Working Papers
January 1, 0001
$name
January 1, 0001
$name
January 1, 0001
$name
January 1, 0001
$name
January 1, 0001
$name
2004
February 1, 2004
Liberalized Markets Have More Stable Exchange Rates: Short-Run Evidence From Four Transition Countries
Description: The paper looks at the hypothesis that financial market liberalization can create a basis for more stable exchange rates, as deviations of exchange rates from equilibrium levels bring forth stabilizing flows of liquidity. This "endogenous liquidity" hypothesis suggests that opening financial markets militates in favor of exchange rate flexibility by increasing the viability of a floating regime, as well as making it more difficult to maintain a peg. The paper examines this hypothesis in a sample of four transition economies and finds that exchange rates tend to return faster to their Hodrick-Prescott-based values where markets are liberalized. The results suggest that early and successful foreign exchange liberalization pays off in terms of depth of the market and, hence, faster adjustment of exchange rate to shocks. Moreover, it implies that central banks should not be overly concerned with short-run volatility of their national exchange rates, given the self-correcting tendencies.
February 1, 2004
The Determinants of International Portfolio Holdings and Home Bias
Description: Despite the liberalization of foreign portfolio investment around the globe since the early 1980s, the home-bias phenomenon is still found to exist. Using a relatively new IMF survey dataset of cross-border equity holdings, this paper tests new structural equations from a consumption-based asset-pricing model on international portfolio holdings. Using of stock data allows us to provide new and clear-cut evidence on the determinants of international portfolio holdings.
February 1, 2004
Fiscal Sustainability in Heavily Indebted Countries Dependenton Nonrenewable Resources: The Case of Gabon
Description: This paper proposes a framework for assessing fiscal sustainability in heavily indebted countries dependent on exhaustible resources, with reference to Gabon. It finds that fiscal sustainability could be achieved by: (i) developing a fiscal rule for the non-oil primary fiscal balance compatible with an objective for reducing the debt-to-non-oil GDP ratio; (ii) introducing a constant oil-based income transfer per capita allowing intergenerational equity; and (iii) building up an oil savings fund. Long-term simulations show that Gabon's fiscal position is fragile and that a fiscal policy path consistent with the proposed framework could help achieve comfortable levels of net wealth.
February 1, 2004
Six Puzzles in Electronic Money and Banking
Description: The literature on the economic effects of electronic money and banking lacks organization and a common analytical framework. This paper identifies the main issues raised by e-money and e-banking and presents them as six puzzles. Our solutions to the puzzles build a framework for analyzing the effects of e-money and e-banking, and for choosing the appropriate approach to regulating electronic money and banking.
February 1, 2004
China: Sources of Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations
Description: This paper reviews the evolution of China's real effective exchange rate between 1980 and 2002, and uses a structural vector autoregression model to study the relative importance of different types of macroeconomic shocks for fluctuations in the real exchange rate. The structural decomposition shows that relative real demand and supply shocks account for most of the variations in real exchange rate changes during the estimation period. The paper also finds that supply shocks are as important as nominal shocks in accounting for real exchange rate fluctuations, in contrast with other studies that show that, in industrial countries, nominal shocks are more important in explaining real exchange rate fluctuations.