Working Papers
2016
October 14, 2016
Resolving China’s Corporate Debt Problem
Description: Corporate credit growth in China has been excessive in recent years. This credit boom is related to the large increase in investment after the Global Financial Crisis. Investment efficiency has fallen and the financial performance of corporates has deteriorated steadily, affecting asset quality in financial institutions. The corporate debt problem should be addressed urgently with a comprehensive strategy. Key elements should include identifying companies in financial difficulties, proactively recognizing losses in the financial system, burden sharing, corporate restructuring and governance reform, hardening budget constraints, and facilitating market entry. A proactive strategy would trade off short-term economic pain for larger longer-term gain.
October 14, 2016
The Blind Side of Public Debt Spikes
Description: What explains public debt spikes since the end of WWII? To answer this question, this paper identifies 179 debt spike episodes from 1945 to 2014 across advanced and developing countries. We find that debt spikes are not rare events and their probability increases with time. We then show that large public debt spikes are neither driven by high primary deficits nor by output declines but instead by sizable stock-flow adjustments (SFAs). We also find that SFAs are poorly forecasted, which can affect debt sustainability analyses, and are associated with a higher probability of suffering non-declining debt paths in the aftermath of public debt spikes.
October 14, 2016
Estimating Potential Output in Chile: A Multivariate Filter for Mining and Non-Mining Sectors
Description: Using a multivariate filter, we estimate potential growth rates in Chile’s mining and non-mining sectors. Estimates for the mining sector incorporate information on copper prices, whereas estimates for non-mining reflect information on inflation and unemployment rates. To better understand the drivers of potential growth, we decompose estimates into capital, labor (adjusted for human-capital and hours worked), and total-factor productivity using a production-function. Our estimates of potential output in Chile suggest that an important part of the recent growth slowdown has been structural, with potential-output growth slowing to 2½ percent in recent years, although it plausibly could be higher in the medium-term.
October 14, 2016
Assessing Liquidity Buffers in the Panamanian Banking Sector
Description: This paper assesses the resilience of Panamanian banks to (i) a very severe short-term, and (ii) a significant long-lasting liquidity shock scenario. Short-term liquidity buffers are evaluated by approximating the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) defined in the Basel III accord. The risk of losing a substantial part of foreign funding is analyzed through a conventional liquidity stress test scrutinizing several layers of liquidity across maturity buckets. The results of this study point to some vulnerabilities. First, our approximations indicate that about half of Panamanian banks would need to adjust their liquid asset portfolios to meet current LCR standards. Second, while most banks would be able to meet funding outflows in the stress-test scenario, a number of banks would have to use up all of their liquidity buffers, and a few even face a final shortfall. Nonetheless, most banks displaying sizable liquidity shortfalls have robust solvency positions.
October 14, 2016
Gone with the Wind: Estimating Hurricane and Climate Change Costs in the Caribbean
Description: This paper studies the economic costs of hurricanes in the Caribbean by constructing a novel dataset that combines a detailed record of tropical cyclones’ characteristics with reported damages. I estimate the relation between hurricane wind speeds and damages in the Caribbean; finding that the elasticity of damages to GDP ratio with respect to maximum wind speeds is three in the case of landfalls. The data show that hurricane damages are considerably underreported, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, with average damages potentially being three times as large as the reported average of 1.6 percent of GDP per year. I document and show that hurricanes that do not make landfall also have considerable negative impacts on the Caribbean economies. Finally, I estimate that the average annual hurricane damages in the Caribbean will increase between 22 and 77 percent by the year 2100, in a global warming scenario of high CO2 concentrations and high global temperatures.
October 14, 2016
Negative Interest Rates: How Big a Challenge for Large Danish and Swedish Banks?
Description: Negative policy interest rates have prevailed for some years in Denmark and are a more recent development in Sweden. Among other potential side effects, negative rates could weaken banks’ profitability by reducing net interest income, their main source of earnings. However, an analysis of financial statements at the country rather than the consolidated group level shows that bank margins have been broadly stable. At least to date, lower interest income was offset by reductions in wholesale funding costs and higher fee income. Nonetheless, the impacts on bank health and lending from negative interest rates will need to continue to be monitored closely.
September 30, 2016
Central Banking in Latin America: The Way Forward
Description: Latin America’s central banks have made substantial progress towards delivering an environment of price stability that is supportive of sustainable economic growth. We review these achievements, and discuss remaining challenges facing central banking in the region. Where inflation remains high and volatile, achieving durable price stability will require making central banks more independent. Where inflation targeting regimes are well-established, remaining challenges surround assessments of economic slack, the communication of monetary policy, and clarifying the role of the exchange rate. Finally, macroprudential policies must be coordinated with existing objectives, and care taken to preserve the primacy of price stability.
September 29, 2016
Is Capping Executive Bonuses Useful?
Description: This paper develops a theoretical framework to study the impact of bonus caps on banks’ risk taking. In the model, labor market price adjustments can offset the direct effects of bonus caps. The calibrated model suggests that bonus caps are only effective when bank executives’ mobility is restricted. It also suggests, irrespective of the degree of labor market mobility, bonus caps simultaneously reduce risk shifting by bank executives (too much risk taking because of limited liability), but aggravate underinvestment (bank executives foregoing risky but productive projects). Hence, the welfare effects of bonus caps critically depend on initial conditions, including the relative importance of risk shifting versus underinvestment.
September 29, 2016
U.S. Monetary Policy Normalization and Global Interest Rates
Description: As the Federal Reserve continues to normalize its monetary policy, this paper studies the impact of U.S. interest rates on rates in other countries. We find a modest but nontrivial pass-through from U.S. to domestic short-term interest rates on average. We show that, to a large extent, this comovement reflects synchronized business cycles. However, there is important heterogeneity across countries, and we find evidence of limited monetary autonomy in some cases. The co-movement of longer term interest rates is larger and more pervasive. We distinguish between U.S. interest rate movements that surprise markets versus those that are anticipated, and find that most countries receive greater spillovers from the former. We also distinguish between movements in the U.S. term premium and the expected path of risk-free rates, concluding that countries respond differently to these shocks. Finally, we explore the determinants of monetary autonomy and find strong evidence for the role of exchange rate flexibility, capital account openness, but also for other factors, such as dollarization of financial system liabilities, and the credibility of fiscal and monetary policy.
September 27, 2016
Fading Ricardian Equivalence in Ageing Japan
Description: Japan seems to be turning less Ricardian, a trend set to continue. First, the discount wedge seems to have risen, suggesting that consumers have become more myopic. Second, some evidence points to the possibility that an increasing number of households are liquidity constrained. If these developments continue, the impact of fiscal policy on the economy will gradually rise. While this will facilitate using fiscal policy to manage the economic cycle, it also calls for starting fiscal consolidation soon and in a gradual and steady manner, given the unsustainable public debt and the likely increasing challenges in funding the government's rising debt domestically.