Working Papers
2005
March 1, 2005
The Real Effect of Banking Crises
Description: Banking crises are usually followed by a decline in credit and growth. Is this because crises tend to take place during economic downturns, or do banking sector problems have independent negative effects on the economy? To answer this question we examine industrial sectors with differing needs for financing. If banking crises have an exogenous detrimental effect on real activity, then sectors more dependent on external finance should perform relatively worse during banking crises. The evidence in this paper supports this view. Additional support comes from the fact that sectors that predominantly have small firms, and thus are typically bank-dependent, also perform relatively worse during banking crises. The differential effects across sectors are stronger in developing countries, in countries with less access to foreign finance, and where banking crises have been more severe.
March 1, 2005
A Framework for the Surveillance of Derivatives Activities
Description: This paper proposes a framework for the surveillance of financial institutions' derivatives activities. The designed framework builds on information likely to be collected by financial market regulators for supervisory purposes, and/or information collected by market participants for the purpose of their own risk management. The framework involves four pillars: (i) analyzing quantitative information on Derivatives activities, (ii) determining the adequacy of prudential regulations and supervisory arrangements, (iii) assessing the risk mitigation infrastructure, and (iv) assessing the degree of market transparency of the derivatives activities of financial institutions.
March 1, 2005
Government Debt: A Key Role in Financial Intermediation
Description: The literature on optimal fiscal policy finds that highly volatile real returns on government debt, for example through surprise inflation, have very low costs. However, policymakers are almost always very apprehensive of this option. The paper discusses evidence concerning features of developing country financial markets that are missing in existing models, and that may suggest why this policy is considered so costly in practice. Most importantly, domestic banks choose to be highly exposed to government debt because the alternative, private lending, is more risky under existing legal and institutional imperfections. This exposure makes banks and their borrowers vulnerable to the government's debt policy.
March 1, 2005
Does Political Instability Lead to Higher Inflation? A Panel Data Analysis
Description: Economists generally accept the proposition that high inflation rates generate inefficiencies that reduce society's welfare and economic growth. However, determining the causes of the worldwide diversity of inflationary experiences is an important challenge not yet satisfactorily confronted by the profession. Based on a dataset covering around 100 countries for the period 1960-99 and using modern panel data econometric techniques to control for endogeneity, this paper shows that a higher degree of political instability is associated with higher inflation. The paper also draws relevant policy implications for the optimal design of inflation-stabilization programs and of the institutions favorable to price stability.
March 1, 2005
The Disconcerting Pyramids of Poverty and Inequality of Sub-Saharan Africa
Description: Poverty and inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) should not be ascertained only on the basis of scarce and unreliable income distribution statistics, but should also take into account social conditions. Recent, widely disseminated claims that poverty and inequality have increased over the past 30 years are based on regional income estimates with falling medians and rising upper variances over that period. Graphically, this translates into pyramid-shaped income distributions that, perversely, shift to the left and widen over time. However, during the same period social indicators improved significantly (if insufficiently), and we argue in this paper that such a trend represents progress with social equity in SSA. This point is illustrated through the configuration of alternative "social pyramids" that move for most of the last 30 years in the right direction. However, more recently, social indicators are being set back by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which will generate greater and more dehumanizing poverty in the years ahead even if meaningful economic growth is achieved. As underscored by the multiplicity of "pyramid" representations, poverty and inequality time trends in SSA can thus best be described as disconcerting in that they remain arguably illusive and definitely disturbing.
February 1, 2005
Tanzania’s Growth Process and Success in Reducing Poverty
Description: Since 1995, Tanzania has made major progress in economic reform and macroeconomic stabilization, resulting in strong growth and low inflation. This paper reviews Tanzania's growth performance and prospects and assesses the impact of growth on poverty. It finds that growth has been increasingly driven by higher factor productivity and that a continuation of recent policies should allow Tanzania to grow above 5 percent a year over the medium term. Furthermore, it finds that growth since 1995 has resulted in a significant decline of poverty and that prospects are favorable for Tanzania to attain its objectives for reducing income poverty by 2015.
February 1, 2005
Were Bid-Ask Spreads in the Foreign Exchange Market Excessive During the Asian Crisis?
Description: Bid-ask spreads for Asian emerging market currencies increased sharply during the Asian crisis. A key question is whether such wide spreads were excessive or explained by models of bid-ask spreads. Precrisis estimates of standard models show that spreads during the crisis were in most cases tighter than spreads predicted by the models and there are few cases of excessive spreads. The result is largely explained by the substantial increase in exchange rate volatility during the crisis and to some extent by the level change. The empirical models have greater explanatory power for emerging- than for mature-market currencies.
February 1, 2005
Monetary and Exchange Rate Dynamics During Disinflation: An Empirical Analysis
Description: Based on the observed behavior of monetary aggregates and exchange rates, we classify inflation-stabilization episodes into two categories: de facto exchange rate-based stabilizations (ERBS) and non-ERBS. Unlike the standard de jure ERBS studied in the literature, de facto ERBS encompass cases in which the central bank intervenes in the foreign exchange market but does not preannounce the use of an exchange rate anchor. The number of the de facto ERBS is twice as large as that of de jure ERBS. Output dynamics during disinflation do not differ significantly between these two groups. We conclude that empirical studies on the effects of exchange rate anchors must seek to disentangle the effects of their announcement from those related to their role in the remonetization process.
February 1, 2005
A Simultaneous Equations Model for World Crude Oil and Natural Gas Markets
Description: A model for world crude oil and natural gas markets is estimated. It confirms low price and high income elasticities of demand for both crude oil and natural gas, which explains the market power of oil producers and price volatility following shocks. The paper establishes a relationship between oil prices, changes in the nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) of the U.S. dollar, and the U.S. interest rates, thereby identifying demand shocks arising from monetary policy. Both interest rates and the NEER are shown to influence crude prices inversely. The results imply that crude oil prices should be included in the policy rule equation of an inflation targeting model.
February 1, 2005
Stabilization, Debt, and Fiscal Policy in the Caribbean
Description: Although Caribbean countries have been largely successful in bringing annual inflation down to single digits in recent years-regardless of their exchange rate regime-their growth rates have been disappointing and their public debt has risen rapidly. By 2003, 14 of 15 Caribbean countries ranked in the top 30 of the world's highly indebted emerging market countries. Most of the increase in their public debt is accounted for by a deterioration in primary fiscal balances that has been largely due to a sharp increase in expenditures rather than a fall in revenues. With the countries of the region now increasingly facing unsustainable debt positions, innovative ways need to be found to raise their economic growth rates and generate fiscal savings to reverse the debt buildup, and to maintain or raise their current living standards.