Working Papers
2005
August 1, 2005
Financial Development, Financial Fragility, and Growth
Description: This paper studies the apparent contradictions between two strands of the literature on the effects of financial intermediation on economic activity. On the one hand, the empirical growth literature finds a positive effect of financial depth as measured by, for instance, private domestic credit and liquid liabilities. On the other hand, the banking and currency crisis literature finds that monetary aggregates, such as domestic credit, are among the best predictors of crises and their related economic downturns. This paper accounts for these contrasting effects based on the distinction between the short- and long-run effects of financial intermediation.
August 1, 2005
Deposit Insurance Regulatory forbearance and Economic Growth: Implications for the Japanese Banking Crisis
Description: An endogenous growth model with financial intermediation demonstrates how deposit insurance and prudential regulatory forbearance lead to banking crises and growth declines. The model assumptions are based on features of the Japanese financial system and regulation. The model demonstrates how banking and growth crises can evolve under perfect foresight. The dynamics for economic aggregates and asset prices predicted by the model are shown to be generally consistent with the experience of the Japanese economy and financial system through the 1990s. We also test our maintained hypothesis of rational expectations using asset price data for Japan over the 1980s and 1990s.
August 1, 2005
Access to Bank Credit in Sub-Saharan Africa: Key Issues and Reform Strategies
Description: This study discusses issues of access to bank credit in Sub-Saharan Africa, and examines measures that could help facilitate access by the private sector to bank credit. It reviews in particular obstacles to credit small- and medium-scale enterprises and agriculture, and examines progress in the design and implementation of reform measures that are needed to create an institutional environment more supportive of credit activity. It also reviews bank interest rate spreads and profit margins, and their determinants, and compares such spreads with those prevailing in other regions of the world.
August 1, 2005
Portfolio Choice in a Monetary Open-Economy DSGE Model
Description: This paper develops a two-country monetary DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) model in which households choose a portfolio of home and foreign equities, and a forward position in foreign exchange. Some goods prices are set without full information of the state. Home and foreign portfolios are not identical in equilibrium. In response to technology shocks, sticky prices generate a negative correlation between labor income and the profits of domestic firms, biasing portfolios in favor of home equities. In contrast, under flexible prices, labor income and the profits of the domestic firms are positively correlated.
August 1, 2005
On Target? the International Experience with Achieving Inflation Targets
Description: This paper examines the international experience with full-fledged inflation targeting monetary regimes. Stylized facts are brought together from a review of the institutional elements of inflation targeting frameworks, a comparison of actual and targeted inflation outcomes, and case studies of large inflation target misses. Inflation targets are missed about 40 percent of the time and often by substantial amounts and for prolonged periods, yet no country has dropped inflation targeting. The resilience of the inflation targeting regime is attributable to the flexibility of the framework, its high standards of transparency and accountability, and the lack of realistic alternatives.
August 1, 2005
Does Government Spending Crowd In Private Consumption? Theory and Empirical Evidence for the Euro Area
Description: In this paper, we revisit the effects of government spending shocks on private consumption within an estimated New-Keynesian DSGE model of the euro area featuring non-Ricardian households. Employing Bayesian inference methods, we show that the presence of non- Ricardian households is in general conducive to raising the level of consumption in response to government spending shocks when compared with the benchmark specification without non-Ricardian households. However, we find that there is only a fairly small chance that government spending shocks crowd in consumption, mainly because the estimated share of non-Ricardian households is relatively low, but also because of the large negative wealth effect induced by the highly persistent nature of government spending shocks.
August 1, 2005
Why is Micro Evidenceon the Effects of Uncertainty Not Replicated in Macro Data?
Description: This study investigates the relationship between uncertainty and investment using U.K. data at different levels of aggregation. Motivated by a comparative econometric analysis using a firm-level panel and aggregate time-series data, we analyze the implications of aggregating nonlinear microeconomic processes. Replicating firm-level evidence that uncertainty influences investment dynamics proves to be challenging. Even using perfectly consistent data sources, this requires both exact aggregation of the underlying micro equations, and controlling for the unobserved influences on investment that are commonly subsumed into time dummies in panel studies. These conditions are unlikely to be satisfied in most aggregate econometric studies.
August 1, 2005
Bidder Participation and Information in Currency Auctions
Description: This paper studies the participation and performance of sophisticated versus unsophisticated auction participants in an environment with numerous bidders, uncertainty, and asymmetric information. We examine multi-unit, pay-as-bid, currency auctions conducted by the Central Bank of Venezuela. We find that sophisticated bidders outperform their less sophisticated rivals during periods of high volatility, apparently as a result of their superior informationgathering ability. The result is consistent across both quantity (sophisticated bidders win more market share) and price (sophisticated bidders pay lower premiums). The result is consistent with the view that a pay-as-bid auction format may be detrimental to participation by less-informed bidders.
August 1, 2005
Measuring and Analyzing Sovereign Risk with Contingent Claims
Description: This paper develops a comprehensive new framework to measure and analyze sovereign risk. Since traditional macroeconomic vulnerability indicators and accounting-based measures do not address risk in a comprehensive and forward-looking way, the contingent claims approach is used to construct a marked-to-market balance sheet for the sovereign, and derive a set of credit-risk indicators that serve as a barometer of sovereign risk. Applications to 12 emerging market economies show the risk indicators to be robust and highly correlated with market spreads. The framework can help policymakers design risk mitigation strategies and rank policy options using a calibrated structural model unique to each economy.
August 1, 2005
Managing Revenue Volatility in a Small Island Economy: The Case of Kiribati
Description: The formulation of fiscal policy in Kiribati faces unusual challenges. Kiribati's revenue base is among the most volatile in the world, and it possesses sizeable financial assets. Drawing on lessons from some other countries who experience high volatility in their revenues, this paper proposes a fiscal policy rule for Kiribati which is nested within a medium-term macroeconomic framework that aims to ensure the sustainable use of Kiribati's financial assets while managing the impact of extreme revenue volatility. It also discusses improvements in the institutional fiscal policy framework that could support such a framework.