Working Papers
2018
December 7, 2018
Invisible Geniuses: Could the Knowledge Frontier Advance Faster?
Description: The advancement of the knowledge frontier is crucial for technological innovation and human progress. Using novel data from the setting of mathematics, this paper establishes two results. First, we document that individuals who demonstrate exceptional talent in their teenage years have an irreplaceable ability to create new ideas over their lifetime, suggesting that talent is a central ingredient in the production of knowledge. Second, such talented individuals born in low- or middle-income countries are systematically less likely to become knowledge producers. Our findings suggest that policies to encourage exceptionally-talented youth to pursue scientific careers—especially those from lower income countries—could accelerate the advancement of the knowledge frontier.
December 7, 2018
The Micro Impact of Macroprudential Policies: Firm-Level Evidence
Description: Combining balance sheet data on 900,000 firms from 48 countries with information on the adoption of macroprudential policies during 2003-2011, we find that these policies are associated with lower credit growth. These effects are especially significant for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and young firms that, according to the literature, are more financially constrained and bank dependent. Among MSMEs and young firms, those with weaker balance sheets exhibit lower credit growth in conjunction with the adoption of macroprudential policies, suggesting that these policies can enhance financial stability. Finally, our results show that macroprudential policies have real effects, as they are associated with lower investment and sales growth.
December 7, 2018
The Modern Hyperinflation Cycle: Some New Empirical Regularities
Description: Using a database of up to 62 variables for 196 countries over 57 years, a hyperinflation cycle has been characterized to propose a broader setting of stylized facts. Beyond the usual facts, the findings in this paper contribute to the literature of modern hyperinflations in that these cycles occur in contexts where there are (i) depressed economic freedoms, (ii) deteriorated socioeconomic conditions and rule of law, as well as (iii) high levels of domestic conflictivity and government instability. Despite social infraestructure factors improve during stabilization, they keep being substantially lower than the respresentative non-hyperinflation country, suggesting an important role for them in the occurrence of modern hypeinflations. Finally, the role of international financial assistance in stabilization was studied, noting that (i) a clear majority of hyperinflation countries used it, further improving their (ii) economic freedoms, and allowing themselves (iii) greater fiscal flexibility and (iv) more exchange rate stability.
December 7, 2018
Demographics, Pension Systems and the Saving-Investment Balance
Description: This paper studies the effect of demographic change on national saving, global interest rates, and international capital flows, focusing on the role of the public pension system. We develop a small open economy overlapping generations model to illustrate the channels through which demographic variables and pension system generosity interact to affect both private and public saving behavior. We then extend this framework to a two-country setting and simulate scenarios of demographic change and pension reform. We find that the generosity of the pension system plays an important role in determining the movement of the global interest rate and patterns of international capital flows.
December 7, 2018
Demographics, Old-Age Transfers and the Current Account
Description: Building on the evolving literature on the topic, this paper reviews the relationship between demographics and long-run capital flows in both theory and in the data. For this purpose, we develop a two region overlapping generations model where countries differ in their population growth and mortality risk. Besides exploring the implications of demographics for saving and the current account over the long-run, we also study how these might be affected by differences in the coverage and sustainability of old-age transfer schemes. The model predicts that population structure and life expectancy (which affects the need to save to meet old age consumption) affect current account levels, and that while countries with more generous unfunded transfer schemes tend to have lower saving and more capital inflows over the long-run, this effect may be dampened by natural limits (on taxation) of these schemes. The key predictions of the model are generally supported by a rich panel dataset.
December 7, 2018
Borrowing Costs and The Role of Multilateral Development Banks: Evidence from Cross-Border Syndicated Bank Lending
Description: Cross-border bank lending is a growing source of external finance in developing countries and could play a key role for infrastructure financing. This paper looks at the role of multilateral development banks (MDBs) on the terms of syndicated loan deals, focusing on loan pricing. The results show that MDBs' participation is associated with higher borrowing costs and longer maturities---signaling a greater willingness to finance high risk projects which may not be financed by the private sector---but it is also associated with lower spreads for riskier borrowers. Overall, our findings suggest that MDBs could crowd in private investment in developing countries through risk mitigation.
December 7, 2018
The Long-Run Trend of Residential Investment in China
Description: In this paper we analyze the fundamental drivers of China’s residential investment as a share of its GDP. Our analysis indicates that the economic structural changes that led to rebalancing toward consumption were the key driver of the rising residential investment to GDP ratio in China. We project that residential investment would moderate from the current level of 9 percent of GDP to around 6 percent by 2024, and its contribution to real GDP growth would decline gradually from currently about half percent of GDP to slightly negative over this period, barring policy intervention. The decline in the growth contribution of residential investment reflects the projected somewhat slower pace of rebalancing going forward and the envisaged increases in labor costs due to demographic changes.
November 29, 2018
Regional Labor Mobility in Finland
Description: This paper analyzes regional labor mobility in Finland using two complementary empirical approaches: a VAR proposed by Blanchard and Katz (1992) and a gravity model. The results point to a relatively limited regional labor mobility in Finland compared to the U.S. and to EU peers. The limited regional labor mobility is associated with persistent unemployment differentials across regions. Some impediments to regional labor mobility are exogenous, such as large geographical distances across regions and relatively sparse population density, and explain about 23 percent of the variation in labor mobility. Others can be influenced by policy, such as further increase in wage flexibiltiy and reduction of housing costs. These impediments explain about 60 percent of the variation in labor mobility. Greater regional labor mobility could help reduce regional unemployment differentials, improve job matching efficiency, and remove pressures from regional fiscal redistribution.
November 28, 2018
Fiscal Stimulus Impact on Firms' Profitability During the Global Financial Crisis
Description: Using financial statement data from the Thomson Reuter’s Worldscope database for 22,333 non-financial firms in 52 advanced and emerging economies, this paper examines how fiscal stimulus (i.e., changes in structural deficit) interacted with sectoral business cycle sensitivity affected corporate profitability during the recovery period of the global financial crisis (GFC). Using cross-sectional analyses, our findings indicate that corporate profitability improved significantly after the GFC fiscal stimulus, especially in manufacturing, utilities and retail sectors. Firm size and leverage are also found to be significant in explaining changes in corporate profitability.
November 28, 2018
House Price Synchronicity, Banking Integration, and Global Financial Conditions
Description: We examine the relationship between house price synchronicity and global financial conditions across 40 countries and about 70 cities over the past three decades. The role played by cross-border banking flows in residential property markets is examined as well. Looser global financial conditions are associated with greater house price synchronicity, even after controlling for bilateral financial integration. Moreover, we find that synchronicity across major cities may differ from that of their respective countries’, perhaps due to the influence of global investors on local house price dynamics. Policy choices such as macroprudential tools and exchange rate flexibility appear to be relevant for mitigating the sensitivity of domestic housing markets to the rest of the world.