Working Papers
2007
July 1, 2007
Coping with Capital Inflows: Experiences of Selected European Countries
Description: This paper reviews the experiences of a number of European countries in coping with capital inflows. It describes the nature of the inflows, their implications for macroeconomic and financial stability, and the policy responses used to cope with them. The experiences suggest that as countries become more integrated with international financial markets, there is little room to regulate capital flows effectively. The most effective ways to deal with capital inflows would be to deepen the financial markets, strengthen financial system supervision and regulation, where needed, and improve the capacity to design and implement sound macroeconomic and financial sector policies. These actions will help increase the absorption capacity and resilience of the economies and financial systems to the risks associated with the inflows.
July 1, 2007
Determinants of Tax Revenue Efforts in Developing Countries
Description: This paper contributes to the existing empirical literature on the principal determinants of tax revenue performance across developing countries by using a broad dataset and accounting for some econometric issues that were previously ignored. The results confirm that structural factors such as per capita GDP, agriculture share in GDP, trade openness and foreign aid significantly affect revenue performance of an economy. Other factors include corruption, political stability, share of direct and indirect taxes etc. The paper also makes use of a revenue performance index, and finds that while several Sub Saharan African countries are performing well above their potential, some Latin American economies fall short of their revenue potential.
July 1, 2007
Assessing the Impact of a Change in the Composition of Public Spending: A DSGE Approach
Description: Despite intense calls for safeguarding public investment in Europe, public investment expenditure, when measured in relation to GDP, has steadily fallen in the last three decades, evoking fears that economic activity may be correspondingly negatively affected. At the same time, however, public consumption in the EU-12 countries has trended up. In this paper, we provide a macroeconomic assessment of the observed change in the composition of public spending in the euro area in a medium-scale two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. First, we identify the channels through which both temporary and permanent public investment shocks generate larger fiscal multipliers than exogenous increases in public consumption. Second, we quantify the negative impact of a change in fiscal stance, characterized by a permanent rise in public consumption and a permanent fall in public investment, keeping the overall level of public spending constant. The key message of the paper is that calls for reversing the observed trend in the composition of public spending are well justified.
July 1, 2007
Real Effects of Common Currencies in East Asia
Description: Since the 1997 Asian currency crisis, new interest has emerged in the formation of a common currency area in East Asia. This paper provides estimates of trade and welfare effects of East Asian currency unions, using a micro-founded gravity model. Counter-factual experiments to assess the effects of various hypothetical currency arrangements for East Asia suggest that an East Asian currency union will double bilateral trade in the region, but the resulting welfare effects will be moderate. However, if Japan, a major trade partner for East Asia, is included in the union, welfare effects increase substantially. The evidence thus suggests that certain regional currency arrangements in East Asia will stimulate regional trade rigorously and can generate economically significant welfare gains.
July 1, 2007
Globalization, Gluts, Innovation or Irrationality: What Explains the Easy Financing of the U.S. Current Account Deficit?
Description: This paper examines the roles of U.S. financial innovation, financial globalization, and the savings glut hypothesis in explaining the rise in U.S. external debt, first in a portfolio balance model, and then empirically. Perhaps surprisingly, financial deepening and falling home bias in industrialized countries explain a large share of external financing. The savings glut hypothesis (including difficult-to-track petrodollar recycling) and U.S. financial innovation are also important, in part as a cause of declining home bias in industrialized countries. The latter underscores the importance of not looking at these factors in isolation, but rather as a constellation of forces that can be self-reinforcing.
July 1, 2007
Cooperative Banks in Europe—Policy Issues
Description: This paper explains the continuing success of European cooperative banks through evolving comparative advantages. It points out that a cooperative is built around an intergenerational endowment without final owners, which creates particular governance challenges. Risks include the use of the endowment for purposes other than members' best interest, such as empire-building, and attempts at appropriation. The risk of empire-building is reinforced by mechanisms that foster capital accumulation and asymmetric opportunities for consolidation. The paper concludes that some form of independent external oversight of corporate governance is warranted and that cooperatives need mechanisms enabling them to better manage their capital.
July 1, 2007
The Common Monetary Area in Southern Africa: Shocks, Adjustment, and Policy Challenges
Description: This study assesses the experience of the Common Monetary Area (CMA) based on available empirical evidence over the last two decades. It pays particular attention to member countries' adjustment to economic shocks in recent years and the inter-country linkages, including the spillover effects of policies. The paper draws the main lessons from the CMA experience, identifies key policy challenges, and discusses the issues facing the member countries in their efforts to achieve sustained growth. Implications for further economic integration in a broader regional context are also noted.
July 1, 2007
Distributional Implications of the VAT Reform in the Philippines
Description: This paper assesses the distributional impact of the recent VAT reform in the Philippines and evaluates alternative methods to mitigate the effects of the reform on poor households. The reform was progressive and relatively well targeted. To alleviate the impact of the reform on the poor, several mitigating measures were introduced. Although these measures reduced the adverse impact of the VAT reform for all households, a sizable amount of the benefit accrued to high-income households. Targeted transfer schemes have the potential to deliver a much higher percentage of benefits to the poor.
July 1, 2007
IMF Drawing Programs: Participation Determinants and Forecasting
Description: This paper studies the factors that have influenced countries' participation in IMF drawing programs. IMF drawing programs are defined as the period of a Stand-By Arrangement or an Extended Fund Facilities program during which a country borrows from the Fund. Since this definition excludes precautionary arrangements and periods during which the program went off-track, it provides a closer link to the factors that have influenced the evolution of IMF credit outstanding. The analysis uses quarterly data during the period 1982-2005 and focuses on developing, non-PRGF eligible countries. Country-specific variables-net international reserves and GDP growth-together with a global factor-world GDP growth-are found to be among the most significant determinants of countries' participation in IMF drawing programs. The importance of the global factor is not uniform during the period reviewed. The influence of world GDP growth seems to have been significant during the 1980s debt crises but not since the Mexican crisis in 1994. An out-of-sample forecast evaluation of the period 2004-5 reveals that the model has some predictive power.
July 1, 2007
Guarding Against Fiscal Risks in Hong Kong SAR
Description: Hong Kong SAR's government faces the dual challenges of volatile revenue and medium term spending pressures arising from a rapidly aging population. Age-related spending pressures raise long-run sustainability concerns, while revenue volatility creates risks to service provision, possibly entailing sudden tax changes, or even requiring new borrowing. After describing the risks associated with aging, the paper uses value at risk techniques to measure the value of the unanticipated risks posed by volatile revenue. The paper also describes the self-insurance value of Hong Kong SAR's traditionally high fiscal savings (reserves), and the impact alternate policy choices could have on revenue volatility.