Working Papers
2022
November 11, 2022
Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? Assessing the Effects of Inflation Targeting Track Records on Macroeconomic Performance
Description: Inflation Targeting (IT) has become a prevalent monetary policy framework in the past three decades, as more central banks adopted and maintained price stability as their primary monetary policy mandate. Using a dataset of 68 major advanced countries and emerging markets economies, this paper evaluates the effects of inflation targeting countries’ track records on their macroeconomic performance, measured by real GDP growth and CPI inflation. This paper constructs three novel inflation targeting track record measures and establishes new stylized facts on the heterogeneity of inflation targeting countries’ tendency in managing inflation with respect to their stated objectives. This paper finds evidence that most targeters conduct dynamic inflation targeting by frequently updating inflation target bands, and their band sizes are wide-ranging across IT countries. We empirically study the contemporaneous and future effects of inflation targeting track records on countries’ macroeconomic performance. Results from the dynamic panel and local projection regressions suggest that better IT track records do not lead to superior growth and inflation rates in the short term.
November 11, 2022
Modeling and Forecasting Monthly Tourism Arrivals to Aruba Since COVID-19 Pandemic
Description: This paper improves short-term forecasting models of monthly tourism arrivals by estimating and evaluating a time-series model with exogenous regressors (ARIMA-X) using a case of Aruba, a small open tourism-dependent economy. Given importance of the US market for Aruba, it investigates informational value of Google Searches originating in the USA, flight capacity utilization on the US air-carriers, and per capita demand of the US consumers, given the volatility index in stock markets (VIX). It yields several insights. First, flight capacity is the best variable to account for the travel restrictions during the pandemic. Second, US real personal consumption expenditure becomes a more significnat predictor than income as the former better captured impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on the consumers’ behavior, while income boosted by the pandemic fiscal support was not fully directed to spending. Third, intercept correction improves the model in the estimation period. Finally, the pandemic changed econometric relationships between the tourism arrivals and their main determinants, and accuracy of the forecast models. Going forward, the analysts should re-estimate the models. Out-of-sample forecasts with 5 percent confidence intervals are produced for 18 months ahead.
November 11, 2022
Lessons from Haiti’s Recent Exchange Rate Developments
Description: From August to October 2020, the Haitian authorities were successful at bringing about a sharp appreciation in the gourde/U.S. dollar exchange rate. This paper analyzes the factors behind this appreciation and its spillovers on the economy. It finds that foreign exchange surrender requirements had a statistically significant effect on the nominal exchange rate, while foreign exchange intervention by the central bank did not. Surrender requirements were also found to have raised trading costs and volatility in the foreign exchange market and contributed to the development of a wider parallel nominal exchange rate premium. This appreciation contributed to a decline in headline inflation during the episode while delivering some fuel subsidy-related savings to the government. Remittance-dependent households and exporters saw a drop in their purchasing power, and Haiti’s net external buffers were adversely affected. Following from these findings, the paper offers recommendations on ways to facilitate foreign exchange management and boost external sustainability while contributing to the central bank’s overall policy objectives.
November 11, 2022
The Sovereign-Bank Nexus in Emerging Markets in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Description: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the relationship between sovereigns and banks—the so-called sovereign-bank nexus—in emerging market economies to the fore as bank holdings of domestic sovereign debt have surged. This paper examines the empirical relevance of this nexus to assess how it could amplify macro-financial stability risks. The findings show that an increase in sovereign credit risk can adversely affect banks’ balance sheets and credit supply, especially in countries with less-well-capitalized banking systems. Sovereign distress can also impact banks indirectly through the nonfinancial corporate sector by constraining their funding and reducing their capital expenditure. Notably, the effects on banks and corporates are strongly nonlinear in the size of the sovereign distress.
November 11, 2022
U.S. and Euro Area Monetary and Fiscal Interactions During the Pandemic: A Structural Analysis
Description: This paper employs a two-country New Keynesian DSGE model to assess the macroeconomic impact of the changes in monetary policy frameworks and the fiscal support in the U.S. and euro area during the pandemic. Moving from a previous target of “below, but close to 2 percent” to a formal symmetric inflation targeting regime in the euro area or from flexible to average inflation targeting in the U.S. is shown to boost output and inflation in both regions. Meanwhile, the fiscal packages approved in the U.S. and the euro area, and a slower withdrawal of fiscal support in the euro area, have a similar impact on output and inflation as changing the monetary policy frameworks . Simultaneously implementing these policies is mutually reinforcing, but insufficient to fully explain the unexpected increase in core inflation during 2021.
November 11, 2022
Wage-Price Spirals: What is the Historical Evidence?
Description: How often have wage-price spirals occurred, and what has happened in their aftermath? We investigate this by creating a database of past wage-price spirals among a wide set of advanced economies going back to the 1960s. We define a wage-price spiral as an episode where at least three out of four consecutive quarters saw accelerating consumer prices and rising nominal wages. Perhaps surprisingly, only a small minority of such episodes were followed by sustained acceleration in wages and prices. Instead, inflation and nominal wage growth tended to stabilize, leaving real wage growth broadly unchanged. A decomposition of wage dynamics using a wage Phillips curve suggests that nominal wage growth normally stabilizes at levels that are consistent with observed inflation and labor market tightness. When focusing on episodes that mimic the recent pattern of falling real wages and tightening labor markets, declining inflation and nominal wage growth increases tended to follow – thus allowing real wages to catch up. We conclude that an acceleration of nominal wages should not necessarily be seen as a sign that a wage-price spiral is taking hold.
November 4, 2022
Chasing the Sun and Catching the Wind: Energy Transition and Electricity Prices in Europe
Description: European power markets are in the midst of unprecedented changes, with a record-breaking surge in energy prices.This paper investigates the impact of green power resources on the level and volatility of wholesale electricity prices at a granular level, using monthly observations for a panel of 24 European countries over the period 2014–2021 and alternative estimation methods including a panel quantile regression approach. We find that renewable energy is associated with a significant reduction in wholesale electricity prices in Europe, with an average impact of 0.6 percent for each 1 percentage points increase in renewable share. We also find evidence for a nonlinear effect—that is, higher the share of renewables, the greater its effect on electricity prices. On the other hand, while quantile estimation results are mixed with regards to the impact of renewables on the volatility of electricity prices, we obtain evidence that renewable energy has a negative effect on volatility at the highest quantiles. Overall, our analysis indicates that policy reforms can help accelerate the green transition while minimizing the volatility in electricity prices.
November 4, 2022
How Do Transaction Costs Influence Remittances
Description: Using a new quarterly panel database on remittances (71 countries over the period 2011Q1- 2020Q4), this paper investigates the elasticity of remittances to transaction costs in a high frequency and dynamic setting. It adds to the literature by systematically exploring the heterogeneity in the cost-elasticity of remittances along several country characteristics. The findings suggest that cost reductions have a short-term positive impact on remittances, that dissipates beyond one quarter. According to our estimates, reducing transaction costs to the Sustainable Development Goal target of 3 percent could generate an additional US$32bn in remittances, higher that the direct cost savings from lower transaction costs, thus suggesting an absolute elasticity greater than one. Among remittance cost-mitigation factors, higher competition in the remittance market, a deeper financial sector, and adequate correspondent banking relationships are associated with a lower elasticity of remittance to transaction costs. Similarly, remittance cost-adaptation factors such as enhanced transparency in remittance costs, improved financial literary and higher ICT development coincide with remittances being less sensitive to transaction costs. Supplementing the panel analysis, the use of micro data from the USA-Mexico corridor confirm that migrants facing higher transaction costs tend to remit less, and that this effect is less pronounced for skilled migrants and those that have access to a bank account.
November 4, 2022
A Multi-Currency Exchange and Contracting Platform
Description: Cross-border payments can be slow, expensive, and risky. They are intermediated by counterparties in different jurisdictions which rely on costly trusted relationships to offset the lack of a common settlement asset as well as common rules and governance. In this paper, we present a vision for a multilateral platform that could improve cross-border payments, as well as related foreign exchange transactions, risk sharing, and more generally, financial contracting. The approach is to leverage technological innovations for public policy objectives. A common ledger, smart contracts, and encryption offer significant gains to market efficiency, completeness, and access, as well as to transparency, transaction and compliance costs, and safety. This paper is a first step aiming to stimulate further work in this space.
November 4, 2022
Electoral Cycles in Tax Reforms
Description: We examine electoral cycles in tax reforms using monthly data over the period of 1990-2018 for 22 advanced economies and emerging markets. We show that governments tend to avoid announcing tax reforms during the months running up to elections. In addition, they become more likely to announce those reforms in the first few months following elections, indicating that “political capital” plays a role in the timing of reforms. These patterns are broad-based regarding the changes in tax base and rate, and for various types of taxes. We also find that the pre-election decrease in the likelihood of tax reform announcements is stronger in emerging markets, and weaker in the countries with relatively better institutional quality. Finally, our results indicate that neither fiscal rules nor IMF programs appear to have differential effects on electoral cycles in tax reforms.