Working Papers
2005
September 1, 2005
Post-Transition Investment Behavior in Poland: A Sectoral Panel Analysis
Description: Analyzing and projecting the behavior of macroeconomic variables in new EU member states presents special challenges, owing to limited time series of the available data. This paper presents an analysis of investment in Poland based on an underexplored sectoral data set. The determinants of investment are found to include lagged investment, lead production, relative unit labor costs, EU demand, corporate profitability, and greenfield FDI (foreign direct investment) inflows. Dynamic in-sample simulations indicate some overinvestment in 1997 compared with what the model would suggest, and a substantial underinvestment during 2000-2004. The model is then used to project future investment: while rapid investment growth is likely, it remains uncertain whether investment as a share of GDP will reach its peak levels on the late 1990s.
September 1, 2005
The IMF’s Role in Low-Income Countries: Issues and Challenges
Description: Drawing on recent research, this study elaborates on the role of the IMF in support of its lowincome members, pointing to the global character of the institution and to its superior ability-given its multilateral nature-to serve as a financial institution, an information provider, and a commitment device. The IMF assists low-income members through a range of activities that are normally bundled together, including lending, offering policy advice, and providing assistance with capacity building. The study reviews the features of IMF policies towards its low-income membership and points to the main challenges to their success.
September 1, 2005
Quality of Financial Policies and Financial System Stress
Description: In this paper, we develop multi-country indices of financial system stress and quality of financial policies and use them in regression analysis of the determinants of financial stress. We find that countries with higher quality of financial policies are better able to contain the effects of macroeconomic pressures on the overall level of stress in the financial system. They are also in a better position to ensure sustainable development of the financial system.
September 1, 2005
Inflation Targeting Lite' in Small Open Economies: The Case of Mauritius
Description: This paper develops a new macrofinance model for small open economies, allowing the investigation of Mauritius's experience with 'inflation targeting lite' as described in Stone (2003). It finds that this monetary policy regime has been associated with a general reduction in inflation, principally through a reduction in inflation expectations. The credibility the Bank of Mauritius has established with its 'inflation targeting lite' regime has allowed it to shift from an emphasis on exchange rate targeting towards inflation targeting. By estimating a model in which the yield curve is modeled explicitly we are able to obtain estimates of inflation expectations.
August 1, 2005
Cyclical Implications of Changing Bank Capital Requirements in a Macroeconomic Framework
Description: There is a widespread view that bank capital requirements should be loosened during recessions and tightened during expansions to avoid excessive credit and output swings. This view is based on a partial analysis that ignores the effects of capital requirement policies on the saving decisions of households, and, through this channel, on bank loans and output. We present an intertemporal general equilibrium framework that accounts for such effects and evaluate the optimal responses to loan supply and productivity (loan demand) shocks. In contrast to the standard view, we show that, when loan supply is reduced, increasing the capital requirement allows a faster recovery of households' savings, loans, and output than a flat capital requirement policy. When productivity (loan demand) is reduced, lowering the capital requirement facilitates households' dissaving and amplifies the output decline, but enhances welfare. Finally, we show that if productivity reductions are anticipated-rather than unanticipated-by regulators, lowering the capital requirement preemptively enhances welfare through greater intertemporal smoothing of households' consumption and deposit holdings.
August 1, 2005
Finance in Lower Income Countries: An Empirical Exploration
Description: This paper considers how a comprehensive set of factors relates to financial sector performance in low-income countries (LICs). It finds that corruption and inflation are associated with a shallower and less efficient financial system, while legal origin and characteristics of the supervisory and regulatory framework have no significant relationship with performance. Moreover, better contract enforcement and information about borrowers are associated with more private sector credit. Some results are surprising. Countries with more foreign bank penetration seem to have shallower and not necessarily more efficient financial sectors, while a larger presence of state-owned banks is correlated with more bank deposits and lower overhead costs, even after controlling for market size and concentration. Although these relationships are robust, more research is needed to ascertain the direction of causality and identify channels of transmission before deriving policy implications.
August 1, 2005
Real Exchange Rate Misalignment: A Panel Co-Integration and Common Factor Analysis
Description: We combine some newly developed panel co-integration techniques and common factor analysis to analyze the behavior of the real exchange rate (RER) in a sample of 64 developing countries. We study the dynamic of the RER with its economic fundamentals: productivity, the terms of trade, openness, and government spending. We derive a number of common factors that explain the dynamic of the RER in our sample. We find that while some fundamentals such as productivity, terms of trade, and openness are strongly related to these common factors in low-income countries, no such link is found for the middle-income countries. We also derive the misalignment indices, which seem to reproduce recent episodes of overvaluation and undervaluation in a number of countries.
August 1, 2005
U.S. Mutual Fund Retail Investors in International Equity Markets: Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?
Description: Do the dynamics of net flows to U.S. retail mutual funds affect equity returns in emerging markets? The question merits further examination since retail investors in mutual funds can exert a much greater degree of "control" over these funds via cash injections or redemptions at any time. A VAR analysis shows increased discrimination across emerging market regions after the Asian crisis as investors focused on individual regions rather than on emerging markets as a generic asset class. Crossover funds allocations also appear to affect emerging market returns. Furthermore, investment decisions by fund managers seem to be largely driven by retail investor allocations.
August 1, 2005
What Causes Firms to Hide Output? the Determinants of Informality
Description: In many developing countries, a significant part of economic activity takes place in the informal sector. Earlier work has examined the determinants of the size of the informal sector, focusing separately on factors such as tax and regulation burden, financial market development, and the quality of the legal system. We revisit this issue by using an integrated dataset which contains rich information on all these aspects. Testing the channels affecting the degree of informality, we find evidence that all previously identified factors indeed play a role in driving informality. In particular, and consistent with the suggested theoretical model, we find support for the significance of the quality of the legal system.
August 1, 2005
Forestry Taxation in Africa: The Case of Liberia
Description: Countries generally tax the forestry sector to achieve the twin objectives of revenue maximization and sustainability of logging levels. In an ideal world of perfect markets and information, auctions would be the best instrument to determine the price of extraction rights. However, a number of factors-including a lack of information on the forest resources under consideration, uncertainties as to the stability of property rights over time, and a lack of access to credit-have limited the use of auctions so far, particularly in low-income countries. To establish transparency of the forestry sector's financial flows, this paper discusses a radical simplification of Liberia's current timber tax structure, including a proposal to reduce the sector's current tax system to two instruments, an area tax and an export tax.