Working Papers

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2007

June 1, 2007

Europe and Global Imbalances

Description: Although Europe in the aggregate is a not a major contributor to global current account imbalances, its trade and financial linkages with the rest of the world mean that it will still be affected by a shift in the current configuration of external deficits and surpluses. We assess the macroeconomic impact on Europe of global current account adjustment under alternative scenarios, emphasizing both trade and financial channels. Finally, we consider heterogeneous exposure across individual European economies to external adjustment shocks.

June 1, 2007

Complex Ownership Structures and Corporate Valuations

Description: The bulk of corporate governance theory examines the agency problems that arise from two extreme ownership structures: 100 percent small shareholders or one large, controlling owner combined with small shareholders. In this paper, we question the empirical validity of this dichotomy. In fact, one-third of publicly listed firms in Europe have multiple large owners, and the market value of firms with multiple blockholders differs from firms with a single large owner and from widely-held firms. Moreover, the relationship between corporate valuations and the distribution of cash-flow rights across multiple large owners is consistent with the predictions of recent theoretical models.

June 1, 2007

Bank Efficiency and Market Structure: What Determines Banking Spreads in Armenia?

Description: Despite far-reaching banking sector reforms and a prolonged period of macroeconomic stability and strong economic growth, financial intermediation in Armenia has lagged behind other transition countries, and interest rate spreads have remained higher than in most Central and Eastern European transition countries. This paper examines the determinants of interest rate spreads and margins in Armenia using a bank-level panel dataset for the period 2002 to 2006. We find that bank-specific factors, such as bank size, liquidity, and market power, as well as the market structure within which banks operate, explain a large proportion of crossbank, cross-time variation in spreads and margins. The results suggest that there is a large potential to increase cost efficiency and competition in the banking system.

May 1, 2007

Monetary Policy Transparency and Financial Market Forecasts in South Africa

Description: The transparency of monetary policy in South Africa has increased substantially since the end of the 1990s; but little empirical work has been done to examine the economic benefits of the increased transparency. This paper shows that, in recent years, South African private sector forecasters have become better able to forecast interest rates, are less surprised by reserve bank policy announcements, and are less diverse in the cross-sectional variety of their interest rate forecasts. In addition, there is some evidence that the accuracy of inflation forecasts has increased. The improvements in interest rate and inflation forecasts have exceeded those in real output forecasts, suggesting that increases in reserve bank transparency are likely to have played a role.

May 1, 2007

Labor’s Liquidity Service and Firing Costs

Description: This paper proposes a new effect of firing costs on firms' behavior that builds from firms' demand for liquidity. When a time gap exists between production and its associated revenues, firing can become a liquidity adjustment tool that allows firms to increase their short-term liquidity. I refer to this feature as labor's liquidity service. The presence of firing costs reduces the value of labor's liquidity service, which affects firms' demand for liquidity, and thus, firms' demand for inputs. In addition to this negative effect at the creation margin, I also show that firing costs imply relatively higher destruction for financially restricted firms. I present a model that develops these ideas and show that the presence of firing costs has a stronger negative effect on production levels of firms facing liquidity constraints. Regression analysis, based on country industry panel data sets, provides empirical evidence in line with the liquidity service effect of firing costs proposed. I reject the hypothesis that the effect of firing costs does not depend on the presence of financial restrictions. I find a relatively stronger negative effect of firing costs on the output of industries with higher liquidity requirements and a relatively stronger negative effect of firing costs on the output of small firms.

May 1, 2007

Money and Inflation in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Description: This paper looks at the determinants of inflation in Iran. Unlike the traditional estimates of the demand function for real money balances, the approach followed here focuses on the relationship between nominal variables and inflation. The model estimates are used to address the questions raised by the decline in inflation that occurred up to the first half of 2006, looking at the structural stability of the estimated relationships and the ability of the model to predict inflation at the end of the sample. The estimates confirm the strong relationship between money and inflation when M1 is used, with no evidence of a structural change.

May 1, 2007

Macroeconomic and Financial Soundness Indicators: An Empirical Investigation

Description: This paper analyzes the relationship between selected macroeconomic and financial soundness indicators (FSIs) using a newly assembled panel dataset of FSIs for 96 countries covering the period 1998-2005. The analysis covers key macroeconomic indicators and FSIs of capital adequacy, asset quality and profitability. The paper finds that FSIs fluctuate strongly with both the business cycle and the inflation rate. Short term interest rates and the real exchange rate also emerge as important determinants. There is also a considerable degree of heterogeneity in the relationship between macroeconomic indicators and FSIs across the sample of countries. Several country and industry specific characteristics including country income levels, financial depth, market concentration, and the quality of regulatory supervision are found to be significant in explaining this cross country heterogeneity.

May 1, 2007

Output Volatility and Large Output Drops in Emerging Market and Developing Countries

Description: This paper establishes that output volatility and the size of output drops have declined across all countries over the past three decades, but remain considerably higher in developing countries than in industrial countries. The paper employs a Bayesian latent dynamic factor model to decompose output growth into global, regional, and country-specific components. The favorable trends in output volatility and large output drops in developing countries are found to result from lower country-specific volatility and more benign country-specific events. Evidence from cross-section regressions over the 1970-2003 period suggest that discretionary fiscal spending volatility, and terms of trade volatility together with exchange rate flexibility are key determinants of volatility and large output drops.

May 1, 2007

Wage Gaps and Development: Lessons from U.S. History

Description: During the course of development, wages and labor productivity are much higher in the nonfarm sectors of the economy than in agriculture. In this paper, we examine the sources and consequences of wage and productivity gaps in the U.S. from 1800 to 2000. We build a quantitative general equilibrium model that closely matches the two-century long paths of farm and non-farm labor productivity growth, schooling, and fertility in the U.S. The family farm emerges as an important institution that contributes to differences in wages and labor productivity. Income from farm ownership compensates farm workers for the relatively low labor productivity and wages earned in agriculture. Farm ownership, along with the higher cost of raising children off the farm, generated a two-fold gap in labor productivity across the farm and nonfarm sectors in the 19th century US. Consequently, the reallocation of labor from farming to industry raised the average annual growth rate of output per worker by about half a percentage point over the 19th century. The paper also draws some lessons from the quantitative analysis of U.S. economic history for currently developing countries.

May 1, 2007

Jordan’s International Reserve Position: Justifiably Strong

Description: Jordan has seen a large increase in its international reserve holdings in recent years. While a healthy reserve buffer is needed under a fixed exchange rate regime, determining optimal reserve levels is not straightforward. In this paper, we first use several traditional measures of reserves adequacy to compare Jordan's reserve holdings with other emerging market (EM) countries. Subsequently, we analyze Jordan's reserve holdings using a reserves-optimizing model, based on Jeanne and Ranciere (2006) (J-R), but extended to allow reserve holdings to influence the likelihood of a sudden stop. The overall analysis suggests that Jordan's reserve holdings provide sufficient support to sustain the dinar peg and to deal with the most extreme capital account disruptions.

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