Working Papers
2010
January 1, 2010
The Global Financial Crisis and Workers' Remittances to Africa: What's the Damage?
Description: Using data on the distribution of migrants from Africa, GDP growth forecasts for host countries, and after estimating remittance multipliers in recipient countries, this paper estimates the impact of the global economic crisis on African GDP via the remittance channel during 2009-2010. It forecasts remittance declines into African countries of between 3 and 14 percentage points, with migrants to Europe hardest hit while migrants within Africa relatively unaffected by the crisis. The estimated impact on GDP for relatively remittance-dependent countries is 2 percent for 2009, but will likely be short-lived, as host country income is projected to rise in 2010.
January 1, 2010
The Location of Domestic and Foreign Production Affiliates by French Multinational Firms
Description: Economists interested in location choices usually focus their attention on investments abroad. This neglects the fact that multinational enterprises continue to invest domestically while undertaking foreign expansion. This paper compares investments at home and abroad. Our firm-level dataset shows an important home bias in productive investments. Part of this "excessive" domestic investment is explained by standard determinants of location choices. The interdependence between affiliates of the same industrial group however accounts for the lion's share of the home bias. Moreover, French firms' propensity to invest abroad is positively related to their productivity and the size of their intangible assets.
January 1, 2010
Dissecting Taylor Rules in a Structural VAR
Description: This paper uncovers Taylor rules from estimated monetary policy reactions using a structural VAR on U.S. data from 1959 to 2009. These Taylor rules reveal the dynamic nature of policy responses to different structural shocks. We find that U.S. monetary policy has been far more responsive over time to demand shocks than to supply shocks, and more aggressive toward inflation than output growth. Our estimated dynamic policy coefficients characterize the style of policy as a "bang-bang" control for the pre-1979 period and as a gradual control for the post-1979 period.
January 1, 2010
Inflation in Tajikistan: Forecasting Analysis and Monetary Policy Challenges
Description: This paper attempts to explain short- and long-term dynamics of-and forecast-inflation in Tajikistan using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Autoregressive Moving Average Model (ARMA). By analyzing different transmission channels through the VECM, we were able to evaluate their relative dominance, magnitude, and speed of transition to the equilibrium price level, with the view of identifying those policy tools that will enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy. We found that excess supply of broad money is inflationary in both the short and long term. The dynamic analysis also demonstrates that the exchange rate and international inflation have a strong impact on local prices. Available monetary instruments, such as the refinancing rate, have proven to be ineffective. Therefore, the Tajik monetary authority could greatly benefit from enhancing its monetary instruments toolkit, including by developing the interest rate channel, to improve its monetary policy execution and to achieve stable inflationary conditions.
January 1, 2010
Exchange Rate Choices of Microstates
Description: In this paper we first explain why most microstates (countries with less than 2 million inhabitants) have gained independence only in the last 30 years. Despite the higher costs and risks microstates face, their ability to better accommodate local preferences combined with a more integrated world economy probably explains why the benefits of independence have risen. We explain why microstates at independence have chosen either dollarization, currency board arrangements, or fixed exchange rates rather than more flexible forms of exchange rate systems. We then, using the Geweke-Hajvassiliou-Keane multivariate normal simulator, model empirically the determinants of each of the different fixed exchange rate regimes in microstates and analyze the policy implications.
January 1, 2010
After the Crisis: Lower Consumption Growth But Narrower Global Imbalances?
Description: We estimate consumption dynamics in the G-7 economies, paying particular attention to the possibility of precautionary behavior in the face of uncertainty. We find that in the short run, continued income uncertainty will significantly dampen consumption growth. As such, consumption in the G-7 economies is unlikely to be the engine that revives global growth. Differences in the pace and timing of consumption moderation have implications for the evolution of global imbalances. With the U.S. experiencing a sharper rise in unemployment and, perhaps, more widespread loss of financial wealth than elsewhere in the G-7, the relative rise of the U.S. savings rate is helping narrow global imbalances. But with a likely earlier recovery in the U.S., this narrowing could be short-lived. Moreover, long-term differences- in economic and financial volatility and in demographic structures-have been an important source of the imbalances and could soon reassert their prominence.
January 1, 2010
The Impact of the Global Crisis on Canada—What Do Macro-Financial Linkages Tell Us?
Description: This paper builds a Bayesian VAR estimation model of growth for Canada, by focusing specifically on the role of external and domestic financial indicators, including credit conditions. A variance decomposition shows that financial conditions explain one-third of the total variability in Canada's real GDP growth, although changes in U.S. real GDP growth still account for a larger share of volatility in Canadian growth. A macro-financial conditions index built from the VAR's impulse responses shows that U.S. real GDP growth and lending standards will increasingly bear on Canada's growth, implying that a normalization of the U.S. economic and financial conditions is key for a sustained recovery in Canada.
January 1, 2010
Inherited or Earned? Performance of Foreign Banks in Central and Eastern Europe
Description: Using a combination of propensity score matching and difference-in-difference techniques we investigate the impact of foreign bank ownership on the performance and market power of acquired banks operating in Central and Eastern Europe. This approach allows us to control for selection bias as larger but less profitable banks were more likely to be acquired by foreign investors. We show that during three years after the takeover, banks have become more profitable due to cost minimization and better risk management. They have additionally gained market share, because they passed their lower cost of funds to borrowers in terms of lower lending rates. Previous studies failed to pick up the improvements in performance of takeover banks, because they did not account for the performance of financial institutions before acquisitions.
2009
December 1, 2009
The Valuation Channel of External Adjustment
Description: International financial integration has greatly increased the scope for changes in a country's net foreign asset position through the valuation channel, namely capital gains and losses on external assets and liabilities. We examine this valuation channel in a dynamic equilibrium portfolio model with international trade in equity. By separating asset prices and quantities, we can characterize the first-order dynamics of valuation effects and the current account in macroeconomic dynamics. Specifically, we disentangle the roles of excess returns, capital gains, and portfolio adjustment for consumption risk sharing when financial markets are incomplete.
December 1, 2009
Systemic Liquidity Management in the U.A.E.: Issues and Options
Description: The paper analyzes the U.A.E.'s liquidity management framework in the context of the 2008 global financial crisis and the measures taken by the Central Bank of the U.A.E. to ease liquidity pressures in the second half of 2008. Drawing also on an empirical analysis of data for 15 U.A.E. banks through end-2008, the paper emphasizes the importance of making available to banks additional instruments to manage their liquidity as well as to strengthen the monitoring of a more comprehensive set of liquidity risk indicators. As regards the former, the paper discusses the merits and scope for the U.A.E. to introduce a domestic bond market.