Working Papers
2010
March 1, 2010
Price Setting in a Model with Production Chains: Evidence from Sectoral Data
Description: Reconciling the high frequency of price changes at the micro level and their apparent rigidity at the aggregate level has been the subject of considerable debate in macroeconomics recently. In this paper I show that incorporating production chains in a standard New- Keynesian model replicates two stylized facts about the data. First, sectoral prices respond with significantly different speeds to aggregate shocks. Meanwhile, the responses to sectorspecific shocks are similar. Second, the standard price setting models are unable to quantitatively match the amount of monetary non-neutrality observed in the data. I argue, First, that the input-output linkages in production generate different responses to aggregate shocks across sectors. Second, calibrating this model to the US data can create five times more monetary non-neutrality in response to nominal shocks compared to an equivalent homogeneous economy with intermediate inputs. Finally, the model implies that upstream industries respond faster to aggregate shocks compared to downstream industries. I show that this prediction is supported by the data.
March 1, 2010
Basel Core Principles and Bank Risk: Does Compliance Matter?
Description: This paper studies whether compliance with the Basel Core Principles for effective banking supervision (BCPs) is associated with bank soundness. Using data for over 3,000 banks in 86countries, we find that neither the overall index of BCP compliance nor its individual components are robustly associated with bank risk measured by Z-scores. We also fail to find a relationship between BCP compliance and systemic risk measured by a system-wide Zscore.
March 1, 2010
Budget Institutions and Fiscal Performance in Low-Income Countries
Description: This paper presents, for the first time, multi-dimensional indices of the quality of budget institutions in low-income countries. The indices allow for benchmarking against the performance of middle-income countries, across regions, and according to different institutional arrangements that deliver good fiscal performance. Using the constructed indices, the paper provides preliminary empirical support for the hypotheses that strong budget institutions help improve fiscal balances and public external debt outcomes; and countries with stronger fiscal institutions have better scope to conduct countercyclical policies.
March 1, 2010
Spillovers of Domestic Shocks: Will They Counteract the “Great Moderation”?
Description: Even prior to the extreme volatility just observed, output growth volatility-following protracted decline-was flattening or mildly rising in some countries. More widespread was an increasing tendency from the mid-1990s for shocks in one country to transmit rapidly to other countries, creating the potential for heightened global volatility. The higher sensitivity to foreign shocks, in turn, appears related to stepped-up vertical specialization associated with the integration of emerging markets in international trade. Increased international spillovers call for stronger ex post coordination mechanisms when shocks are large but the best ex ante prevention strategy probably is sensible national policies.
March 1, 2010
The Cyclicality of Fiscal Policy in the Middle East and Central Asia: Is the Current Crisis Different?
Description: The countries of the Middle East and North Africa, and the Caucasus and Central Asia have the highest output volatility in the world. Fiscal policy is a powerful tool that can help dampen the business cycles. This paper analyzes the cyclical properties of fiscal policy in the region during the past four decades and explores whether the response during the current global economic crisis is different in 2009. Across a sample of 28 countries, we find that fiscal policy has typically amplified the business cycles and that it has been more procyclical in good times than in bad times. However, the response to the current crisis has differed from the past in that about half of the countries responded countercyclically in 2009. Going forward, the fiscal space during downturns varies widely across countries, depending on the level of debt, access to capital markets, and natural resource wealth. Not surprisingly, the oil exporters have more fiscal room than oil importers, although there are some oil importers that still have room to respond countercyclically in bad times.
March 1, 2010
Competition and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
Description: This paper presents empirical evidence on the impact of competition on firm productivity. Using firm-level observations from the World Bank Enterprise Survey database, we find a positive and robust causal relationship between our proxies for competition and our measures of productivity. We also find that countries that implemented product-market reforms had a more pronounced increase in competition, and correspondingly, in productivity: the contribution to productivity growth due to competition spurred by product-market reforms is around 12-15 percent.
March 1, 2010
ICT Equipment Investment and Growth in Low- and Lower-Middle-Income Countries
Description: While production of ICT equipment plays a subordinate role for economic growth in most of these countries, they do benefit from capital deepening arising from falling prices of ICT equipment. Adapting established growth accounting approaches to the data environment of low-income countries, we quantify the growth impacts of absorption of ICT equipment, finding that ICT-related capital deepening contributed 0.2 percentage points to growth in low-income countries, and 0.3 percentage points in low-middle-income countries. The latter is about half the level typically found for industrialized countries.
March 1, 2010
Oman: Banking Sector Resilience
Description: This note assesses the impact of the global financial risks on Oman's banking system and highlights the remaining risks. It concludes that the liquidity and prudential measures introduced by the authorities mitigated the adverse effects of the crisis on the banking system. Banks continue to make profits despite higher provisioning. Stress tests confirm the resilience of the banking system to credit and market risks. Banks have limited exposure to derivatives and the majority of the off-balance sheet exposures are conventional and relatively secure. Interest rate risks are within an acceptable range.
March 1, 2010
Precautionary Reserves: An Application to Bolivia
Description: Using precautionary savings models we compute levels of optimal reserves for Bolivia. Because of Bolivia's reliance on commodity exports and little integration with capital markets, we focus on current account shocks as the key balance of payments risk. These models generate an optimal level of net foreign assets ranging from 29 to 37 percent of GDP. For comparison purposes, we contrasted these results with standard rule of thumb measures of reserve adequacy, which in the case of Bolivia resulted in substantially lower levels of adequate reserves. These differing results emphasize the need to appropriately account for country-specific risks in order to derive adequate measures of reserve buffers.
March 1, 2010
International Commodity Price Shocks, Democracy, and External Debt
Description: We examine the effects that international commodity price shocks have on external debt using panel data for a world sample of 93 countries spanning the period 1970-2007. Our main finding is that positive commodity price shocks lead to a significant reduction in the level of external debt in democracies, but to no significant reduction in the level of external debt in autocracies. To explain this result, we show that positive commodity price shocks lead to a statistically significant and quantitatively large increase in total government expenditures in autocracies. In democracies on the other hand government expenditures did not increase significantly. We also document that following positive windfalls from international commodity price shocks the risk of default on external debt decreased in democracies, but increased significantly in autocracies.