Working Papers
2006
April 1, 2006
Donor Herding and Domestic Debt Crisis
Description: This paper presents a new model based on the loan-pushing model by Basu (1991) to show how a domestic debt crisis can occur in a low-income country following donor herding. The model focuses on the rational herding behavior of donors due to payoff and information externalities. Although there are many theoretical models on herding behavior, these models have not formally considered the relationship between donor herding and domestic debt crisis in a low-income country. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap. The paper shows that due to donor herding behavior a domestic debt crisis can occur once the actual debt level is above the desirable one.
April 1, 2006
Reforming Employment Protection Legislation in France
Description: Over the last 15 years, the reforms of employment protection legislation (EPL) in European countries have mainly eased hiring and firing restrictions for temporary employment while leaving the strict EPL provisions for regular or permanent contracts unchanged. Recent reforms in France follow this pattern. Using a search-matching model, we argue that this type of partial reform is inefficient: easing restrictions on temporary jobs fosters both job creation and job destruction, but strict EPL discourages both. The overall impact on equilibrium unemployment is thus ambiguous, depending on the characteristics of the specific labor market. Simulations of the model, calibrated for the French labor market, suggest that the job destruction effect is stronger, thus raising the unemployment rate.
April 1, 2006
Idiosyncratic and Systemic Risk in the European Corporate Sector: A CDO Perspective
Description: Systemic risk remains a major concern to policymakers since widespread defaults in the corporate and financial sectors could pose substantial costs to society. Forward-looking measures and/or indicators of systemic default risk are thus needed to identify potential buildups of vulnerability in advance. In this paper, we explain how to construct idiosyncratic and systemic default risk indicators using the information embedded in single-tranche standardized collateralized debt obligations (STCDOs) referencing credit derivatives indices. As an illustration, both risk indicators are constructed for the European corporate sector using midprice quotes for STCDOs referencing the iTraxx Europe index.
April 1, 2006
IMF Data Standards Initiatives: A Consultative Approach To Enhancing Global Data Transparency
Description: Since the IMF launched the data standards initiatives a decade ago, 145 of its 184 member countries have participated. This 80 percent participation rate reaffirms the importance countries place on data transparency in the globalized economy, which the initiatives promote. The wide participation can be attributed to the consultative process that has allowed for the development of a coherent program that takes account of countries' capabilities, delineates clear responsibilities between the IMF and participating countries, and establishes effective monitoring procedures to ensure the credibility of the standards for policymakers, capital markets, and the general public. The approach has also provided checks and balances and fostered accountability. The initiatives may provide insights for the promotion of similar international standards.
April 1, 2006
Determinants of Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure
Description: This paper presents an empirical analysis of the cross-country and cross-industry determinants of public-private partnership (PPP) arrangements. We find that PPPs tend to be more common in countries where governments suffer from heavy debt burdens and where aggregate demand and market size are large. Our findings also suggest that macroeconomic stability is essential for PPPs. We provide evidence on the importance of institutional quality, where less corruption and effective rule of law are associated with more PPP projects. PPPs are also more prevalent in countries with previous PPP experiences. At the industry level, we find that PPP determinants vary across industries depending on the nature of public infrastructure, capital intensity, and technology required. We also find that private participation in PPP projects depends on the expected marketability, the technology required, and the degree of "impurity" of the goods or services.
April 1, 2006
Government Debt in Emerging Market Countries: A New Data Set
Description: This paper presents a new database on government debt in 19 emerging market countries since 1980. The data set focuses on the structure of debt in terms of jurisdiction of insurance, maturity, currency composition and indexation. The paper presents stylized facts on debt structures and preliminary evidence on their determinants. We observe substantial crosscountry variation in the structure of domestic debt and find it to be associated with countries' record of monetary stability.
April 1, 2006
Uncovered Interest Parity
Description: This paper provides an overview of the uncovered interest parity assumption. It traces the history of the interest parity concept, summarizes evidence on the empirical validity of uncovered interest parity, and discusses different interpretations of the evidence and the implications for macroeconomic analysis. The uncovered interest parity assumption has been an important building block in multiperiod models of open economies, and although its validity is strongly challenged by the empirical evidence, at least at short time horizons, its retention in macroeconomic models is supported on pragmatic grounds by the lack of much empirical support for existing models of the exchange risk premium.
April 1, 2006
Macroeconomic Effects and Policy Challenges of Population Aging
Description: This paper simulates the macroeconomic effects of population aging in a dynamic overlapping generations model of a small open economy. The model is calibrated to data for the Czech Republic, where population aging is proceeding at a pace comparable to that in other advanced countries in Europe. Simulations show that population aging is likely to slow economic growth and improvements in living standards. Although reforms to raise labor force participation and productivity growth can mitigate these adverse effects, they are unlikely to eliminate the need for fiscal reforms. The budget will come under pressure from rising age-related expenditures, and consolidation will be needed to preserve debt sustainability.
April 1, 2006
Interest Rate Determination in Lebanon
Description: This paper seeks to understand how interest rates are formed in Lebanon, by focusing on the pass-through from benchmark rates, prevailing liquidity conditions, and the main characteristics of the Lebanese economy, notably its open capital account, fixed exchange rate, high government borrowing requirement, large public debt, and high degree of deposit dollarization. We find that international interest rates are an important element in the determination of interest rates in Lebanon. In particular, the pass-through of global benchmark rates to interest rates on sovereign bonds is about 70 percent. The less-than-complete pass-through could be attributed to a home-bias effect reflecting a relatively stable and dedicated investor base. The study also shows that interest rates in Lebanon are affected by liquidity conditions as well as perceived sovereign risk.
April 1, 2006
Why Are Women Working So Much More in Canada? An International Perspective
Description: This paper analyzes the role of the tax and benefit system in spurring the impressive increase in Canadian female labor participation in the last decade. Using annual panel data for 10 large industrial countries over the period 1980-2001, I find that reforms in the Canadian tax and benefit system in the mid-1990s account for at least one-third of the observed increase in female participation in the period 1995-2001. The analysis indicates that policy initiatives similar to the "family-friendly" policies introduced in Canada could boost female participation in other countries and help policymakers meet the challenges of population aging.