Working Papers
2008
April 1, 2008
International Spillover of Labor Market Reforms
Description: This paper uses a dynamic economy model, with unionized labor markets, to analyze the effects of labor market reforms, similar to those recently introduced in Germany, on the domestic and trading partner economies. The model is calibrated on Germany and the rest of the Euro area. The results indicate that German labor market reforms have positive spillover effects on the rest of the Euro area, which operate through the channel of trade, relative price adjustment, and financial market integration. Compared to a competitive labor market, setting, unionization dampens the positive response of the domestic economy and magnifies the spillover effects.
April 1, 2008
Reserve Requirements, the Maturity Structure of Debt, and Bank Runs
Description: The paper looks at the relationship between reserve requirements and the choice of the maturity structure of external debt in a general equilibrium setup, by incorporating the role of international lenders. A date- and maturity-specific reserve requirement is a fraction of the debt to be deposited in a non-interest bearing account at the central bank. At maturity, the central bank returns the reserves. There exist some specific combinations of date- and maturity-specific reserve requirements that reduce the vulnerability to bank runs. In such setup, lenders may still want to provide new short-term lending to the bank after a bank run.
April 1, 2008
Measuring the Informal Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean
Description: This paper estimates the size of the informal economy for 32 mainly Latin American and Caribbean countries in the early 2000s. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we find that a stringent tax system and regulatory environment, higher inflation, and dominance of the agriculture sector are key factors in determining the size of the informal economy. The results also confirm that a higher degree of informality reduces labor unionization, the number of contributors to social security schemes, and enrollment rates in education.
April 1, 2008
Welfare Gains of Aid Indexation in Small Open Economies
Description: Foreign aid flows to poor, aid-dependent economies are highly volatile and pro-cyclical. Shortfalls in aid coincide with shortfalls in GDP and government revenues. This increases the consumption volatility in aid dependent countries, thereby causing substantial welfare losses. This paper finds that indexing aid flows to exogenous shocks like a change in the terms of trade can significantly improve the welfare of aid-dependent country by lowering its output and consumption volatility. Compared to the benchmark specification with stochastic aid flows, indexation of aid flows to terms of trade shocks can reduce the cost of business cycle fluctuations in the recipient country by four percent of permanent consumption. Moreover, use of indexed aid can allow donors to reduce the aid flows by three percent without lowering the level of welfare in the recipient country.
April 1, 2008
External Shocks and Business Cycle Fluctuations in Mexico: How Important are U.S. Factors?
Description: This paper examines the relative importance of external shocks as sources of business cycle fluctuations in Mexico, and identifies the dynamic responses of domestic output to foreign disturbances. Using a VAR model with block exogeneity restrictions, it finds that U.S. shocks explain a large share of Mexico's macroeconomic fluctuations after NAFTA. This partly reflects greater trade integration-but also Mexico's "Great Moderation," as the country escaped its former pattern of macro-financial crises. In this period, Mexico's output fluctuations have been closely synchronized with the U.S. cycle, with a large and rapid impact of U.S. shocks on Mexican growth.
April 1, 2008
A Real Model of Transitional Growth and Competitiveness in China
Description: We present a stylized real model of the Chinese economy with the objective of explaining two features: (1) domestic production is highly competitive in the sense that an accumulation of capital that raises the marginal product of labor elicits increases in employment and output rather than only in wages; and (2) even though the domestic saving rate is high, foreign direct investment is also substantial. We explain these features in terms of a conventional neoclassical growth model-with no monetary or nominal exchange rate policy-by including two aspects of the economy explicitly in the model: (1) low production wages are sustained by a large reserve army of rural labor which drives internal migration, and (2) domestic capital is distinct from importable capital and complementary with it in production. The results suggest that underlying real phenomena are important in explaining recent history; while nominal renmimbi appreciation may dampen price and wage increases, it would probably not change the real factors that have sustained rapid growth.
April 1, 2008
Accumulating Foreign Reserves Under Floating Exchange Rates
Description: Official accumulation of foreign reserves may be perceived as interventions to influence the exchange rate, undermining the credibility of floating exchange rates and inflation targets. This paper develops a theoretical framework to study the interaction between reserve accumulation and monetary policy. The model uncovers a trade-off between the speed of reserve accumulation and anti-inflationary credibility. Under reasonable assumptions, delegation of intervention and monetary policy decisions to separate government agencies allows faster reserve accumulation, while centralization of these decisions results in a more stable economy. The analysis underscores the importance of rather overlooked institutional features of policymaking in open economies.
April 1, 2008
Factor Model for Stress-testing with a Contingent Claims Model of the Chilean Banking System
Description: This paper derives risk indicators for the major Chilean banks based on contingent claims analysis, an extension of Black-Scholes-Merton option-pricing theory. These risk indicators are clearly tied to macroeconomic and financial developments in Chile and outside, but bank responses are highly heterogeneous. To reduce the number of variables linked to the banks' risk to a tractable number, we apply principal component analysis. Vector autoregressions of risk indicators with the most significant factors show strong ties from financial markets and regional developments. Impulse response functions from these factors are derived, which allow for scenario testing. The scenarios derived in the paper illustrate how the magnitude and persistence of responses of bank credit risk can vary across banks in the system.
April 1, 2008
Is Central Bank Intervention Effective Under Inflation Targeting Regimes? The Case of Colombia
Description: Policymakers in many emerging markets are attempting to resist currency appreciation while simultaneously meeting targets for inflation. Using the recent experience of Colombia between 2004 and 2007, this paper examines the effectiveness of the Central Bank's intervention in stemming domestic currency appreciation under an inflation targeting regime. The results indicate that exchange rate intervention was effective during 2004-2006, when foreign currency purchases were undertaken during a period of monetary easing. During 2007, on the other hand, intervention was ineffective in reversing or slowing down domestic currency appreciation, as large-scale intervention became incompatible with meeting the inflation target in an overheating economy. Currency derivative markets-which have grown in depth and sophistication-played a key role in blunting the effectiveness of intervention.
April 1, 2008
Investors’ Risk Appetite and Global Financial Market Conditions
Description: A structural vector autoregression model is developed to analyze the dynamics of bond spreads among a sample of mature and developing countries during periods of financial stress in the last decade. The model identifies and quantifies the contribution on bond spreads from global market conditions (including funding liquidity, market liquidity, as well as credit and volatility risks), contagion effects, and idiosyncratic factors. While idiosyncratic factors explain a large amount of the changes in bond spreads over the sample, global market risk factors are fundamental driving forces during periods of stress. The relative importance of the different risk factors changes substantially depending on the crisis episode. Contagion from emerging markets becomes small or non-existent when global financial market risks explicitly are taken into account.