Working Papers
2011
May 1, 2011
Bank Behavior in Response to Basel Iii: A Cross-Country Analysis
Description: This paper investigates the impact of the new capital requirements introduced under the Basel III framework on bank lending rates and loan growth. Higher capital requirements, by raising banks’ marginal cost of funding, lead to higher lending rates. The data presented in the paper suggest that large banks would on average need to increase their equity-to-asset ratio by 1.3 percentage points under the Basel III framework. GMM estimations indicate that this would lead large banks to increase their lending rates by 16 basis points, causing loan growth to decline by 1.3 percent in the long run. The results also suggest that banks’ responses to the new regulations will vary considerably from one advanced economy to another (e.g. a relatively large impact on loan growth in Japan and Denmark and a relatively lower impact in the U.S.) depending on cross-country variations in banks’ net cost of raising equity and the elasticity of loan demand with respect to changes in loan rates.
May 1, 2011
In Which Exchange Rate Models Do Forecasters Trust?
Description: Using survey data of market expectations, we ask which popular exchange rate models appear to be consistent with expectation formation of market forecasters. Exchange rate expectations are found to be correlated with inflation differentials and productivity differentials, indicating that the relative PPP and Balassa-Samuelson effect are common inputs into expectation formation of market forecasters.
May 1, 2011
Has the Great Recession Raised U.S. Structural Unemployment?
Description: The recent crisis has had differential effects across U.S. states and industries causing a wide geographic dispersion in skill mismatches and housing market performance. We document these facts and, using data from the 50 states plus D.C from 1991 to 2008, we present econometric evidence that supports that changes in state-level unemployment rates are linked to skill mismatches and housing market performance even after controlling for cyclical effects. This result suggests some causality going from mismatches and housing conditions to unemployment rates. The numerical estimates imply that the structural unemployment rate in 2010 was about 1¾ percentage points higher than before the onset of the housing market meltdown at end-2006. Reversing this increase may require targeted active labor market policies and measures to expedite the adjustment in housing markets, as our results suggest weak housing market conditions interact negatively with skill mismatches to produce higher unemployment rates in the United States.
May 1, 2011
Assessing Fiscal Stress
Description: This paper develops a new index which provides early warning signals of fiscal sustainability problems for advanced and emerging economies. Unlike previous studies, the index assesses the determinants of fiscal stress periods, covering public debt default as well as near-default events. The fiscal stress index depends on a parsimonious set of fiscal indicators, aggregated using the approach proposed by Kaminsky, Lizondo and Reinhart (1998). The index is used to assess the build up of fiscal stress over time since the mid-1990s in advanced and emering economies. Fiscal stress has increased recently to record-high levels in advanced countries, reflecting raising solvency risks and financing needs. In emerging economies, risks are lower than in mature economies owing to sounder fiscal fundamentals, but fiscal stress remains higher than before the crisis.
May 1, 2011
Did Export Diversification Soften the Impact of the Global Financial Crisis?
Description: This study considers the role of export diversification in determining trade outcomes during the global financial crisis. The impact of export diversification (or concentration) is measured by assessing three different dimensions of specialization. First, concentration by geographic destination is considered; that is, whether the bulk of exports from a country go to many or few trading partners. Second, industry/sectoral concentration is considered; that is, whether a country’s exports are scattered across many industries and sectors, or concentrated in just a few. Third, product concentration is considered; that is, whether countries produce many products within their export sectors or just a few. The workhorse gravity trade model is adapted with trade diversification as an additional trade cost, and the model solution is empirically tested on a dataset containing over 500 thousand observations for Latin America. Industry and product concentration are found to significantly affect the resilience of Latin American countries’ trade during the global financial crisis - increasing the diversity of both export sectors and export products within sectors by one standard deviation reduces the quarterly decline in exports by approximately 4.7 percent. Diversifying exports across many different trading partners is not found to significantly affect outcomes.
April 1, 2011
Financial Conditions Indexes for the United States and Euro Area
Description: Financial conditions indexes are developed for the United States and euro area using a wide range of financial indicators and a dynamic factor model. The financial conditions indexes are shown to be useful for forecasting economic activity and have good revision properties.
April 1, 2011
The Monetary Transmission in Dollarized and Non-Dollarized Economies: The Cases of Chile, New Zealand, Peru and Uruguay
Description: The paper conducts a comparative study of the monetary policy transmission in two economies that run a well-established IT regime, Chile and New Zealand, vis-à-vis two economies operating under relatively newer IT regimes, and which are exposed to a significant degree of dollarization, Peru and Uruguay. It is shown that the traditional interest rate channel is effective in Chile and New Zealand. For Peru and Uruguay, the exchange rate channel is instead more relevant in the transmission of monetary policy. This latter result follows from the limited impact of the policy rate in curbing inflationary pressures in these two countries, in combination with the fact that they have a relatively large and persistent exchange rate pass through. Finally, it is shown that the on-going de-dollarization process of Peru and Uruguay has somewhat strengthened their monetary transmission through the interest rate channel.
April 1, 2011
The Dynamics of the Term Structure of Interest Rates in the United States in Light of the Financial Crisis of 2007–10
Description: This paper assesses the dynamics of the term structure of interest rates in the United States in light of the financial crisis in 2007-10. In particular, this paper assesses the dynamics of the term structure of U.S. Treasury security yields in light of economic and financial events and the monetary policy response since the inception of the crisis in mid-2007. To this end, this paper relies on estimates of the term structure using Nelson-Siegel models that make use of unobservable or latent factors and macroeconomic variables. The paper concludes that both the latent factors and macroeconomic variables explain the dynamics of the term structure of interest rates, and the expectations of the impact on macroeconomic variables of changes in financial factors, and vice versa, have changed little with the financial crisis.
April 1, 2011
Towards Inflation Targeting in Sri Lanka
Description: This paper develops a practical model-based forecasting and policy analysis system (FPAS) to support a transition to an inflation forecast targeting regime in Sri Lanka. The FPAS model provides a relatively good forecast for inflation and a framework to evaluate policy trade-offs. The model simulations suggest that an open-economy inflation targeting rule can reduce macroeconomic volatility and anchor inflationary expectations given the size and type of shocks faced by the economy. Sri Lanka could aim to target a broad inflation range initially due to its susceptibility supply-side shocks while enhancing exchange rate flexibility and strengthening the effectiveness of monetary policy in the transition to an inflation forecast targeting regime.
April 1, 2011
Deposit Formation in Georgia
Description: This paper analyzes behavior of the real deposits in Georgia in1996-2009 by modeling demand for the real broad money balances and the cash-deposit ratio. The results suggest that the main factors that affected deposits over those years were income, development of the financial sector, and changes in the tax burden, while changes in the interest rate and inflation played only a minor role. The results also demonstrate importance of the geopolitical events as they affect confidence in the banking sector.