Working Papers
2017
January 18, 2017
Why Do Bank-Dependent Firms Bear Interest-Rate Risk?
Description: I document that floating-rate loans from banks (particularly important for bank-dependent firms) drive most variation in firms' exposure to interest rates. I argue that banks lend to firms at floating rates because they themselves have floating-rate liabilities, supporting this with three key findings. Banks with more floating-rate liabilities, first, make more floating-rate loans, second, hold more floating-rate securities, and third, quote lower prices for floating-rate loans. My results establish an important link between intermediaries' funding structure and the types of contracts used by non-financial firms. They also highlight a role for banks in the balance-sheet channel of monetary policy.
2016
December 28, 2016
Strategic Corporate Layoffs
Description: Firms in the S&P 500 often announce layoffs within days of one another, despite the fact that the average S&P 500 constituent announces layoffs once every 5 years. By contrast, similarsized privately-held firms do not behave in this way. This paper provides empirical evidence that such clustering behavior is largely due to CEOs managing their reputation in financial markets. To interpret these results we develop a theoretical framework in which managers delay layoffs during good economic states to avoid damaging the markets perception of their ability. The model predicts clustering in the timing of layoff announcements, and illustrates a mechanism through which the cyclicality of firms layoff policies is amplified. Our findings suggest that reputation management is an important driver of layoff policies both at daily frequencies and over the business cycle, and can have significant macroeconomic consequences.
December 23, 2016
Dynamic Fuel Price Pass-Through: Evidence from a New Global Retail Fuel Price Database
Description: This paper assesses the dynamic pass-through of crude oil price shocks to retail fuel prices using a novel database on monthly retail fuel prices for 162 countries. The impulse response functions suggest that on average, a one cent increase in crude oil prices per liter translates into a 1.2 cent increase in the retail gasoline price at peak level six months after the shock. However, the estimates vary significantly across country groups, ranging from about 0.5 cent in MENA countries to two cents in advanced economies. The results also show that positive oil price shocks have a larger impact than negative price shocks on the retail gasoline price. Finally, the paper underscores the importance of the new dataset in refining estimates of the fiscal cost of incomplete pass-through.
December 23, 2016
Lost and Found: Market Access and Public Debt Dynamics
Description: The empirical literature on sovereign debt crises identifies the level of public debt (measured as a share of GDP) as a key variable to predict debt defaults and to determine sovereign market access. This evidence has led to the widespread use of (country-specific) debt thresholds to assess debt sustainability. We argue that the level of the debt-to-GDP ratio, whose use is justified on a theoretical and empirical ground, should not be the only fiscal metric to assess the complex relationship between public debt and debt defaults/market access. In particular, we show that, in a large panel of emerging markets, the dynamics of the debt ratio plays a critical role for market access. In particular, given a certain level of debt, a steadily declining debt ratio is associated with a lower probability of debt distress/market loss and with a higher likelihood of market re-access once access had been lost.
December 23, 2016
Capital Account Openness in Low-income Developing Countries: Evidence from a New Database
Description: The relevance of recording and assessing countries’ capital flow management measures is well-recognized, but very few studies have focused on low-income developing countries (LIDCs). A key constraint is the lack of an appropriate index to measure the openness of capital account and its change over time. This paper fills the gap by constructing a de jure index based on information contained in the IMF’s Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions. It provides an aggregate index to capture the overall openness of the capital account, and also provides a breakdown of openness for various subcategories of capital flows. The new database covers 164 countries with information on 12 types of asset categories over the period 1996–2013. The index provides the largest coverage of LIDCs among all existing indices and also provides granularity on openness across asset types, direction of flows and residency. The paper examines the link between de jure capital account openness with de facto capital flows and outlines potential applications of this database.
December 23, 2016
Financial Information and Macroeconomic Forecasts
Description: We study the forecasting power of financial variables for macroeconomic variables for 62 countries between 1980 and 2013. We find that financial variables such as credit growth, stock prices and house prices have considerable predictive power for macroeconomic variables at one to four quarters horizons. A forecasting model with financial variables outperforms the World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecasts in up to 85 percent of our sample countries at the four quarters horizon. We also find that cross-country panel models produce more accurate out-of-sample forecasts than individual country models.
December 23, 2016
Potential Output Growth Estimates for Central America and the Dominican Republic
Description: This paper presents estimates of potential output for all Central American economies. Our findings are that potential output growth has declined in recent years in most economies of Central America. Lower capital accumulation and TFP growth are accounting for most of this decline. Apart from Costa Rica, there are no indications of significant economic slack in 2015 in Central America. Looking forward, potential growth in most Central American economies is expected to continue at an average of 4 percent in the medium-term due to structural constraints to capital and employment growth, and low TFP growth. Increasing potential growth, thus, should be a policy priority and structural reforms must be directed at improving business conditions, product and labor markets, and enhancing the capacity for innovation.
December 22, 2016
China’s Rising IQ (Innovation Quotient) and Growth: Firm-level Evidence
Description: This paper examines whether the rapid growing firm patenting activity in China is associated with real economic outcome by building a unique dataset uniting detailed firm balance sheet information with firm patent data for the period of 1998-2007. We find strong evidence that within-firm increases in patent stock are associated with increases in firm size, exports, and more interestingly, total factor productivity and new product revenue share. Event studies using first-time patentees as the treatment group and non-patenting firms selected based on Propensity-Score Matching method as the control group also demonstrate similar effects following initial patent application. We also find that although state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on average have lower level of productivity and are less innovative compared to their non-state-owned peers, increases in patent stock tend to be associated with higher productivity growth among SOEs, especially for patents with lower innovative content. The latter could reflect the preferential government policies enjoyed by SOEs.
December 22, 2016
Does Balance Sheet Strength Drive the Investment Cycle? Evidence from Pre- and Post-Crisis Cyprus
Description: Fixed investment was the most important contributing factor to the boom-bust cycle in Cyprus over the last decade. Investment boomed during a credit boom in mid-2000s, during which the corporate sector borrowed heavily. Investment collapsed after 2008 when the credit boom ended. Investment and corporate balance sheets further deteriorated during the Cypriot banking crisis over 2012–2014. Using firm-level investment and balance sheet data, we find that corporate indebtedness is negatively associated with investment both before and after the banking crisis, although the effect is weaker after the Cypriot banking crisis, possibly due to the reduced role of credit in driving post-crisis investment and growth. Our results suggest the need to repair corporate balance sheets to support sustainable invesetment.
December 22, 2016
The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks on Inequality
Description: This paper provides new evidence of the effect of monetary policy shocks on income inequality. Using a measure of unanticipated changes in policy rates for a panel of 32 advanced and emerging market countries over the period 1990-2013, the paper finds that contractionary (expansionary) monetary actions increase (reduce) income inequality. The effect, however, varies over time, depending on the type of the shocks (tightening versus expansionary monetary policy) and the state of the business cycle, and across countries depending on the share of labor income and redistribution policies. In particular, we find that the effect is larger for positive monetary policy shocks, especially during expansions. Looking across countries, we find that the effect is larger in countries with higher labor share of income and smaller redistribution policies. Finally, while an unexpected increase in policy rates increases inequality, changes in policy rates driven by an increase in growth are associated with lower inequality.