Working Papers
2016
November 16, 2016
The Influence of Gender Budgeting in Indian States on Gender Inequality and Fiscal Spending
Description: This study investigates the effect of gender budgeting in India on gender inequality and fiscal spending. Gender budgeting is an approach to budgeting in which governments use fiscal policies and administration to address gender inequality and women’s advancement. There is little quantitative study of its impact. Indian states offer a relatively unique framework for assessing the effect of gender budgeting. States with gender budgeting efforts have made more progress on gender equality in primary school enrollment than those without, though economic growth appears insufficient to generate equality on its own. The implications of gender budgeting for fiscal spending were more ambiguous.
November 16, 2016
A Balancing Act: Reform Options for Paraguay’s Fiscal Responsibility Law
Description: Paraguay faces a trade-off between building fiscal credibility and amending the existing fiscal rule to accommodate infrastructure investment and provide space for countercyclical policies. In this paper, we discuss several alternative fiscal rules for Paraguay and present simulations of debt trajectories in each case, assuming a baseline and three deterministic shock scenarios. We provide a supplementary Excel file to replicate debt simulations under different fiscal rules. The results suggest that potential modifications to make the fiscal rules more flexible in Paraguay should be accompanied by a number of safeguards that enhance credibility of the fiscal anchor and preserve sustainability.
November 16, 2016
Arrears to the IMF – A Ghost of the Past?
Description: In this paper, we consider incidences of arrears to the IMF, focusing on protracted arrears cases and attempt to identify determinants of their occurrence. We use narrative and formal methods. In addition, we analyze determinants of the duration of arrears. We find that previous arrears, reserves coverage, and institutional quality are among the main determinants of arrears. In addition, we identify a role for political developments, including civil unrest, which make arrears more likely to arise and to last longer. We conclude that improved macroeconomic conditions and turnaround of political fortunes would help to clear the currently remaining protracted arrears cases.
November 16, 2016
Stock Market Liquidity in Chile
Description: Chile has a large but relatively illiquid stock market. Global factors such as global risk appetite and monetary policy in advanced economies are key cyclical determinants of liquidity in Chilean equities. Evidence from a cross-section of emerging markets suggests strong protection of minority shareholders can help improve stock market liquitidity. Currently, illiquid in Chilean may have to pay 3½ percent more as cost of equity. Corporate governance should be improved, namely through the adoption of a stewardship code.
November 15, 2016
Trade Costs of Sovereign Debt Restructurings: Does a Market-Friendly Approach Improve the Outcome?
Description: Sovereign debt restructurings have been shown to influence the dynamics of imports and exports. This paper shows that the impact can vary substantially depending on whether the restructuring takes place preemptively without missing payments to creditors, or whether it takes place after a default has occurred. We document that countries with post-default restructurings experience on average: (i) a more severe and protracted decline in imports, (ii) a larger fall in exports, and (iii) a sharper and more prolonged decline in both GDP, investment and real exchange rate than preemptive cases. These stylized facts are confirmed by panel regressions and local projection estimates, and a range of robustness checks including for the endogeneity of the restructuring strategy. Our findings suggest that a country’s choice of how to go about restructuring its debt can have major implications for the costs it incurs from restructuring.
November 15, 2016
Securitization and Credit Quality
Description: Banks are usually better informed on the loans they originate than other financial intermediaries. As a result, securitized loans might be of lower credit quality than otherwise similar nonsecuritized loans. We assess the effect of securitization activity on loans’ relative credit quality employing a uniquely detailed dataset from the euro-denominated syndicated loan market. We find that, at issuance, banks do not seem to select and securitize loans of lower credit quality. Following securitization, however, the credit quality of borrowers whose loans are securitized deteriorates by more than those in the control group. We find tentative evidence suggesting that poorer performance by securitized loans might be linked to banks’ reduced monitoring incentives.
November 15, 2016
A Tale of Two Sectors: Why is Misallocation Higher in Services than in Manufacturing?
Description: Recent empirical studies document that the level of resource misallocation in the service sector is significantly higher than in the manufacturing sector. We quantify the importance of this difference and study its sources. Conservative estimates for Portugal (2008) show that closing this gap, by reducing misallocation in the service sector to manufacturing levels, would boost aggregate gross output by around 12 percent and aggregate value added by around 31 percent. Differences in the effect and size of productivity shocks explain most of the gap in misallocation between manufacturing and services, while the remainder is explained by differences in firm productivity and age distribution. We interpret these results as stemming mainly from higher output price rigidity, greater labor adjustment costs and more informality in the service sector.
November 15, 2016
Quantifying the Spillovers from China Rebalancing Using a Multi-Sector Ricardian Trade Model
Description: This paper assesses the spillovers from different facets of China rebalancing using a calibrated Ricardian trade model that includes 41 economies, each consisting of 34 sectors. We find that China’s move up the value chain in particular has the potential for significant spillovers – on the one hand, adversely affecting industrialized economies heavily involved in the Asia value chain, while at the same time generating positive spillovers to lower and middle income countries. The model’s strength lies in endogenously capturing production value chains and international trade of goods across sectors.
November 15, 2016
To Bet or Not to Bet: Copper Price Uncertainty and Investment in Chile
Description: A strand of research documents Chile’s copper dependence hence significant exposure to terms of trade shocks. Copper prices’ sharp decline and forecast uncertainty since the end of the commodity super-cycle has rekindled the debate on Chile’s adjustment capacity to external shocks. Following Malz (2014), this paper builds a time-varying measure of copper price uncertainty using options contracts. VAR analysis shows that the investment response to an uncertainty shock of average magnitude in the sample is strong and persistent: the cumulative fall in investment from trend at a one-year horizon ranges 2–5.8 percentage points; and it takes between 1½ and 2 years for investment to return to its trend level. Empirical ranges depend on alternative definitions for investment, uncertainty, and options’ maturing time.
November 10, 2016
Tuning in RBC Growth Spectra
Description: For US postwar data, the paper explains central consumption, labor, investment and output correlations and volatilities along with output growth persistence by including a human capital investment sector and a variable physical capital utilization rate. Strong internal "amplication" results from an economy-wide productivity shock across goods and human capital investment sectors that has variances 10,000 fold smaller than in the standard RBC TFP shock. Simulated moments are compared to data moments for the business cycle, the low frequency and the Medium Cycle frequency, as well as the high frequency. A metric is provided to gauge that the results have an average of 46% deviation of simulated moments from data moments, for a broad array of targets across all windows. Within this array, key correlations have only a 15% deviation in the business cycle window, and growth persistence only an 8% deviation in the low frequency, which indicates good "propagation". Countercyclic human capital investment time and procyclic physical capital capacity utilization rates are also found as in data.