Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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2003
October 1, 2003
The Term Structure of Interest Rates and Monetary Policy During a Zero-Interest-Rate Period
Description: This paper empirically evaluates the validity of the term structure of interest rates in a low-interest-rate environment. Applying a time-series method to high-frequency Japanese data, the term-structure model is found to be useful for economic analysis only when interest rates are high. When interest rates are low, the usefulness of the model declines, since the interest spread contains little information that can be used for predicting future economic activity. The term-structure relationship is also weakened by the Bank of Japan's use of interest rate smoothing.
October 1, 2003
The United States and the New Regionalism/ Bilateralism
Description: Current U.S. trade policy stresses establishing free trade areas (FTAs) with partners spanning the globe. Motivations include enhancing goods and services trade; stimulating investment flows; extending standards on intellectual property rights, labor, and the environment; and addressing geopolitical concerns. Simulations of FTAs with the United States highlight the importance of trade complementarity, trade diversion, and welfare losses for nonmembers. Agriculture and textiles play a central role in determining welfare outcomes. Initial improvement in market access enjoyed by participants could be eroded progressively as global liberalization proceeds, and this preference erosion might act as a disincentive to participate in multilateral liberalization.
October 1, 2003
Financial Development in the CIS-7 Countries: Bridging the Great Divide
Description: This paper documents the great divide in the level of financial development between the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 7 countries and the more advanced economies in transition, in particular those of Central and Eastern Europe and Baltic states. It discusses the roots of financial underdevelopment in the CIS-7 countries by examining the differentials in interest rate spreads between the CIS-7 countries and the transition economies that have achieved faster financial development. The roots of the divide are traced to weaknesses in the institutional infrastructure for financial intermediation, which lead to a combination of low depositor trust in the banking system and high credit risk. High credit risk stems mainly from the poor creditor-rights protection and weak auditing and accounting standards. Financial sector reform strategies that fail to give priority to the resolution of weaknesses in the basic financial infrastructure are unlikely to be successful in letting the CIS-7 countries bridge the great divide.
October 1, 2003
Macro Effects of Corporate Restructuring in Japan
Description: This paper presents a framework for quantitatively evaluating the macroeconomic effects of corporate restructuring and applies it to Japan. Using firm-level financial statement data, it estimates total factor productivity (TFP) of individual Japanese firms. Given the estimated distribution of productivity across firms, the paper simulates the effect of optimal restructuring, that is, reallocation of resources from less-productive firms to more-productive ones, on the dynamic path of aggregate output. The results show that the benefits of restructuring could substantially exceed the costs.
October 1, 2003
Pricing Debit Card Payment Services: An IO Approach
Description: This paper presents a theoretical framework for analyzing pricing structures in debit card schemes featuring cardholders, retailers, their respective banks, and a network routing switch. The network routing switch controls the electronic debit card network and is jointly owned by the banks. In setting its prices, it needs to consider getting both consumers and retailers to participate in the market. In this two-sided market for debit cards, we show that the "double-monopolistic" network routing switch may want to supply consumers with cheap debit cards, deriving profits from charging a high retailer fee per transaction. This theoretic result resembles the current practice in the Netherlands where consumers pay no transaction fee, but retailers do. This corner solution carries over when we analyze socially optimal pricing.
October 1, 2003
Puttable and Extendible Bonds: Developing Interest Rate Derivatives for Emerging Markets
Description: This paper analyzes the price stabilizing properties of puttable and extendible bonds, their potential to help develop interest-rate derivative markets, and their use by governments. Their stabilizing properties imply that, when bond prices fall, prices for puttable and extendible bonds fall by less. Their embedded options work as a cushion and replicate the trading gains from hedging long-term bonds with interest rate derivatives. These bonds can help develop interest-rate derivative markets in developing countries and eventually increase demand for long-term government bonds. Informal evidence from OECD countries suggests that these bonds were useful in the 1980s, when interest rates were volatile.
October 1, 2003
Crisis Resolution: Next Steps
Description: At the April 2003 meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committees, it was decided to further encourage the contractual approach to smoothing the process of sovereign debt restructuring by encouraging the more widespread use of collective action clauses (CACs) in international bonds. This decision was shaped partly by Mexico's successful launch of a bond subject to New York law but featuring CACs, and by subsequent issues with similar provisions from other emerging market countries. This paper reviews the developments leading up to that event, its implications, and prospects for the future. It asks whether we can expect to see additional issuance by emerging markets of bonds featuring CACs, whether such a trend would in fact help to make the world a safer financial place, and what additional steps might be taken to further enhance modalities for crisis resolution.
October 1, 2003
Poverty and Social Impact Analysis: A Suggested Framework
Description: Following the adoption by the international community of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) approach, which provides the basis for concessional lending by the multilateral institutions, there has been a resurgence of interest in the poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA) of different policy reforms being considered by the low income countries. This paper reviews some of the major techniques and frameworks for assessing the PSIA. It highlights their strengths and weaknesses and suggests a relatively simple analytical framework for the PSIA based on household survey data. The paper then shows how the suggested framework could be utilized to investigate the poverty/income distributional implications of introducing a value-added tax (VAT). The results indicate that a revenue-neutral uniform VAT is regressive in its impact on different households. In order to mitigate the adverse impact, the paper explores the distributional impact of an alternative policy package consisting of a basic rate of VAT with exemptions and excise taxes for certain commodity groups chosen on the basis of their distributional characteristics. The distributional consequences of the alternative package are found to be superior to those of the uniform VAT.
October 1, 2003
The U.S. Dollar and the Trade Deficit: What Accounts for the Late 1990's?
Description: Based on a version of the IMF’s new Global Economic Model (GEM), calibrated to analyze macroeconomic interdependence between the United States and the rest of the world, this paper asks to what extent an asymmetric productivity shock in the tradable sector of the economy may account for real exchange rate and trade balance developments in the United States in the second half of the 1990s. The paper concludes that the Balassa-Samuelson effect of such a productivity shock is only part of the story. A second shock, a broadly defined “risk premium” shock, and some uncertainty about the persistence of both shocks are needed to match the data more satisfactorily.