Working Papers
2023
June 16, 2023
Central Bank Digital Currency Adoption: A Two-Sided Model
Description: For central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to accomplish their intended objectives, it is necessary for both consumers to use them and for merchants to accept them. This paper develops a dynamic two-sided payments model with both heterogeneous households and merchants/firms to study: (1) The adoption of CBDC by households and firms, and (2) The impact of CBDC issuance on financial inclusion, informality, and disintermediation. Our model shows that there is a feedback loop where more households will adopt CBDC if more firms accept CBDC and vice versa -- incentivizing both households and firms will result in greater levels of take-up. Households are more likely to adopt CBDC if it is low cost, provides an attractive savings vehicle, reduces the cost of remittances, improves the efficiency of government payments, and (if accepted by merchants) offers a valuable means of payment. Firms are more likely to accept CBDC if fees are low, if there are tax exemptions or subsidies for transactions made in CBDC, and if households who prefer to make payments with CBDC make up a large share of revenue. Upon CBDC issuance, an economy can get stuck at a steady state with low CBDC adoption and small welfare gains if the features of CBDC which do not rely on merchant acceptance (remuneration, efficiency of cross border and government payments) are not sufficiently attractive, or if the households benefiting from these features make up a small share of merchant revenue. Temporary subsidies and using CBDC for government payments can spur initial take-up to transition an economy to a welfare improving steady state with high(er) CBDC usage. Greater adoption of CBDC will result in greater financial inclusion and formalization, but potentially the disintermediation of banks and card payments. Thus, there is a trade-off in designing CBDC for greater adoption. However, the gains are more likely to outweigh the risks in lower income economies with larger unbanked populations and informal sectors.
June 16, 2023
The Rise of the Walking Dead: Zombie Firms Around the World
Description: We build a new dataset of listed and private nonfinancial zombie firms for a large set of Advanced Economies and Emerging Markets over the last two decades. We find that the share of these unproductive and unviable firms has been rising worldwide, especially since the GFC and the Covid-19 pandemic. We show that, perhaps surprisingly, the incidence of zombification is lower among private firms. Lower average survival rates of private firms may explain this phenomenon. We find important negative macrofinancial spillovers from zombie firms: nonzombies’ financial performance is persistently reduced in industries populated with a greater number of zombies. To mitigate these effects, we document that countries with stronger banks, and tighter macroprudential policies tend to have fewer zombies and stronger nonzombies. Strengthening the banking sector may, however, not be sufficient if insolvency frameworks are not well-prepared to deal with the restructuring or insolvency of firms.
June 9, 2023
Some Lessons from Asian E-Money Schemes for the Adoption of Central Bank Digital Currency
Description: This paper synthesizes four lessons from the experiences of six Asian e-money schemes for central banks as they consider adopting central bank digital currency (CBDC): (i) CBDC should embody four attributes: trust, convenience, efficiency, and security; (ii) CBDC service providers can facilitate CBDC adoption through four channels: leveraging digital technology, targeting use cases, developing business models, and complying with legal and regulatory requirements; (iii) central banks could incentivize CBDC service providers to develop these four channels when considering CBDC adoption; and (iv) central banks may be able to establish data-sharing arrangements that preserve privacy while leaving room for CBDC service providers to explore the economic value of data.
June 9, 2023
Digitalization and Gender Equality in Political Leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa
Description: We examine the impact of digitalization on people’s perceptions of women as political leaders in 34 Sub-Saharan African countries. We find that being a social media or internet user is linked to a higher likelihood of people supporting gender equality in political leadership. However, the intensive margin of usage does not appear to be significant. Furthermore, women’s perceptions of gender equality in political leadership are more sensitive to internet and social media use than men’s. The paper recommends policies for improving ICT infrastructure and investing in technological education.
June 9, 2023
Bank Competition and Household Privacy in a Digital Payment Monopoly
Description: Lenders can exploit households' payment data to infer their creditworthiness. When households value privacy, they then face a tradeoff between protecting such privacy and credit conditions. We study how the introduction of an informationally more intrusive digital payment vehicle affects households' cash use, credit access, and welfare. A tech monopolist controls the intrusiveness of the new payment method and manipulates information asymmetries among households and oligopolistic banks to extract data contracts that are more lucrative than lending on its own. The laissez-faire equilibrium entails a digital payment vehicle that is more intrusive than socially optimal, providing a rationale for regulation.
June 9, 2023
Restructuring Reforms for Green Growth
Description: Policymakers across the world are striving to tackle the century-defining challenge of climate change without undermining potential growth. This paper examines the impact of structural reforms in the energy sector (electricity and gas) on enviromental outcomes and green growth indicators in a panel of 25 advanced economies during the period 1970-2020. We obtain striking results. First, while structural reforms so far failed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions per capita, there is some evidence for greater effectiveness in lowering emissions per unit of GDP. Second, although energy reforms are not associated with higher supply of renewable energy as a share of total energy supply, they appear to stimulate a sustained increase in environmental inventions and patents per capita over the medium term. We also find strong evidence of nonlinear effects, with market-friendly energy reforms leading to better environmental outcomes and green growth in countries with stronger environmental regulations. Looking forward, therefore, structural reforms should be designed not just for market efficiency but also for green growth.
June 2, 2023
Macroprudential Policy and Bank Systemic Risk: Does Inflation Targeting Matter?
Description: This paper investigates macroprudential policy effects on bank systemic risk and the role of inflation targeting in such effects. Using bank-level data for 45 countries comprising various monetary and exchange rate regimes, our regime-dependent dynamic panel regression results point to complementarities between monetary and macroprudential policies. We find that the tightening of most macroprudential tools—including DSTI and LTV limits, and capital requirements—reduces bank systemic risk further under inflation targeting. Our findings lend credence to the view that inflation targeting strengthens macroprudential policy roles in mitigating financial stability risks.
June 2, 2023
The Distributional and Fiscal Implications of Public Utility Pricing
Description: The setting of public utility prices involves balancing various competing government policy objectives, from equity concerns to ensuring the financial sustainability of providers and balancing public finances. In practice, public utility pricing often departs significantly from government objectives and tends to be characterized by unnecessarily complex price schedules, below cost-recovery tariff rates, and sectoral inefficiencies that contribute to large fiscal costs. Countries commonly embark on utility pricing reform in response to these heavy fiscal pressures. The paper discusses various reform options available to governments, with a focus on residential pricing schedules, highlighting their fiscal, financial, redistributive, and efficiency implications.
June 2, 2023
Fiscal Anatomy of Two Crises and an Interlude
Description: The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic are associated with the largest increases in public debt ratios since World War II. We decompose unexpected changes in debt ratios into the role of surprises in economic growth, interest costs, policy measures, and other factors. During both crises, lower-than-expected output contributed the most to higher-than-expected debt ratios. Fiscal policy measures recorded in the public deficit were similar in the two episodes. We also analyze the decade-long interlude (2010-19). Rather than declining as foreseen in a normative scenario, debt ratios remained stable on average, as interest rates, policy adjustment and, in some countries, economic growth turned out lower than expected.
June 2, 2023
Cars and the Green Transition: Challenges and Opportunities for European Workers
Description: Reducing transport sector emissions is an important pillar of the green transition. However, the transition to electric vehicles (EV) portends major changes in vehicle manufacturing activity, on which many livelihoods in Europe depend. Using the heterogeneity across European countries in the speed of transition to EV production and variation in sectoral and regional exposure to the automotive sector, this paper offers early evidence of the labor market implications of the EV transition. Our results suggest that the transformation of the auto sector is already having an adverse impact on employment in the affected sectors and regions, which can be expected to grow at least in the near term. Many of the affected workers will be able to retire and our analysis suggests that those who will have to transition to new “greener” jobs have a fair chance to do so when compared to other workers in the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, we find evidence that active labor market policies, specifically training, can help to reduce the adjustment costs for the affected workers.