes, we document substantial heterogeneity in the patterns of labor market integration across host countries and by migrant gender and origin. Our results also point to the importance of cohorts and network effects, initial labor market conditions, and the differential impact of education acquired domestically and abroad in determining migrants’ subsequent employment prospects. The analysis has implications for the design of effective integration policies.
November 1, 2018
The Limits of Meritocracy
Description: We show that too much meritocracy, modeled as accuracy of performance ranking in contests, can be a bad thing: in contests with homogeneous agents, it reduces output and is Pareto inefficient. In contests with sufficiently heterogeneous agents, discouragement and complacency effects further reduce the benefits of meritocracy. Perfect meritocracy may be optimal only for intermediate levels of heterogeneity.
November 1, 2018
An Algorithmic Crystal Ball: Forecasts-based on Machine Learning
Description: Forecasting macroeconomic variables is key to developing a view on a country's economic outlook. Most traditional forecasting models rely on fitting data to a pre-specified relationship between input and output variables, thereby assuming a specific functional and stochastic process underlying that process. We pursue a new approach to forecasting by employing a number of machine learning algorithms, a method that is data driven, and imposing limited restrictions on the nature of the true relationship between input and output variables. We apply the Elastic Net, SuperLearner, and Recurring Neural Network algorithms on macro data of seven, broadly representative, advanced and emerging economies and find that these algorithms can outperform traditional statistical models, thereby offering a relevant addition to the field of economic forecasting.
November 1, 2018
Measuring Competitiveness in a World of Global Value Chains
Description: All common real effective exchange rate indexes assume trade is only in final goods, despite the growing presence of global supply chains. Extending effective exchange rate indexes to include such intermediate goods can imply radically different effective exchange rate weights, depending on the relative substitutability of goods in final demand and in production. Unfortunately, the effect of these shifts in weights are difficult to identify empirically because the two currencies most affected—the dollar and the renminbi—have moved closely together. As the renminbi becomes more flexible, however, it will be important to determine which assumptions are the most realistic.
October 31, 2018
The Morning After--The Impact on Collateral Supply After a Major Default
Description: Changes to the regulatory system introduced after the financial crisis include not only mandatory clearing of OTC derivatives at central counterparties and margining of uncleared derivatives, but also prudential measures, including notably a “Liquidity Coverage Ratio” which obliges firms to set aside high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) as a stopgap against anticipated cash outflows. We examine factors which may affect the demand for HQLA in a severely stressed market following a hypothetical default of a major clearing member. Immediately following a major default, the amount of HQLA demanded by the whole market would spike. We estimate the size of the spike and draw conclusions as to whether the depth of the market is adequate to absorb it.