Working Papers
2004
January 1, 2004
What Are the Channels Through Which External Debt Affects Growth?
Description: This paper investigates the channels through which debt affects growth, specifically whether debt affects growth through factor accumulation or total factor productivity growth. It also tests for the presence of nonlinearities in the effects of debt on the different sources of growth. We use a large panel dataset of 61 developing countries over the period 1969-98. Results indicate that the negative impact of high debt on growth operates both through a strong negative effect on physical capital accumulation and on total factor productivity growth. On average, for high-debt countries, doubling debt will reduce output growth by about 1 percentage point and reduce both per capita physical capital and total factor productivity growth by somewhat less than that. In terms of the contributions to growth, approximately one-third of the effect of debt on growth occurs via physical capital accumulation and two-thirds via total factor productivity growth. The results are generally robust to the use of alternative estimators to control (to different extents) for biases associated with unobserved country-specific effects and the endogeneity of several regressors, particularly the debt variables. In particular, the results are shown to be compatible with a simultaneous significant effect of growth on debt ratios, as suggested by Easterly (2001).
January 1, 2004
Exchange Rate Pass-Through in the Euro Area: The Role of Asymmetric Pricing Behavior
Description: Exchange rate pass-through in a set of euro area prices along the pricing chain is examined. Using a vector autoregression (VAR) approach, the empirics analyze the joint time-series behavior of the euro exchange rate and a system of euro-area prices in response to an exchange rate shock. The impulse-response functions from the VAR estimates are used to identify-in a 'new open economy macroeconomics model'-those key behavioral parameters that best replicate the pattern of exchange rate pass-through in the euro area. Area-wide prices are found to display incomplete pass-through, consistent with euro currency-pricing and pricing-to-market behavior. The results are compared to those for the other major industrial economies, and suggest that, as with the United States, "expenditure-switching" effects on the current account still operate but are generally small.
January 1, 2004
How Private Creditors Fared in Emerging Debt Markets, 1970-2000
Description: We estimate ex post returns to emerging market debt by combining secondary-market prices with observed flows based on World Bank data. From 1970-2000, returns averaged 9 percent per annum, about the same as returns on a ten-year U.S. treasury bond. This reflects the combined effect of the 1980s debt crisis and much higher returns during 1989-2000. Annual returns since 1986 have been less volatile than emerging market equity returns but more volatile than returns on U.S. corporate or high-yield bonds. However, unlike returns on these bonds, emerging market debt returns do not seem significantly correlated with U.S. or world stock markets.
January 1, 2004
A Puzzle of Microstructure Market Maker Models
Description: This study addresses the empirical viability of microstructure models of dealer price setting. New evidence is presented rejecting these models' specifications of how information asymmetry and inventory accumulation affect dealer pricing. This rejection is consistent with those of other dealer-level empirical studies. This study suggests a new modeling option may be to reconsider optimal price setting while relaxing assumptions that specify incoming orders as the only component through which dealer inventories evolve. This approach is consistent with inventory evolution data and with general equilibrium models' assumptions about currency markets.
January 1, 2004
International Dividend Repatriations
Description: Income earned by the branches and subsidiaries of multinational firms can be either reinvested in the host country or repatriated as dividends to the firms' headquarters. Despite the rapid growth of foreign direct investment in the 1990s, there has been relatively limited analysis of the dividend behavior of multinationals. We find that investors in multinationals from the two largest foreign- investing countries-the United Kingdom and the United States-require a steady flow of dividends, consistent with a view that such regular dividend payments are a mechanism through which to discipline host-country managers. In contrast, German investors, who tend to invest in riskier countries, do not appear to demand persistent dividend payments. Changes in income also influence dividends. This payout ratio from income appears, for example, to be lower for less risky countries. Finally, the evidence suggests that dividend payments do not necessarily aggravate the balance of payments position during crises.
January 1, 2004
Exchange Rates in Central Europe: A Blessing or a Curse?
Description: Central European accession countries (CECs) are currently considering when to adopt the euro. From the perspective of macroeconomic stabilization, the cost or benefit of giving up a flexible exchange rate depends on the types of asymmetric shocks hitting the economy and the ability of the exchange rate to act as a shock absorber. Economic theory suggests that flexible exchange rates are useful in absorbing asymmetric real shocks but unhelpful in the case of monetary and financial shocks. For five CECs-the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia-empirical results on the basis of a structural VAR suggest that in the CECs the exchange rate appears to have served as much or more as an unhelpful propagator of monetary and financial shocks than as a useful absorber of real shocks.
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