Working Papers
2014
April 18, 2014
Official Demand for U.S. Debt: Implications for U.S. Real Interest Rates
Description: By constructing and estimating a structural arbitrage-free model of demand pressures on US real rates, we find that recent purchases of US government debt securities by the Fed and foreign officials have significantly affected the level and the dynamics of US real rates. In particular, by 2008, foreign purchases of US Treasuries are estimated to have had cumulatively reduced long term real yields by around 80 basis points. The subsequent total impact of Fed purchases in 2008-2012 has been even larger: the quantitative easing (QE) has depressed real 10-year yields by around 140 basis points. Our findings also reveal that the Fed policy interventions and foreign official purchases affect longer term real bonds mostly through a reduction in the bond premium.
April 17, 2014
Comparing the Performance of Logit and Probit Early Warning Systems for Currency Crises in Emerging Market Economies
Description: We compare how logit (fixed effects) and probit early warning systems (EWS) predict insample and out-of-sample currency crises in emerging markets (EMs). We look at episodes of currency crises that took place in 29 EMs between January 1995 and December 2012. Stronger real GDP growth rates and higher net foreign assets significantly reduce the probability of experiencing a currency crisis, while high levels of credit to the private sector increase it. We find that the logit and probit EWS out-of-sample performances are broadly similar, and that the EWS performance can be very sensitive both to the size of the estimation sample, and to the crisis definition employed. For macroeconomic policy purposes, we conclude that a currency crisis definition identifying more rather than less crisis episodes should be used, even if this may lead to the risk of issuing false alarms.
April 16, 2014
Income Inequality, Fiscal Decentralization and Transfer Dependency
Description: Within the context of reigniting post crisis macroeconomic growth, income inequality has emerged as a topic of significant interest for both academics and policymakers (Bastagli, Coady, and Gupta, 2012) This study builds on past literature on fiscal decentralization suggesting that redistribution is most effectively carried out at sub-central levels of government. Using the IMF’s multi-sector Government Finance Statistics Yearbook database, this paper tests the impact of decentralized redistribution on income inequality for a globally representative sample of countries since 1980. The findings suggest that the decentralization of government expenditure can help achieve a more equal distribution of income. However, several conditions need to be fulfilled: i) the government sector needs to be sufficiently large, ii) decentralization should be comprehensive, including redistributive government spending, and, iii) decentralization on the expenditure side should be accompanied by adequate decentralization on the revenue side, such that subnational governments rely primarily on their own revenue sources as opposed to intergovernmental transfers.
April 16, 2014
India: Defining and Explaining Inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction
Description: We document the evolution of poverty and inequality across Indian states during the recent period of rapid growth (2004-09), and examine the role of growth and distribution in reducing poverty. Robust economic growth has been a major driver of poverty reduction and inclusiveness in India. We explore the role of economic policies and macrofinancial conditions in explaining inclusive growth and its components, using a new measure of inclusive growth. Social expenditures, spending on education, and educational attainment rates are important for fostering inclusive growth. Macro-financial stability, with particular attention to inflation risks, is also criticial for promoting inclusive growth.
April 16, 2014
Cross-Country Experience in Reducing Net Foreign Liabilities: Lessons for New Zealand
Description: This paper studies the dynamics of net foreign liabilities across a number of countries. Our historical analysis suggests that an orderly reduction in a country’s net foreign liabilities has mostly occurred when there was significant improvement in gross public savings through deliberate fiscal consolidation measures. Simulations of a dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated for New Zealand indicates that sustained government deficit reduction could improve the country’s net foreign assets by about half of the accumulated public savings. However, given New Zealand’s relatively strong fiscal positions and previous work noting structurally low household savings, an orderly improvement in New Zealand’s external position in the medium term will depend on a structural improvement in private savings.
April 16, 2014
Exchange Rate Flexibility and Credit during Capital Inflow Reversals: Purgatory…not Paradise
Description: We document the behavior of macro and credit variables during episodes of capital inflows reversals in economies with different degrees of exchange rate flexibility. We find that exchange rate flexibility is associated with milder credit growth during the boom but, even though smaller than in more rigid regimes, it cannot shield the economy from a credit reversal. Furthermore, we observe what we dub as a recovery puzzle: credit growth in economies with more flexible exchange rate regimes remains tepid well after the capital flow reversal takes place. This results stress the complementarity of macro-prudential policies with the exchange rate regime. More flexible regimes could help smoothing the credit cycle through capital surchages and dynamic provisioning that build buffers to counteract the credit recovery puzzle. In contrast, more rigid exchange rate regimes would benefit the most from measures to contain excessive credit growth during booms, such as reserve requirements, loan-to-income ratios, and debt-to-income and debt-service-to-income limits.
April 16, 2014
Global Financial Shocks and Foreign Asset Repatriation: Do Local Investors Play a Stabilizing Role?
Description: We study the dynamic response of gross capital flows in emerging market economies to different global financial shocks, using a panel vector-autoregressive (PVAR) setting. Our focus lies primarily on the potentially stabilizing role played by domestic investors in offsetting the response of foreign investors to global shocks. We find evidence of such role, but its existence and magnitude depend on the nature of the shock. Local investors play a meaningful stabilizing role in the face of global uncertainty shocks, as well as shocks to long-term U.S. interest rates. However, while in the former case, sizeable asset repatriation largely offsets the retrenchment of non-residents, in the latter case the extent of the offsetting is much more limited. Meanwhile, residents and non-resident behave alike in response to short-term U.S. interest rate shocks, pulling capital away from emerging markets, although magnitudes are not economically significant. The results shed light on the potential impact of the Fed’s QE tapering on emerging market economies.
April 16, 2014
Fiscal Policy in Latin America over the Cycle
Description: This paper provides an analysis of the cyclical stance of fiscal policy in Latin America. Its contributions include developing a new measure of the cyclicality of fiscal policy, careful analysis of the statistical significance of results, and accounting for the effect of commodity prices on fiscal balances. The new cyclicality measure takes into account both discretionary policy action and automatic stabilizers, but excludes additional revenues that are due to applying an unchanged average tax rate to nominal GDP in excess of potential. The paper finds that fiscal policy has been procyclical on average in Latin America, but counter or acyclical in advanced economies. Country-specific results are mostly insignificant, except in a few cases where policy is clearly procyclical. For some countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico), there is evidence of a recent move toward more countercyclical policies.
April 8, 2014
Strengthening Post-Crisis Fiscal Credibility: Fiscal Councils on the Rise — A New Dataset
Description: Institutions aimed at constraining policy discretion to promote sound fiscal policies are once again at the forefront of the policy debate. Interest in “fiscal councils,” independent watchdogs active in the public debate, has grown rapidly in recent years. This paper presents the first cross-country dataset summarizing key characteristics of fiscal councils among IMF members. The data documents a surge in the number of fiscal councils since the crisis. It also illustrates that well-designed fiscal councils are associated with stronger fiscal performance and better macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts. Key features of effective fiscal councils include operational independence from politics, the provision or public assessment of budgetary forecasts, a strong presence in the public debate, and the monitoring of compliance with fiscal policy rules.
April 4, 2014
Financial Crises in DSGE Models: Selected Applications of MAPMOD
Description: This paper, together with a technical companion paper, presents MAPMOD, a new IMF model designed to study vulnerabilities associated with excessive credit expansions, and to support macroprudential policy analysis. In MAPMOD, bank loans create purchasing power that facilitates adjustments in the real economy. But excessively large and risky loans can impair balance sheets and sow the seeds of a financial crisis. Banks respond to losses through higher spreads and rapid credit cutbacks, with adverse effects for the real economy. These features allow the model to capture the basic facts of both the pre-crisis and crisis phases of financial cycles.