Working Papers
2006
June 1, 2006
U.S. Dollar Risk Premiums and Capital Flows
Description: This paper sheds light on the attractiveness of U.S. assets by studying dollar risk premiums, calculated using Consensus exchange rate forecasts, and linking them to bilateral capital flows. The paper finds that the presence of negative dollar risk premiums (i.e. expectations of a dollar depreciation net of interest rate effects) amid record capital inflows could suggest that investors may favor U.S. assets for structural reasons. One possible explanation could be that the Asian crisis created a large pool of savings searching for relatively riskless investment opportunities, which were provided by deep, liquid, and innovative U.S. financial markets with robust investor protection. Moreover, the continued attractiveness of U.S. financial markets to European investors suggests that they offer a large array of assets, with different risk/return characteristics, that facilitate the structuring of diversified investment portfolios. Looking forward, this suggests that the allocative efficiency of U.S. financial markets could mitigate risks of a disorderly unwinding of global current account imbalances.
June 1, 2006
IMF-Supported Programs and Crisis Prevention: An Analytical Framework
Description: This paper presents an analytical framework for considering the role of IMF-supported programs in preventing crises, particularly capital account crises. The model builds upon the global games framework to establish a unique relationship between the crisis probability and the parameters of the program, which is assumed to be negotiated between the IMF and the member country, taking explicit account of each party's interests. In the model, from the perspective of the borrowing country, IMF financing and policy adjustment are (perfect) substitutes inasmuch as they both contribute to the country's liquidity and thus reduce the likelihood of a crisis. In equilibrium, however, IMF financing promotes stronger policies, implying that financing and adjustment are strong complements in crisis prevention. Conditionality plays a crucial role in sustaining the program, providing mutual assurances-to the member country that, if it undertakes the agreed policies, financing will indeed be forthcoming, and to the IMF that the country will implement the agreed policies as the IMF disburses its resources. The model helps explain how liquidity crises may come about, how IMF support can reduce the likelihood of a crisis by providing liquidity and sustaining stronger policies, and why the observed mix between financing and adjustment may vary across programs.
June 1, 2006
The Impact of Tradeon Wages: What If Countries Are Not Small?
Description: This paper explores the effect of trade on the relative wage of less-skilled labor through its effect on world prices, which are typically exogenously given under the small open economy assumption. Using the 1995 international input-output data for APEC member countries, we numerically simulate a general equilibrium model to study the effects of abolishing existing tariffs under the assumption that each member country is large enough to affect the prices of goods and services produced in the region. We find that the responsiveness of prices plays an important role in easing a possible adverse effect of trade on relative wages.
June 1, 2006
The Maastricht Inflation Criterion: How Unpleasant Is Purgatory?
Description: The Maastricht inflation criterion, designed in the early 1990s to bring "high-inflation" EU countries in line with "low-inflation" countries prior to the introduction of the euro, poses challenges for both new EU member countries and the European Central Bank. While the criterion has positively influenced the public stance toward low inflation, it has biased the choice of the disinflation strategy toward short-run, fiat measures-rather than adopting structural reforms with longer-term benefits-with unpleasant consequences for the efficiency of the eurozone transmission mechanism. The criterion is also unnecessarily tight for new member countries as it mainly reflects cyclical developments.
June 1, 2006
The Euro’s Challenge to the Dollar: Different Views from Economists and Evidence from COFER (Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves) and Other Data
Description: This paper examines opposing views on the euro's challenge to the dollar as an international currency. One view emphasizes Europe's large economy and diversification effects as undergirding a vigorous challenge. The other emphasizes "network externalities," particularly undergirding continued dollar dominance. The data to date support the second view but also show the euro has significantly overtaken the legacy currencies as a reserve currency. Generally, large economic size alone is insufficient to challenge the network externalities supporting vehicle currencies, but scope exists for the euro to advance as an international store of value. The paper discusses the euro's medium-term prospects.
June 1, 2006
Price Impacts of Non-Adoption of the Euro for Small European Countries
Description: Debates surrounding the adoption of a common currency have focused on its benefits weighed against the long-term costs of losing monetary independence. These debates have assumed that the penalty for not adopting a common currency is the maintenance of the status quo. This paper uses the Sjaastad model to analyze the price-making power of major currencies with regard to the prices of traded goods in small countries that have not adopted the euro and uses the Bayoumi-Eichengreen OCA index methodology to shed further light on changes in Europe. The empirical evidence suggests that small countries that have not adopted the euro have increasingly seen a change in the determinants of their traded goods prices. This seems to contrast with the experience of small countries that adopted the euro. The results need to be interpreted carefully, given the short time series.
June 1, 2006
Getting Shut Out of the International Capital Markets - It Doesn’t Take Much
Description: We use a simple model of international lending to show that an emerging market borrower who might default can be shut out of international capital markets without warning. A modest haircut on obligations, for example, can shut down lending.
June 1, 2006
Exchange Rate Misalignment: An Application of the Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate (BEER) to Botswana
Description: Botswana's successive currency devaluations and recent move from a fixed to a crawling peg exchange rate regime raise the question of whether the exchange rate might be misaligned with economic fundamentals. This paper, applying the behavioral equilibrium exchange rate (BEER) approach, analyzes the behavior of the real exchange rate for the period 1985-2004. It finds that the pula was undervalued in the later 1980s but overvalued in recent years. Some policy lessons from experiences in other countries with crawling peg arrangements are therefore considered in the context of Botswana.
June 1, 2006
The Credit Risk Transfer Market and Stability Implications for U.K. Financial Institutions
Description: The increasing ability to trade credit risk in financial markets has facilitated its dispersion across the financial and other sectors. However, specific risks attached to credit risk transfer (CRT) instruments in a market with still-limited liquidity means that its rapid expansion may actually pose problems for financial sector stability in the event of a major negative shock to credit markets. This paper attempts to quantify the exposure of major U.K. financial groups to credit derivatives, by applying a vector autoregression (VAR) model to publicly available market prices. Our results indicate that use of credit derivatives does not pose a substantial threat to financial sector stability in the United Kingdom. Exposures across major financial institutions appear sufficiently diversified to limit the impact of any shock to the market, while major insurance companies are largely exposed to the "safer" senior tranches.
June 1, 2006
Structural Reforms in the Euro Area: Economic Impact and Role of Synchronization Across Markets and Countries
Description: Using the IMF's Global Economic Model, calibrated to the European Union, the effects of reform in product and labor markets are quantified for both a large and a small euro area economy. When markups in these markets are reduced, there are sizable long-term gains in output and employment. Most of these gains accrue to the reforming country regardless of whether reform takes place elsewhere; conversely, spillovers of reform elsewhere are limited. Labor and services market reforms have transitional costs as they induce a temporary decline in consumption, but raising competition in goods markets can mitigate some of these costs. Thus, coordinating the timing of reforms across markets is beneficial, and the more so the more open the reforming economy. In addition, synchronizing structural reforms across large countries of the euro area could eliminate transition costs. Increased supply would allow monetary policy to ease without jeopardizing price stability objectives, though in practice uncertainty may prevent full accommodation.