Working Papers
2022
December 16, 2022
A Bottom-Up Reduced Form Phillips Curve for the Euro Area
Description: We develop a bottom-up model of inflation in the euro area based on a set of augmented Phillips curves for seven sub-components of core inflation, and auxiliary regressions for non-core items. The disaggregated structure of the model improves on the forecasting performance of a standard one-equation Phillips curve, especially since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early-2020 and the following energy shocks. We find a key role for international energy and food prices in explaining the recent surge in inflation – as of Q2 2022, they account for 75 percent of the increase in headline inflation and 30 percent of the increase in core. Economic slack and inflation expectations explain another 10 percent of headline and 20 percent of core inflation. Around one-third of the increase in core inflation remains unexplained by the model. Out of sample projections show high uncertainty around the inflation path while suggesting that inflation pressures are unlikely to dissipate quickly. We argue that the bottom-up approach offers a useful complement to the forecaster’s toolbox–especially in the current environment of sectoral shocks - by improving forecast accuracy, shedding additional light on the drivers of inflation, and providing a framework in which to apply ex-post judgement in a structured way.
December 16, 2022
Macroeconomic Effects of Climate Change in an Aging World
Description: Climate and demographic changes are two major long-term trends that are evolving simultaneously. The global population is aging, while climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of weather-related disasters and lowering productivity. This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of these three changes in a common framework. Simulation results suggest that while aging drags down the real interest rate, climate change puts upward pressure on the real interest rate and inflation. As climate change intensifies, it will be the dominant factor shaping the macroeconomic variables. This results in higher inflation and a higher debt-to-GDP ratio, requiring tighter fiscal and monetary policies. The results further suggest that economic uncertainty induced by climate change amplifies these effects of climate change.
December 16, 2022
Equitable Access to Vaccines: Myth or Reality?
Description: Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic required vaccinations; however, ending it requires vaccination equality. The progress in vaccinations varies greatly across countries, with low- and middle-income countries having much lower vaccination rates than advanced countries. Initially, the limited vaccine supply was in part to blame for slow pace of vaccinations in low-income countries. But as the supply constraints eased toward the end of 2021, the focus has shifted to in-country distribution challenges and vaccine hesitancy. This paper quantifies the importance of various factors in driving vaccination rates across countries, including vaccine deliveries, demographic structure, health and transport infrastructure and development level. It then estimates the contribution of these factors to vaccination inequality. We show that much of the vaccination inequality in 2021-22 was driven by the lack of access to vaccines which is beyond countries’ control. And although vaccination inequality declined over time, access to vaccines remains the dominant driver of vaccination inequality.
December 16, 2022
Monetary Policy and Credit Card Spending
Description: We analyze the impact of monetary policy on consumer spending using credit card data. Because of their high frequency, these data improve identification and allow for a precise characterization of the transmission lags. We find that shocks to short-term interest rates affect spending much more rapidly than shocks to longer-term interest rates. We also detect significant asymmetries. While interest rate rises are contractionary, interest rate cuts are unable to lift spending. Finally, by exploiting the disaggregation of credit card data, we uncover considerable heterogeneity in the effects of monetary policy across spending categories and a stronger impact on higher-income users.
December 16, 2022
A Framework for Comparing Climate Mitigation Policies Across Countries
Description: There is growing interest in international coordination over climate mitigation policy. Climate clubs or international carbon price floors could complement the Paris Agreement by helping to deliver the near-term cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions needed to contain global warming to 1.5 to 2oC. To ensure inclusivity, these arrangements need to account for varying mitigation policies across countries, including carbon pricing, fuel taxes, subsidy reform, and non-pricing approaches like regulations. A transparent methodology is needed to compare and monitor mitigation effort by countries implementing diverse policy packages. This paper presents and illustrates a methodology for converting climate mitigation policies and targets into their carbon price equivalents and applies it to the Group of Twenty (G20) countries.
December 16, 2022
Systemwide Liquidity Stress Testing Tool
Description: Developing a systemic liquidity stress testing tool is challenging due to data constraints and hard-to-model behavioral factors. There has yet to be a uniformly accepted model partly because the nature of systemic liquidity risks differs significantly across countries. This paper offers a simple Excel-based tool to assess the high-level impact of aggregate liquidity stress on the whole economy and gauge its spillover across banks, non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), and non-financial economic sectors. It primarily uses the balance sheet approach (BSA) data—a sector-aggregate matrix of financial exposure by counterpart—that have become increasingly available for various economies with all income levels. The results can identify systemically important financial linkages to be analyzed further and help calibrate macroprudential measures and a liquidity support framework. When liquidity stress stems from capital outflows, the tool can enrich policy discussion based on integrated policy framework (IPF) and international reserve adequacy perspectives.
December 16, 2022
Macro-Financial Stability in the COVID-19 Crisis: Some Reflections
Description: The global financial system has shown remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a sharp decline in economic activity and the initial financial market upheaval in March 2020. This paper takes stock of the factors that contributed to this resilience, focusing on the role of monetary and financial policies. In response to the pandemic-induced crisis, major central banks acted swiftly and decisively, cutting policy rates, introducing new asset purchase programs, providing liquidity support for the banking system, and creating several emergency facilities to sustain the flow of credit to the real economy. Several emerging market central banks also deployed asset purchase programs for the first time. While the pandemic crisis has underscored the importance of policies in preventing calamitous financial outcomes, it has also brought to the fore some unintended consequences of policy actions—in particular, of providing prolonged monetary policy support and applying regulation to specific segments of the financial system rather than taking a broader approach—that could undermine financial stability in the future.
December 16, 2022
Climate Shocks and Domestic Conflicts in Africa
Description: This paper analyzes the interlinkages between climate shocks, domestic conflicts, and policy resilience in Africa. It builds on a Correlated Random Effect model to asess these interrelationships on a broad sample of 51 African countries over the 1990-2018 period. We find suggestive evidence that climate shocks, as captured through weather shocks, increase the likelihood of domestic conflicts, by as high as up to 38 percent. However, the effect holds only for intercommunal conflicts, not for government-involved conflicts. The effect is maginified in countries with more unequal income distribution and a stronger share of young male demographics. The results are robust to a wide set of sensitivity checks, including using various indicators of weather shocks and domestic conflicts, and alternative estimation techniques. The findings shed light on key policy resilience factors, including steadily improving domestic revenue mobilization, strengthening social protection and access to basic health care services, scaling up public investment in the agriculture sector, and stepping up anti-desertification efforts.
December 9, 2022
The Anatomy of Banks’ IT Investments: Drivers and Implications
Description: This paper relies on administrative data to study determinants and implications of US banks’ Information Technology (IT) investments, which have increased six-fold over two decades. Large and small banks had similar IT expenses a decade ago. Since then, large banks sharply increased their spending, especially those which were more exposed to competition from fintech lenders. Other local-level and bank-level factors, such as county income and bank income sources, also contribute to explain the heterogeneity in IT investments. Analysis of the mortgage market reveals that fintechs’ lending behavior is more similar to that of non-bank financial intermediaries rather than IT-savvy banks, suggesting that factors other than technology are responsible for the differences between banks and other lenders. However, both IT-savvy banks and fintech lend to lower income borrowers, pointing towards benefits for financial inclusion from higher IT adoption. Banks’ IT investments are also shown to matter for the responsiveness of bank lending to monetary policy.
December 9, 2022
Climate Policy Options: A Comparison of Economic Performance
Description: We use a global computable general equilibrium model to compare the economic performance of alternative climate policies along multiple dimensions, including macroeconomic outcomes, energy prices, and trade competitiveness. Carbon pricing which keeps the aggregate cost lower and preserves better the overall competitiveness than across-the-board regulation is the first-best policy, especially in energy intensive and trade exposed industries. Regulations and feebates are good alternatives in the power sector, where technological substitution is possible. Feed-in subsidies, if used alone, are not cost effective.