Working Papers
2008
June 1, 2008
Dollarization and Maturity Structure of Public Securities: The Experience of Bolivia
Description: The public debt profile has improved in Bolivia in recent years, with regard to both the maturity structure and the currency composition. This paper analyzes changes in the public debt profile in Bolivia since 2000, and the role played by macroeconomic factors and the debt management strategy adopted by the authorities. We find that both played an important role, in particular the strengthening of the fiscal and international reserves positions and the appreciation of the Boliviano; and regulations promoting the use of the domestic currency. Our findings are consistent with Claessens, Klingebiel and Schmukler (2007)—who found that macro and institutional factors had an impact on debt profiles for a group of emerging and developed economies—and are in contrast with the original sin literature, which stresses that profiles are mainly determined by market incompleteness. We also compare the debt profile of Bolivia with those of other countries in Latin America, and find that there is still room for improvement against the regional benchmark, both in terms of maturity structure and currency composition.
June 1, 2008
Bivariate Assessments of Real Exchange Rates Using PPP Data
Description: This paper focuses on assessments of real exchange rates using PPP data and examines their limitations when these are based exclusively on bivariate estimations. It begins by presenting an analytical framework of the real exchange rate that shows that these estimations make many restrictive assumptions. In turn, the empirical evidence presented shows that the estimates are not robust to changes in sample, such as those that arise from differences in incomes per capita. The conclusion is that the bivariate assessment of real exchange rates do not control for the heterogeneity that exists across countries, thus limiting their usefulness. This critique of bivariate estimations does not apply however to multivariate approaches such as utilized by CGER
June 1, 2008
Financial Supervisory Independence and Accountability–Exploring the Determinants
Description: We analyze recent trends in, and determinants of, financial supervisory governance. We first calculate levels of supervisory independence and accountability in 55 countries. The econometric analysis of the determinants indicates that the quality of public sector governance plays a decisive role in establishing accountability arrangements, more than independence arrangements. It also shows that decisions regarding levels of independence and accountability are not well-connected. The results also show that the likelihood of establishing adequate governance arrangements are higher when the supervisor is located outside the central bank.
June 1, 2008
Sudden Stops and Optimal Self-Insurance
Description: This paper presents a simple model of optimal reserves that can be easily calibrated to compute optimal reserves as well as the implied probability of a sudden stop for given reserves. The model builds upon the global games framework of Morris and Shin to establish a unique relationship between the probability of a sudden stop and the level of reserves. The calibration results for 15 selected emerging market countries in Latin America, Asia and other regions over the sample period of 1993-2006 suggest that the risk of sudden stops may have declined to a low level in recent years in all countries in the sample. The results also suggest that Asia and Russia may have been significantly over insured since early 2000s with estimated excess reserves of US$ 1 trillion in total at end-2006.
May 1, 2008
Much Ado About Nothing? Estimating the Impact of a U.S. Slowdown on Thai Growth
Description: External demand was the main driver of growth in Thailand in 2006 and 2007. However, WEO projections indicate moderating foreign demand in 2008, with U.S. growth being revised downwards to reflect the turmoil in housing and credit markets, and high oil prices. While the share of Thai exports to the US has fallen in recent years, the US remains Thailand's largest export destination. We use a small structural model and Bayesian estimation to assess the possible impact of a U.S. slowdown on Thai growth. We find that a 1 percent slowdown in U.S. growth in 2008-relative to the baseline forecast-could have an upper-bound impact on Thai GDP growth of 0.9 percentage points.
May 1, 2008
Recent Inflationary Trends in World Commodities Markets
Description: Expansionary monetary policies in key industrial countries and sharply depreciating U.S. dollar exchange rate sent commodities prices soaring at unprecedented rates during 2003-2007. Food prices rose to alarming levels threatening malnutrition and food riots. In contrast, consumer price indices, a leading indicator for monetary policy, were showing almost no inflation and posed a price puzzle insofar their evolution was not responsive to record low interest rates, double digit commodities inflation, and sharp exchange rate depreciation. Commodities prices were shown to be driven by one common trend, identified as a monetary shock. Policy makers may have to face a policy dilemma: maintain monetary policy stance with accelerating commodities price inflation, subsequent world recession, and financial disorder; or tighten monetary policy with subsequent world recession followed by recovery and financial and price stability.
May 1, 2008
Financial Integration and Risk-Adjusted Growth Opportunities
Description: This paper documents the evolution of measures of financial integration for major advanced and emerging markets economies, assesses whether advances in integration have had a significant positive impact on countries' risk-adjusted growth opportunities, and identifies some of the channels through which financial integration may foster growth. Three main results obtain. First, financial integration has progressed significantly worldwide, particularly in emerging markets, and regional integration has advanced at the fastest pace in Europe. Second, a country's speed of integration predicts future country's risk-adjusted growth opportunities, while improved risk-adjusted growth opportunities predict future advances in integration, indicating that the countries whose integration has been faster may have benefited most from a virtuous dynamics in which financial integration and improved real prospects are mutually reinforcing. Third, financial integration predicts globalization but the reverse does not necessarily hold, while advances in financial integration predict advances in financial development and improvements in the liquidity of equity markets.
May 1, 2008
Mexico’s Integration into NAFTA Markets: A View from Sectoral Real Exchange Rates and Transaction Costs
Description: A self-exciting threshold autoregressive model is used to measure transaction costs that may explain relative price differentials and nonlinearities in the behavior of sectoral real exchange rates across Mexico, Canada and the U.S. Interpreting price threshold bands as transactions costs, we find evidence that Mexico still face higher transaction costs than their developed counterparts, even though trade liberalization lowers relative price differentials between countries. The distance between countries and nominal exchange rate volatility are found to be determinants of transaction costs that limit price convergence. Other factors-including weak domestic competition and transportation-are also likely to be important.
May 1, 2008
Investment and Growth Dynamics: An Empirical Assessment Applied to Benin
Description: We investigate the nexus of public and private investment and assess the impact of both types of investment on growth. Using annual data for 1965-2005, we employ a coherent set of structural VAR outputs to model investment and growth in Benin. We find that in addition to institutional and regulatory developments, public investment and private capital formation facilitated by access to financial services have a significant impact on growth. The analysis supports the crowding-in effect of public investment. It also confirms that the slow pace of improvement in Benin's economic freedom index, which reflects its relatively weak institutions and slow pace of reform, deters private investment. From the cointegration regressions, the speed-of-adjustment analysis suggests that 27 percent of the deviation of GDP from its long-run equilibrium is corrected every year, which implies that it takes two to three years to cut the gap in half.
May 1, 2008
Accounting Challenges for Semi-Autonomous Revenue Agencies in Developing Countries
Description: The paper discusses the improvements which a semi-autonomous revenue agency (SARA) must make to its records to meet fiscal and financial accounting obligations. SARAs are legal entities, such as a service or a department, which are required to prepare accrual records that may diverge from a treasury's cash accounting records. Their records reflect revenues generated; budget funds for generating the revenues; and material programs administered for other agencies. The accounting records and financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement) must conform to generally-accepted accounting principles (GAAPs) or standards such as the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC)-and to the treatment of operating, investment and financing activities in the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) Manual.