Working Papers
2019
July 30, 2019
The Long Shadow of the Global Financial Crisis: Public Interventions in the Financial Sector
Description: We track direct public interventions and public holdings in 1,114 financial institutions over the period 2007–17 in 37 countries based on publicly available information. We use aggregate official data to validate this new dataset and estimate the fiscal impact of interventions, including the value of asset holdings remaining in state hands at end-2017. Direct public support to financial institutions amounted to $1.6 trillion ($3.5 trillion including guarantees), with larger amounts allocated to lower capitalized and less profitable banks. As of end-2017, only a few countries had fully divested the initial support they provided during the crisis. Public holdings were divested faster in better capitalized, more profitable, and more liquid banks, and in countries where the economy recovered faster. In countries where the government stake remained high relative to the initial intervention, private investment and credit growth were slower, financial access, depth, efficiency, and competition were worse, and financial stability improved less.
July 26, 2019
Price Statistics Compilation in 196 Economies: The Relevance for Policy Analysis
Description: The consumer price index (CPI) is a key economic indicator used to gauge inflation, adjust wages, pensions, and social benefits. The producer prices index (PPI) is used for forecasting and deflating GDP estimates. Both indexes are used by the Fund, policymakers, and researchers for global, regional, and domestic surveillance. In this context, the paper evaluates the soundness of the indexes by assessing four major criteria: frequency of updating the weights, the index coverage, timeliness, and the use of international classifications. We discuss online and scanner data as frontier issues. The study shows that the CPI is universally and frequently compiled, timely, and fairly-well aligned with international standards. However, the weights used to compile the index are updated in only 45 percent of economies and have national coverage in 76 percent. PPIs, compiled by only 126 economies are timely, but there is scope for continued improvement as only 36 percent of economies have updated PPI weights and approximately 67 percent maintain the recommended coverage. Outdated weights impact the reliability of the indexes for policy analysis. Frequently updated weights and well-represented coverage mitigate against biases and ensure that the indexes properly measure the price evolution in the economy.
July 26, 2019
The Nonlinear Relationship Between Public Debt and Sovereign Credit Ratings
Description: This study investigates the nonlinear relationship between public debt and sovereign credit ratings, using a wide sample of over one hundred advanced, emerging, and developing economies. It finds that: i) higher public debt lowers the probability of being placed in a higher rating category; ii) the negative debt-ratings relationship is nonlinear and depends on the rating grade itself; and iii) the identified nonlinearity explains the differential impact of debt on ratings in advanced economies versus in emerging markets and developing economies. These results hold for both gross debt and net debt, and are robust to alternative dependent variable definitions, analytical techniques, and empirical specifications. These findings underscore the potential for fiscal consolidation in helping countries achieve a better credit rating.
July 24, 2019
Do Old Habits Die Hard? Central Banks and the Bretton Woods Gold Puzzle
Description: Why did monetary authorities hold large gold reserves under Bretton Woods (1944–1971) when only the US had to? We argue that gold holdings were driven by institutional memory and persistent habits of central bankers. Countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold reserves, following rules of the pre-WWII gold standard. The longer an institution spent in the gold standard (and the older the policymakers), the stronger the correlation between gold reserves and currency. Since dollars and gold were not perfect substitutes, the Bretton Woods system never worked as expected. Even after radical institutional change, history still shapes the decisions of policymakers.
July 24, 2019
Regional Growth Spillovers in Sub-Saharan Africa
Description: This paper documents the steady increase in intraregional trade in sub-Saharan Africa since 1980, links this rise to important growth spillovers in the region, and identifies the main source countries and those most vulnerable to the economic conditions of others. Estimates show that in the short run, positive idiosyncratic shocks to regional trading partners’ growth significantly increase growth in the average sub-Saharan African country, while in the long-run the annual impact of growth in regional trading partner’s is smaller in magnitude. Policy implications including the need to support further continent-wide integration and the associated growth spillovers are discussed. Actions policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa can take to capture the benefits of these spillovers, while limiting exposure to the associated risks, are also proposed.
July 22, 2019
A Buffer-Stock Model for the Government: Balancing Stability and Sustainability
Description: A fiscal reaction function to debt and the cycle is built on a buffer-stock model for the government. This model inspired by the buffer-stock model of the consumer (Deaton 1991; Carroll 1997) includes a debt limit instead of the Intertemporal Budget Constraint (IBC). The IBC is weak (Bohn, 2007), a debt limit is more realistic as it reflects the risk of losing market access. This risk increases the welfare cost of fiscal stimulus at high debt. As a result, the higher the debt, the less governments should smooth the cycle. A larger reaction of interest rates to debt and higher hysteresis magnify this interaction between the debt level and the appropriate reaction to shocks. With very persistent shocks, the appropriate reaction to negative shocks in highly indebted countries can even be procyclical.
July 22, 2019
Internal Trade in Canada: Case for Liberalization
Description: This paper assesses the costs of internal trade barriers and proposes policies to improve internal trade. Estimates suggest that complete liberalization of internal trade in goods can increase GDP per capita by about 4 percent and reallocate employment towards provinces that experience large productivity gains from trade. The positive impact highlights the need for federal, provincial and territorial governments to work together to reduce internal trade barriers. There is significant scope to build on the new Canadian Free Trade Agreement to more explicitly identify key trade restrictions, resolve differences, and agree on cooperative solutions.
July 19, 2019
Assessing IMF Lending: a Model of Sample Selection
Description: Extending previous work on the determinants of IMF lending in an interconnected world, we introduce a model of sample selection in which both selection and size dimensions of individual IMF arrangements are presented within a unified econometric framework. We allow for unobserved heterogeneity to create an additional channel for sample selection at the country level. The results suggest that higher external financing needs, larger exchange rate depreciation, lower GDP growth, as well as deteriorated global financial conditions, are associated with larger individual IMF arrangement sizes. Using the estimated parameters, Monte Carlo simulation of a wide spectrum of global shock scenarios suggest that the distribution of potential aggregate IMF lending exhibits a substantial right tail. Our approach may provide an insightful input to broader policy discussions on the adequacy of the IMF resources.
July 19, 2019
European Wage Dynamics and Spillovers
Description: Wage rises have remained stubbornly low in advanced Europe in recent years, but, at the same time, newer EU members are experiencing rapid wage acceleration. This paper investigates the drivers of this wage divergence. Econometric analysis using error correction models suggests that wage growth responds more quickly to changes in unemployment in the newer EU members than in advanced Europe, where wages are more closely related to inflation and inflation expectations in the short run, implying greater inertia in nominal wage rises in advanced Europe. In the years after the global crisis, this inertia contributed to the build up of a real wage overhang relative to sharply slowing labor productivity, which subsequently dragged on nominal wage rises even as unemployment began to decline. Spillovers of subdued wage growth between euro area countries also weighed on wage rises in advanced Europe.
July 17, 2019
Impacts of Labor Market Institutions and Demographic Factors on Labor Markets in Latin America
Description: This paper documents recent labor market performance in the Latin American region. The paper shows that unemployment, informality, and inequality have been falling over the past two decades, though still remain high. By contrast, productivity has remained stubbornly low. The paper, then, turns to the potential impacts of various labor market institutions, including employment protection legislation (EPL), minimum wages (MW), payroll taxes, unemployment insurance (UI) and collective bargaining, as well as the impacts of demographic changes on labor market performance. The paper relies on evidence from carefully conducted studies based on micro-data for countries in the region and for other countries with similar income levels to draw conclusions on the impact of labor market institutions and demographic factors on unemployment, informality, inequality and productivity. The decreases in unemployment and informality can be partly explained by the reduced strictness of EPL and payroll taxes, but also by the increased shares of more educated and older workers. By contrast, the fall in inequality starting in 2002 can be explained by a combination of binding MW throughout most of the region and, to a lesser extent, by the introduction of UI systems in some countries and the role of unions in countries with moderate unionization rates. Falling inequality can also be explained by the fall in the returns to skill associated with increased share of more educated and older workers.