Working Papers
2005
June 1, 2005
Special Agricultural Safeguards: Virtual Benefits and Real Costs—Lessons for the Doha Round
Description: In the Doha Round, negotiators are discussing the elimination or continuation of the special agricultural safeguards introduced by the Uruguay Round as well as the creation of special safeguard mechanism for use by developing countries. This paper argues that, in violation of the spirit of the WTO Agreement in Agriculture, the special agricultural safeguards have often been used as a prolonged protectionist device. It then draws lessons for the design of the special safeguard mechanism.
June 1, 2005
On the Implementation of Transfers to Subnational Governments
Description: This paper examines a typology of grants that are used across the world, and places these in the context of the overall constitutional and legal framework for a country. It looks at the options for grants, given the need to maintain overall macroeconomic stability, efficiency in the use of scarce resources as well as reduced horizontal disparities. The role of central objectives in a decentralized framework is also assessed. The paper argues for a comprehensive framework for grants, as well as a proper institutional framework to manage grants systems.
June 1, 2005
Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?
Description: We examine the effects of aid on growth-- in cross-sectional and panel data--after correcting for the bias that aid typically goes to poorer countries, or to countries after poor performance. Even after this correction, we find little robust evidence of a positive (or negative) relationship between aid inflows into a country and its economic growth. We also find no evidence that aid works better in better policy or geographical environments, or that certain forms of aid work better than others. Our findings, which relate to the past, do not imply that aid cannot be beneficial in the future. But they do suggest that for aid to be effective in the future, the aid apparatus will have to be rethought. Our findings raise the question: what aspects of aid offset what ought to be the indisputable growth enhancing effects of resource transfers? Thus, our findings support efforts under way at national and international levels to understand and improve aid effectiveness.
June 1, 2005
What Undermines Aid’s Impact on Growth?
Description: We examine one of the most important and intriguing puzzles in economics: why it is so hard to find a robust effect of aid on the long-term growth of poor countries, even those with good policies. We look for a possible offset to the beneficial effects of aid, using a methodology that exploits both cross-country and within-country variation. We find that aid inflows have systematic adverse effects on a country's competitiveness, as reflected in a decline in the share of labor intensive and tradable industries in the manufacturing sector. We find evidence suggesting that these effects stem from the real exchange rate overvaluation caused by aid inflows. By contrast, private-to-private flows like remittances do not seem to create these adverse effects. We offer an explanation why and conclude with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings.
June 1, 2005
Regional Financial Conglomerates: A Case for Improved Supervision
Description: The paper's central theme is that where a financial crisis emerges, regional supervisors should have systems in place to effectively respond to their country-specific crises and-in the case of foreign operations and financial conglomerates-to collaborate comprehensively with other supervisory agencies and respective ministries to avert a regional crisis or address the immediate crisis at hand. For financial institutions to expand across borders without undermining regional and global financial stability, supervisory agencies must develop the capacity to collaboratively and collectively handle crises.
June 1, 2005
Deficit Limits, Budget Rules, and Fiscal Policy
Description: The paper presents a simple model for discussing the effects of deficit limits and budget rules on fiscal policy. I find that limits on deficit-output ratios provide incentives to implement procyclical policies when the economy is in intermediate states, and countercyclical policies only in very "good" and very "bad" economic times. As a result, fiscal "reaction functions" are not monotonically related to the state of the economy. Deficit limits are found to exert discipline only provided the limit is tight and the expected sanction large, albeit at a relatively large welfare cost. Moreover, when fiscal choices are made under a veil of ignorance about the output gap, an increase in volatility is likely to raise the level of the budget deficit. Finally, concerning the design of fiscal frameworks, when excessive deficits arise from a political bias, deficit limits should be symmetric and not state-contingent.
June 1, 2005
Pace and Sequencing of Economic Policies
Description: This paper examines the design of economic policies using factor analysis, which has several advantages; in particular, it limits the problems that typically arise from the high correlation of economic policy indicators, it helps in identifying clusters of economic policy, and it facilitates the derivation of policy design indicators that represent the pace and sequence of economic policies. Econometric results show that the introduction of sound economic policies has both level effects and growth effects, suggesting it is necessary to exercise caution when assessing a country's growth prospects immediately following the introduction of new policies. In addition, the results suggest that growth strengthens when a country implements policies that outpace either a notional measure of "world average policies" or a country's own policy trend, and highlight the critical role played by macroeconomic vis-à-vis microeconomic policies. The latter also reveals the existence of sequencing factors in policy implementation; for example, trade liberalization and financial liberalization positively affect growth, but more so if economic stability and fiscal sustainability have been secured.
June 1, 2005
A Cross-Country Nonparametric Analysis of Bahrain’s Banking System
Description: Bahrain's financial sector development strategy succeeded in building a leading regional banking center, which has become one of the main engines of growth and sources of employment. Although the simulations conducted in the paper suggest that the banking sector in Bahrain continues to occupy a front-runner position among those in a sample of member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, they also reveal that: (i) as expected, banks in Bahrain still lag behind their Singaporean counterparts, and (ii) there is strong competition from other countries in the region. The paper also finds that in terms of scale efficiency, the banks in Bahrain operate at the same level as banks in Singapore and their closest competitors in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The results appear to be robust with respect to changes in the sample size and model specifications.
June 1, 2005
Who Controls the Budget: The Legislature or the Executive?
Description: Country-specific factors prevent a strong linear relationship between the legislature's budgetary powers and the extent of its separation from the executive. Electoral and voting systems, bicameralism, constitutional and legal constraints, voluntary contracts of political parties, and long-standing traditions all influence the relative budgetary powers of executives and legislatures. Differences in the legislature's budgetary authority in twenty-eight countries with five different forms of government are examined. It is concluded that differences in budgetary powers within a particular form of government are as great as those between different forms of government.
June 1, 2005
Underlying Factors Driving Fiscal Effort in Emerging Market Economies
Description: Using a panel dataset of 34 emerging market countries for the period 1990-2002, we examine the roles of various economic, political, and institutional variables in determining fiscal effort, as proxied by the primary surplus. We find that while fiscal effort increases, as expected, with the level of lagged debt, this effect tapers off beyond a certain threshold. We also find an inverse U-shaped relationship between the primary balance and revenue. Fiscal effort rises with positive shocks to oil prices (for oil exporters), when the economy grows above its potential, and in the presence of an IMF-supported program. In contrast, high democratic accountability and strong and impartial bureaucracies help lower market risk and hence lower the relative need for fiscal adjustment. Finally, fiscal effort tends to decline when too many constraints are faced by the executive.