Working Papers
2008
November 1, 2008
Tax Concessions and Foreign Direct Investment in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union
Description: Tax concessions have been employed as a central component of the development strategy in the small island states comprising the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. This paper compares the costs of concessions in terms of revenues forgone with the benefits in terms of increased foreign direct investment. The costs are very large, while the benefits appear to be marginal at best. Forgone tax revenues range between 9½ and 16 percent of GDP per year, whereas total foreign direct investment does not appear to depend on concessions. A rethinking of the use of concessions in the region is needed urgently.
November 1, 2008
Fiscal Policy and Economic Cycles in Oil-Exporting Countries
Description: This paper empirically assesses the impact of oil price shocks on the underlying non-oil economic cycle in oil-exporting countries. Panel VAR analysis and the associated impulse responses indicate that in countries where the oil sector is large in relation to the economy, oil price changes affect the economic cycle only through their impact on fiscal policy. Once fiscal policy changes are removed, oil price shocks do not have a significant independent effect on the economic cycle.
October 1, 2008
The Use of Blanket Guarantees in Banking Crises
Description: In episodes of significant banking distress or perceived systemic risk to the financial system, policymakers have often opted for issuing blanket guarantees on bank liabilities to stop or avoid widespread bank runs. In theory, blanket guarantees can prevent bank runs if they are credible. However, guarantee could add substantial fiscal costs to bank restructuring programs and may increase moral hazard going forward. Using a sample of 42 episodes of banking crises, this paper finds that blanket guarantees are successful in reducing liquidity pressures on banks arising from deposit withdrawals. However, banks' foreign liabilities appear virtually irresponsive to blanket guarantees. Furthermore, guarantees tend to be fiscally costly, though this positive association arises in large part because guarantees tend to be employed in conjunction with extensive liquidity support and when crises are severe.
October 1, 2008
Globalization Drives Strategic Product Switching
Description: Using firm-level data for Estonia for the years 1997-2005, we analyze the impact of international competition on firm dynamics, considering both firm closedown and product switching. We contribute to the literature in two important ways: (1) this is the first paper to study the determinants of exit and product switching in an emerging market; and (2) we consider explicitly the role of export opportunities. Our results indicate that globalization does not affect firm exit significantly but it is an important factor explaining product switching. Previous studies on industrial countries have shown that product switching has been a defensive strategy against low-cost imports. In contrast, our results suggest that Estonian firms have switched products as an offensive strategy to take advantage of the export opportunities created by trade liberalization.
October 1, 2008
Wage-Price Setting in New EU Member States
Description: This paper analyzes wage- and price-setting relations in new EU member countries. Panel estimates indicate a strong and significant relationship between real wages and labor productivity, as well as evidence of wage pass-through to inflation. Terms of trade shocks do not feed through to real wages. Country-specific wage developments, beyond differences in labor productivity growth, are mostly explained by real wage catch-up from different initial levels and different labor market conditions. Qualitative evidence also suggests that public sector wage demonstration effects and institutional factors may play a role in wage determination.
October 1, 2008
Household Income As A Determinant of Child Labor and School Enrollment in Brazil: Evidence From A Social Security Reform
Description: This paper studies the effects of household income on labor participation and school enrollment of children aged 10 to 14 in Brazil using a social security reform as a source of exogenous variation in household income. Estimates imply that the gap between actual and full school enrollment was reduced by 20 percent for girls living in the same household as an elderly benefiting from the reform. Girls' labor participation rates reduced with increased benefit income, but only when benefits were received by a female elderly. Effects on boys' enrollment rates and labor participation were in general smaller and statistically insignificant.
October 1, 2008
International Competitiveness of the Mediterranean Quartet: A Heterogeneous-Product Approach
Description: The real effective exchange rate (REER) is the most commonly used measure for assessing international competitiveness. We develop a methodology to estimate the REER that incorporates two distinctive elements that are not considered in the current literature and apply it to the Mediterranean Quartet (MQ) of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, whose common pattern of real appreciation has created concern in policy and academic circles. The two elements that we add to the existing literature are (i) product heterogeneity when identifying each country's international competitors and their weights and (ii) a comprehensive treatment of services exports. Our refined measure suggests a modest reduction in the observed REER gap between the MQ countries and the other euro area countries. In particular, considering product heterogeneity and services exports implies a lower real appreciation from 1998 to 2006 on the order of 2-3 percent for all MQ countries. These are difference-in-difference estimates relative to the results obtained for the rest of the euro area countries using the same methodology.
October 1, 2008
Latin America: Highlights from the Implementation of the System of National Accounts 1993 (1993 SNA)
Description: This paper reviews the Latin American experience with the implementation of 1993 SNAand the updating of the national accounts' base year. It also makes a preliminary assessment of the possible estimation biases in nominal GDP estimates stemming from the use of outdated national accounts base years, downwards biases with household final consumption estimates, and an overestimation of gross fixed capital formation in construction activities.
October 1, 2008
The Costs of Sovereign Default
Description: This paper evaluates empirically four types of cost that may result from an international sovereign default: reputational costs, international trade exclusion costs, costs to the domestic economy through the financial system, and political costs to the authorities. It finds that the economic costs are generally significant but short-lived, and sometimes do not operate through conventional channels. The political consequences of a debt crisis, by contrast, seem to be particularly dire for incumbent governments and finance ministers, broadly in line with what happens in currency crises.
October 1, 2008
The Spending and Absorption of Aid in PRGF Supported Programs
Description: This paper studies the spending and absorption of aid in PRGF-supported programs, verifies whether the use aid is programmed to be smoothed over time, and analyzes how considerations about macroeconomic stability influence the programmed use of aid. It finds that PRGF-supported programs allow countries to use most or almost all increases in aid within a few years. The paper finds some evidence that the programmed absorption of aid is higher in countries where reserve coverage is above a certain threshold, whereas programmed spending does not seem to depend on inflation. Finally, it shows that the presence of a PRGFsupported program does not constrain the actual spending and absorption of aid.