Working Papers
2008
January 1, 2008
Real Implications of Financial Linkages Between Canada and the United States
Description: This paper documents the extent of financial linkages between Canada and the United States and explores the impact of changes in U.S. financial conditions on financial conditions and real economic activity in Canada. It shows that close to a quarter of financing by Canadian corporations is raised south of the border. Empirical analysis using structural vector autoregressions establishes that a tightening in U.S. financial conditions has significant implications for real activity in Canada. For example, a percentage point increase in the 3- month T-bill rate, other things being equal, leads to a decline of slightly more than one percentage point in Canada's real GDP growth after 3 quarters. That decline can be decomposed into three channels: the direct financial channel, where the slowdown is attributed to a rising cost of funds for Canadian companies raising capital in the United States; the indirect financial channel, where growth is hampered as financial conditions in Canada tighten in response to a tightening in the United States; and the trade channel, which goes through a slowing in the U.S. economy, and correspondently lower demand for Canadian exports. As would be expected from the high degree of reliance on U.S. financing, the direct financial channel proves dominant in the short term.
2007
December 19, 2007
Financial Globalization and Monetary Policy
Description: What does financial globalization imply for the design of monetary policy? Does the case for price stability change in an environment of large cross country gross asset holdings?. This paper is concerned with the effects of monetary policy under endogenous international portfolio choice and incomplete markets. With endogenous portfolios, monetary policy takes on new importance due to its impact on the distribution of returns on nominal assets. Surprisingly, we find an even stronger case for price stability in this environment. Even without nominal rigidities, price stability has a welfare benefit by enhancing the risk sharing capacity of nominal bond returns.
December 1, 2007
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Supply for the G-7 Countries, with Emphasis on Germany
Description: This paper discusses structure, impact, costs, and efficiency of renewable energy supply in the eight largest advanced economies (the G-7 plus Spain), with focus on Germany. Renewables production costs are compared to benefits, defined as reductions in net carbon emissions; technological innovation, and increased energy security. The latter part of the paper centers on Germany, the main European producer of non-traditional renewables. We question whether the level of subsidies can be justified, relative to other means to increase energy security and reduce carbon emissions. We also find an excessive emphasis on current productive activity, relative to development of new technologies.
December 1, 2007
Sovereign Wealth Funds in the Pacific Island Countries: Macro-Fiscal Linkages
Description: This paper looks at the role Sovereign Wealth Funds have played in the Pacific Island Countries in achieving key macro-fiscal policy objectives, namely, protecting the budget from high revenue volatility and strengthening fiscal prospects. Evidence shows that the funds' effectiveness has been hampered by lack of integration with the budget, institutional weaknesses, and inadequate controls. These factors, together with weak asset management, have sometimes led to substantial financial losses and undermined fiscal policy. Funds, if well designed, could be used as a tool to support a sound fiscal framework, but should not be seen as a substitute for fiscal reforms.
December 1, 2007
Do Reserve Portfolios Respond to Exchange Rate Changes Using a Portfolio Rebalancing Strategy? An Econometric Study Using COFER Data
Description: This paper tests whether reserve portfolios respond to exchange rate changes with a portfolio rebalancing strategy, which requires the purchase of depreciating currencies and sale of appreciating ones. The paper finds empirical support for the strategy, in particular that dollar depreciation/appreciation results in rebalancing switches vis-a-vis the other major reserve currency, the euro; valuation changes in the minor currencies tend to result in switches among themselves. The finding implies that currency diversifications in response to exchange rate changes have thus far tended to be stabilizing for exchange markets; it also helps explain the relative stability of reserve currency shares.
December 1, 2007
Use of Participatory Notes in Indian Equity Markets and Recent Regulatory Changes
Description: This paper focuses on the use of participatory notes (PNs) by foreign investors, as a conduit for portfolio flows into Indian equity markets for more than a decade. The broadening of India's foreign investor base, in recent years, has a bias towards hedge funds/unregistered foreign investors who invest primarily via PNs. While tax arbitrage via capital gains tax has almost disappeared since July 2004, it is intriguing to note that since then the demand for PNs has actually increased. The paper suggests some reasons for the continuation of a buoyant market in PNs, and explains the possible impact from the recent regulatory changes.
December 1, 2007
Testing for Purchasing Power Parity in Cointegrated Panels
Description: This paper applies the maximum likelihood panel cointegration method of Larsson and Lyhagen (2007) to test the strong PPP hypothesis using data for the G7 countries. This method is robust in several important dimensions relative to previous methods, including the well-known issue of cross-sectional dependence of error terms. The findings using this new method are contrasted to those from the Pedroni (1995) cointegration tests and fully modified OLS and dynamic OLS esimators of the cointegrating vectors. Our overall results are the same across all approaches: The strong PPP hypothesis is rejected in favour of weak PPP with heterogenenous cointegrating vectors.
December 1, 2007
Solving for Country Portfolios in Open Economy Macro Models
Description: This paper presents a general approximation method for characterizing time-varying equilibrium portfolios in a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model. the method can be easily adapted to most dynamic general equilibrium models, it applies to environments in which markets are complete or incomplete, and it can be used for models of any dimension. Moreover, the approximation provides simple, easily interpretable closed form solutions for the dynamics of equilibrium portfolios.
December 1, 2007
Country Portfolio Dynamics
Description: This paper presents a general approximation method for characterizing time-varying equilibrium portfolios in a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model. the method can be easily adapted to most dynamic general equilibrium models, it applies to environments in which markets are complete or incomplete, and it can be used for models of any dimension. Moreover, the approximation provides simple, easily interpretable closed form solutions for the dynamics of equilibrium portfolios.
December 1, 2007
Estimating Iceland’s Real Equilibrium Exchange Rate
Description: Given recent developments in Iceland, this paper evaluates its real exchange rate disequilibrium. It discusses three approaches to estimating the equilibrium values and suggests that the adjustment needed to bring the real exchange rate in line with fundamentals is in the range of 15-25 percent, although timing and manner of this adjustment is unclear.