Working Papers
2012
July 1, 2012
Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India
Description: Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is significantly price sensitive, but widespread take-up would not be achieved even if the product offered a payout ratio comparable to U.S. insurance contracts. We present evidence suggesting that lack of trust, liquidity constraints and limited salience are significant non-price frictions that constrain demand. We suggest contract design improvements to mitigate these frictions.
July 1, 2012
Inflation Dynamics in Mongolia: Understanding the Roller Coaster
Description: Inflation in Mongolia resembles a roller coaster ride with sharp rises and steep drops. Understanding why is critical for formulating and assessing monetary policy. Food prices are found to be a key driver of inflation, and, not surprising given Mongolia’s geography, are determined primarily by local supply conditions, highly seasonal, and subject to large but short-lived shocks (usually weather related). Nonetheless, demand factors are also found to be significant in explaining price movements and empirical evidence suggests that a 10 percent increase in government wages, for example, would push up underlying inflation by 1 percentage point. So, while inflation will remain volatile due to agricultural shocks, there is space for macroeconomic stabilization policy to help reduce inflation volatility.
July 1, 2012
On Price Stability and Welfare
Description: The financial crisis in the advanced countries that began in 2007 has led central bankers to adopt unconventional policy measures as policy interest rates neared the zero bound. One suggestion (Blanchard, Dell’Ariccia, and Mauro, 2010) has been to raise inflation targets to provide more room for policy rate easing during crises. This paper addresses a different issue: the relationship between inflation and welfare. The literature is surveyed and a model is developed. A key conclusion is that an increase in inflation targets gives rise to additional welfare costs, even after the extra room to maneuver above the zero lower bound for nominal policy rates is taken into account. Based on parameter values that fit U.S. data, the additional welfare costs of raising inflation targets from 2 to 4 percent are estimated at about 0.3 percent of annual real income. A rise to 10 percent would yield additional welfare costs of about 1 percent of real income. Other parameter values yield welfare costs as high as 7 (respectively 30) percent of real income for raising inflation targets from 2 to 4 (respectively from 2 to 10) percent. The full costs of raising inflation targets are likely to be higher because the model used to generate these estimates does not account for higher inflation-induced volatility.
July 1, 2012
Riding Global Financial Waves: The Economic Impact of Global Financial Shocks on Emerging Market Economies
Description: Over the past two decades, most emerging market economies witnessed two key developments. A marked process of financial integration with the rest of the world, arguably turning these economies more vulnerable to global financial shocks; and an improvement of macroeconomic fundamentals, helping to increase their resiliency to these shocks. Against a backdrop of these opposing forces, are these economies more vulnerable to global financial shocks today than in the past? Have better fundamentals offset increasing financial integration? If so, what fundamentals matter most? We address these questions by examining the role of these two forces over the past two decades in amplifying or buffering the economic impact of these shocks. Our findings show that EMEs, with the exception of Emerging Europe, have become less vulnerable. Exchange rate flexibility and external sustainability are key determinants of the impact of these shocks, while the extent to which deeper financial integration is a source of vulnerability depends on the exchange rate regime.
July 1, 2012
Fiscal Rules in Response to the Crisis: Toward the "Next-Generation" Rules: A New Dataset
Description: Strengthening fiscal frameworks, in particular fiscal rules, has emerged as a key response to the fiscal legacy of the crisis. This paper takes stock of fiscal rules in use around the world, compiles a dataset - covering national and supranational fiscal rules, in 81 countries from 1985 to end-March 2012 - and presents details about the rules’ key design elements, particularly in support of enforcement. This information is summarized in a set of fiscal rules indices. Three key findings emerge: (i) many new fiscal rules have been adopted and existing ones strengthened in response to the crisis; (ii) the number of fiscal rules and the comprehensiveness of the design features in emerging economies has caught up to those in advanced economies; and (iii) the "next-generation" fiscal rules are increasingly complex as they combine the objectives of sustainability and with the need for flexibility in response to shocks, thereby creating new challenges for implementation, communication, and monitoring.
July 1, 2012
Foreign Aid and Revenue: Still a Crowding Out Effect?
Description: This paper reexamines the relationship between aid and domestic tax revenues using a more recent and comprehensive dataset covering 118 countries for the period 1980 - 2009. Overall, our results support earlier findings of a negative association between net Official Development Assistance (ODA) and domestic tax revenues, but this relationship appears to have weakened in reflection of greater efforts at mobilizing domestic revenues in many countries. The composition of net ODA matters: ODA grants are associated with lower revenues, while ODA loans are not. The paper further finds that net ODA and grants are negatively associated with VAT, excise and income tax revenues, but have a positive relationship with trade taxes. Aid has a particularly strong negative effect on domestic tax revenues in low-income countries and in countries with relatively weak institutions.
July 1, 2012
Great Recession and Fiscal Squeeze at U.S. Subnational Government Level
Description: The paper discusses the fiscal impact of the Great Recession of 2007-08 on state and local governments in the United States. It documents the sharp decline in tax revenue and discusses how states responded to close the budget gaps in order to obey the balanced budget provisions. It highligts the procyclical nature of this policy response, provides a brief comparison with subnational policy stances in other advanced economies, and discusses some options for making subnational fiscal policy less procyclical within the framework of current rules.
July 1, 2012
Environmental Tax Reform: Principles from Theory and Practice to Date
Description: This paper recommends a system of upstream taxes on fossil fuels, combined with refunds for downstream emissions capture, to reduce carbon and local pollution emissions. Motor fuel taxes should also account for congestion and other externalities associated with vehicle use, at least until mileage-based taxes are widely introduced. An examination of existing energy/environmental tax systems in Germany, Sweden, Turkey, and Vietnam suggests that there is substantial scope for policy reform. This includes harmonizing taxes for pollution content across different fuels and end-users, better aligning tax rates with values for externalities, and scaling back taxes on vehicle ownership and electricity use that are redundant (on environmental grounds) in the presence of more targeted taxes.
July 1, 2012
Intertwined Sovereign and Bank Solvencies in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Crisis
Description: Large fiscal financing needs, both in advanced and emerging market economies, have often been met by borrowing heavily from domestic banks. As public debt approached sustainability limits in a number of countries, however, high bank exposure to sovereign risk created a fragile inter-dependence between fiscal and bank solvency. This paper presents a simple model of twin (sovereign and banking) crisis that stresses how this interdependence creates conditions conducive to a self-fulfilling crisis.
July 1, 2012
Global Commodity Prices, Monetary Transmission, and Exchange Rate Pass-Through in the Pacific Islands
Description: Pacific Islands countries are vulnerable to commodity price shocks, and this poses challenges to monetary policy. The high degree of exchange rate pass-through to headline inflation and the weak monetary transmission mechanism in PICs suggest a greater efficacy of exchange rate changes in affecting inflation rather than monetary policy. To assess the tradeoff between the use of the exchange rate and monetary policy in macroeconomic stabilization, we employ a model-based approach to examine the optimal policy in response to the historical distribution of exogenous shocks in a Pacific Island (Tonga). The empirical evidence and model simulations tilt in the favor of exchange rate policy given the close relationship between exchange rate changes and headline inflation and the low interest rate sensitivity of aggregate demand.