Working Papers
2012
February 1, 2012
Inclusive Growth, Institutions, and the Underground Economy
Description: Worldwide protests against the perceived lack of economic opportunity and failure of governance have refocused attention on the need for inclusive growth and strong institutions. In developing countries, large informal economies limit state capacity to deliver governance and strong institutions, which in turn discourages participation in and expansion of the formal economy. This paper analyzes the determinants of the underground economy, with particular emphasis on the role of institutions and the rule of law. We find that when businesses are faced with onerous regulation, inconsistent enforcement and corruption, they have an incentive to hide their activities in the underground economy. Empirical analysis suggests that institutions are a more important determinant of the size of the underground economy than tax rates.
January 1, 2012
Stock-Flow Adjustments and Fiscal Transparency: A Cross-Country Comparison
Description: Over the past three decades, large and persistent discrepancies between the annual change in public debt and the budget deficit, so-called stock-flow adjustments, were a prominent feature of debt dynamics in many economies. The aim of this paper is to investigate the underlying determinants of such discrepancies and their relationship with fiscal transparency using data for 163 countries. Results show that such discrepancies can only be partly explained by balance sheet effects and the realization of contingent liabilities and that significant differences exist in average stock-flow adjustments across countries reflecting country-specific factors. The more fiscally transparent the country, the smaller these tend to be. The contribution of stock-flow adjustments to increases in debt is likewise smaller in countries with above average fiscal transparency. This may not be coincidental, as a lack of fiscal transparency may make it easier for governments to engage in deceptive fiscal stratagems.
January 1, 2012
Sovereign Risk, Fiscal Policy, and Macroeconomic Stability
Description: This paper analyzes the impact of strained government finances on macroeconomic stability and the transmission of fiscal policy. Using a variant of the model by Curdia and Woodford (2009), we study a "sovereign risk channel" through which sovereign default risk raises funding costs in the private sector. If monetary policy is constrained, the sovereign risk channel exacerbates indeterminacy problems: private-sector beliefs of a weakening economy may become self-fulfilling. In addition, sovereign risk amplifies the effects of negative cyclical shocks. Under those conditions, fiscal retrenchment can help curtail the risk of macroeconomic instability and, in extreme cases, even stimulate economic activity.
January 1, 2012
Fiscal Rules and the Sovereign Default Premium
Description: This paper finds optimal fiscal rule parameter values and measures the effects of imposing fiscal rules using a default model calibrated to an economy that in the absence of a fiscal rule pays a significant sovereign default premium. The paper also studies the case in which the government conducts a voluntary debt restructuring to capture the capital gains from the increase in its debt market value implied by a rule announcement. In addition, the paper shows how debt ceilings may reduce the procyclicality of fiscal policy and thus consumption volatility.
January 1, 2012
Managing Non-Core Liabilities and Leverage of the Banking System: A Building Block for Macroprudential Policy Making in Korea
Description: Korea has been active in implementing targeted macroprudential policies to address specific financial stability concerns. In this paper, we develop a conceptual model that could serve as a building block for the broader framework of macroprudential policy making in Korea. It is assumed that the policy maker imposes taxes on key aggregate financial ratios in the banking system to mitigate excessive leverage over the economic cycle. The model is calibrated for Korea. The results illustrate how countercyclical tools, such as simple taxes on key financial ratios, could be incorporated to enrich the broader macroprudential policy framework in the Korean context.
January 1, 2012
Mortgage Defaults
Description: This paper incorporates house price risk and mortgages into a standard incomplete market (SIM) model. The model is calibrated to match U.S. data and accounts for non-targeted features of the data such as the distribution of down payments, the life-cycle profile of home ownership, and the mortgage default rate. The average coefficients that measure the agents' ability to self-insure against income shocks are similar to those of a SIM model without housing but housing increases the values of these coefficients for younger agents. The response of consumption to house price shocks is minimal. The introduction of minimum down payments or income garnishment benefits a majority of the population.
January 1, 2012
Capital Market Integration: Progress Ahead of the East African Community Monetary Union
Description: Capital markets in the East African Community (EAC) face common challenges of low capitalization and liquidity, but to different degrees. EAC member countries have made noticeable progress in developing domestic capital markets through a regional approach, removing constraints on capital transactions and harmonizing market infrastructure. Nevertheless, empirical analysis suggests capital market integration has not deepened during the past few years in the EAC, although convergence of investment returns is taking place to some extent. Learning from the experience of the West African Economic and Monetary Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, EAC countries would benefit from four actions to accelerate financial market integration: (i) further harmonize market infrastructure; (ii) strengthen regional surveillance mechanisms; (iii) encourage local currency bond issuance by multilateral financial institutions; and (iv) build the capacity of the existing regional institutions.
January 1, 2012
The Eastern Caribbean Currency Union: Would a Fiscal Insurance Mechanism Mitigate National Income Shocks?
Description: This paper studies the nature of the shocks affecting the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU), and examines whether a hypothetical Eastern Caribbean fiscal insurance mechanism could insure member countries of the union against asymmetric national income shocks. The empirical results suggest that a one dollar reduction in an ECCU member country's per capita personal income could trigger, through reduced income taxes and increased transfers, flows equivalent to about 7 percent of the initial income shock. Each member of the currency union could benefit as well, although the extent of shock mitigation differs across individual countries.
January 1, 2012
Central Bank Credit to the Government: What Can We Learn From International Practices?
Description: Using a central bank legislation database, this paper documents and analyzes worldwide institutional arrangements for central bank lending to the government and identifies international practices. Key findings are: (i) in most advanced countries, central banks do not finance government expenditure; (ii) in a large number of emerging and developing countries, short-term financing is allowed in order to smooth out tax revenue fluctuations; (iii) in most countries, the terms and conditions of these loans are typically established by law, such that the amount is capped at a small proportion of annual government revenues, loans are priced at market interest rates, and their maturity falls within the same fiscal year; and (iv) in the vast majority of countries, financing other areas of the state, such as provincial governments and public enterprises, is not allowed. The paper does not address central banks' financial support during financial crises.
January 1, 2012
Price Subsidies and the Conduct of Monetary Policy
Description: This paper investigates optimized monetary policy rules in the presence of government intervention to stabilize prices of certain categories of goods and services. The paper estimates a small-scale, structural equilibrium model with a sticky-price sector and a subsidized price sector for a large number of countries using Bayesian methods. The main result of this paper is that strict headline inflation targeting could be outperformed by sectoral inflation targeting, output gap stabilization, or a combination of these. In addition, several country cases exhibit lower performance of both headline and core inflation stabilization, the two most common policies in modern central banks' practices. For practical monetary policy design, we numerically identify country specific thresholds for the degree of government intervention in price setting under which core inflation targeting turns out to be the optimal choice in the context of implementable Taylor rules.