Working Papers
2019
March 8, 2019
More Work to Do? Taking Stock of Latin American Labor Markets
Description: We analyze the performance of labor markets in Latin America since the late 1990s. Strong GDP growth during the commodity boom period led to important gains in employment and a fall in the unemployment rate as labor demand outpaced an increasing labor supply. We emphasize the role of informality in the dynamics of labor markets in Latin America. A re-examination of Okun’s law shows that informality dampens changes in unemployment accompanying output fluctuations. Moreover, we present some evidence that countries with higher redundancy costs and cumbersome dismissal regulations, exhibit “excess” informality over and above what would be expected based on their income and educational levels. Labor market reforms could thus contribute to reducing informality and increasing the responsiveness of labor markets to output growth. However, looking at selected case studies of reforms using the synthetic control method, we find mixed results in terms of labor market outcomes.
March 8, 2019
Policy Trade-Offs in Building Resilience to Natural Disasters: The Case of St. Lucia
Description: Resilience to climate change and natural disasters hinges on two fundamental elements: financial protection —insurance and self-insurance— and structural protection —investment in adaptation. Using a dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to the St. Lucia’s economy, this paper shows that both strategies considerably reduce the output loss from natural disasters and studies the conditions under which each of the two strategies provides the best protection. While structural protection normally delivers a larger payoff because of its direct dampening effect on the cost of disasters, financial protection is superior when liquidity constraints limit the ability of the government to rebuild public capital promptly. The estimated trade-off is very sensitive to the efficiency of public investment.
March 8, 2019
The Russian State’s Size and its Footprint: Have They Increased?
Description: The short answer: The size of the Russian State has not increased much in the last few years, but its economic footprint remains significant. Concretely, the state's size increased from about 32 percent of GDP in 2012 to 33 percent in 2016, not far from the EBRD's estimate of 35 percent for 2005-10. This is different from the mainstream narrative, which contends that the state's size doubled in the last decade. However, a deep state footprint is reflected in a relatively high state share in formal sector activity (close to 40 percent) and formal sector employment (about 50 percent). The deep footprint is also reflected in market competition and efficiency. Although sectors in which the state is present are more concentrated, concentration is large even in sectors where the state's share is low. This suggests the need to protect and promote competition, in particular in state procurement. Finally, state-owned enterprises' performance appears weaker than that of privately-owned firms, which may be subtracting from growth.
March 7, 2019
China’s Evolving Exchange Rate Regime
Description: China’s exchange rate regime has undergone gradual reform since the move away from a fixed exchange rate in 2005. The renminbi has become more flexible over time but is still carefully managed, and depth and liquidity in the onshore FX market is relatively low compared to other countries with de jure floating currencies. Allowing a greater role for market forces within the existing regime, and greater two-way flexibility of the exchange rate, are important steps to build on the progress already made. This should be complemented by further steps to develop the FX market, improve FX risk management, and modernize the monetary policy framework.
March 5, 2019
Do Fiscal Rules Cause Better Fiscal Balances? A New Instrumental Variable Strategy
Description: This paper estimates the causal effect of fiscal rules on fiscal balances in a panel of 142 countries over the period 1985-2015. Our instrumental variable strategy exploits the geographical diffusion of fiscal rules across countries. The intuition is that reforms in neighboring countries may affect the adoption of domestic reforms through peer pressure and imitational effects. We find that fiscal rules correlate with lower deficits, but the positive link disappears when endogeneity is correctly addressed. However, when considering an index of fiscal rules’ design, we show that well-designed rules have a statistically significant impact on fiscal balances. We conduct several robustness tests and show that our results are not affected by weak instrument problems.
March 1, 2019
Nonlinearity Between the Shadow Economy and Level of Development
Description: This paper is the first attempt to directly explore the long-run nonlinear relationship between the shadow economy and level of development. Using a dataset of 158 countries over the period from 1996 to 2015, our results reveal a robust U-shaped relationship between the shadow economy size and GDP per capita. Our results imply that the shadow economy tends to increase when economic development surpasses a given threshold or at least does not disappear. Our findings suggest that special attention should be given to the country’s level of development when designing policies to tackle issues related to the shadow economy.
March 1, 2019
Struggling to Make the Grade: A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Weak Outcomes of South Africa’s Education System
Description: While South Africa has made significant improvements in basic and tertiary education enrollment, the country still suffers from significant challenges in the quality of educational achievement by almost any international metric. The paper finds that money is clearly not the main issue since the South Africa’s education budget is comparable to OECD countries as a percent of GDP and exceeds that of most peer sub-Saharan African countries in per capita terms. The main explanatory factors are complex and multifaceted, and are associated with insufficient subject knowledge of some teachers, history, race, language, geographic location, and socio-economic status. Low educational achievement contributes to low productivity growth, and high levels of poverty, unemployment, and inequality. Drawing on the literature, the paper sketches some policy considerations to guide the debate on what works and what does not.
March 1, 2019
Cash Use Across Countries and the Demand for Central Bank Digital Currency
Description: The level and trend in cash use in a country will influence the demand for central bank digital currency (CBDC). While access to digital currency will be more convenient than traveling to an ATM, it only makes CBDC like a bank debit card—not better. Demand for digital currency will thus be weak in countries where cash use is already very low, due to a preference for cash substitutes (cards, electronic money, mobile phone payments). Where cash use is very high, demand should be stronger, due to a lack of cash substitutes. As the demand for CBDC is tied to the current level of cash use, we estimate the level and trend in cash use for 11 countries using four different measures. A tentative forecast of cash use is also made. After showing that declining cash use is largely associated with demographic change, we tie the level of cash use to the likely demand for CBDC in different countries. In this process, we suggest that one measure of cash use is more useful than the others. If cash is important for monetary policy, payment instrument competition, or as an alternative payment instrument in the event of operational problems with privately supplied payment methods, the introduction of CBDC may best be introduced before cash substitutes become so ubiquitous that the viability of CBDC could be in doubt.
March 1, 2019
How Effective is Macroprudential Policy? Evidence from Lending Restriction Measures in EU Countries
Description: This paper assesses the effectiveness of lending restriction measures, such as loan-to-value and debt-service-to-income ratios, in affecting developments in house prices and credit. We use data on 99 lending standard restrictions implemented in 28 EU countries over 1990–2018. The results suggest that lending restriction measures are generally effective in curbing house prices and credit. However, the impact is delayed and reaches its peak only after three years. In addition, the impact is asymmetric, with tightening measures having weaker association with target variables compared to loosening measures. The association is stronger in countries outside of euro area and for legally-binding measures and measures involving sanctions. The results have practical implications for macroprudential authorities.
February 28, 2019
Negative Monetary Policy Rates and Portfolio Rebalancing: Evidence from Credit Register Data
Description: We study negative interest rate policy (NIRP) exploiting ECB's NIRP introduction and administrative data from Italy, severely hit by the Eurozone crisis. NIRP has expansionary effects on credit supply-- -and hence the real economy---through a portfolio rebalancing channel. NIRP affects banks with higher ex-ante net short-term interbank positions or, more broadly, more liquid balance-sheets, not with higher retail deposits. NIRP-affected banks rebalance their portfolios from liquid assets to credit—especially to riskier and smaller firms—and cut loan rates, inducing sizable real effects. By shifting the entire yield curve downwards, NIRP differs from rate cuts just above the ZLB.