Working Papers
2001
August 1, 2001
Is Foreign Debt Portfolio Management Efficient in Emerging Economies?
Description: This paper develops a simple model of foreign debt portfolio management. The model suggests that, under mild conditions, the currency composition of a country's foreign debt portfolio is responsive to exchange rate movements. Empirical evidence is provided for a panel of 14 emerging economies in the period 1970-98. Attention is focused on the stocks of foreign liabilities denominated in U.S. dollars, deutsche marks (DM), Japanese yen, and Swiss francs. The results of the empirical analysis show that foreign debt portfolio management has been sub-optimal in the countries under examination. In these countries, the currency composition of foreign debt has not reflected a substitution effect away from the currencies that have appreciated over time vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar.
August 1, 2001
Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa
Description: This study confirms a strong and robust relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. Employing a panel of 46 countries covering the period 1972-97, the analysis finds that a 10 percent increase in per capita GDP leads to a 1 percent increase in life expectancy, a 3-4 percent decline in infant mortality rates, and a 3½-4 percent increase in the rate of gross primary school enrollment. The results are robust for high- and low-income, as well as fast- and slow-growth, countries. The study also finds that quality of growth, civil conflict, HIV/AIDs, civil and institutional freedom, and island economies are important control variables that help explain the variability of poverty across Africa. A country's latitude is not found to be a significant factor explaining life expectancy or infant mortality rates, though it is a significant factor explaining gross primary school enrollments.
August 1, 2001
The Asset Allocation of Emerging Market Mutual Funds
Description: Benchmark following and portfolio rebalancing effects have often been cited when trying to explain international financial contagion phenomena. Using a dataset containing the country allocation of individual dedicated emerging market equity funds, we assess the relevance of mean-variance optimization and benchmark following, finding strong evidence for both. We also present a framework to systematically extract useful information about market expectations from funds' holdings.
August 1, 2001
Injury Investigations in anti-Dumping and the Super-Additivity Effect: A Theoretical Explanation
Description: Empirical evidence shows that injury investigations in anti-dumping cases conducted by the United States International Trade Commission, the probability of a positive finding is higher when the number of defendant firms is larger, holding constant their total market share. In this paper we offer a theoretical explanation of this finding. We show that the presence of many exporters exacerbates the free-rider problem, which leads every firm to invest less on defense. Thus for the same market share, injury finding is more likely to be positive for many small sellers than a few large sellers.
August 1, 2001
The Impact of Public Education Expenditure on Human Capital, Growth, and Poverty in Tanzania and Zambia: A General Equilibrium Approach
Description: The impact of public education expenditure on human capital, the supply of different labor skills, and its macroeconomic and distributional consequences is appraised within a multisector CGE model. The model is applied to and calibrated for two Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), Tanzania and Zambia. The simulation results suggest that education expenditure can raise economic growth. However, to maximize benefits from education expenditure, a sufficiently high level of physical investment is needed, as are measures that improve the match between the pattern of educational output and the structure of effective demand for labor. An important result of the simulation experiments is that a well-targeted pattern of education expenditure can be effective for poverty alleviation.
August 1, 2001
Reserve Pooling in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union and the CFA Franc Zone: A Comparative Analysis
Description: The paper presents a comparison of the gains from the pooling of reserves, and hence reserve variability, in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) and the CFA franc zone. The results indicate that countries within the ECCU area have achieved greater balance of payments protection than the CFA zone countries from the pooling of reserves. Unanticipated changes in the terms of trade lowered reserves in the CFA relative to the ECCU, which may reflect a greater reliance on primary commodities in the CFA compared with services in the ECCU.
August 1, 2001
Financial Repression and Exchange Rate Management in Developing Countries: Theory and Empirical Evidence for India
Description: Most developing countries have imposed restrictions on domestic and international financial transactions at one time or another. Such restrictions have allowed governments to generate significant proportions of their revenues from financial repression while restraining inflation. The eventual fiscal importance of the revenues from seignorage and from implicit taxation of financial intermediation pose a challenge for financial reform and liberalization. This paper presents a model of the role of financial repression in fiscal policy and exchange rate management under capital controls. We show how a balance of payments crisis arises under an exchange rate peg without capital account convertibility in the model economy and how the instruments of financial repression may be used for exchange rate management. The model is compared to the experience of India, a country that exemplifies the fiscal importance of financial restrictions, in the last two decades. In particular, we discuss the dynamics leading up to devaluation in 1991 and the role of financial repression in exchange rate intervention afterwards.
August 1, 2001
Monetary Policy Under EMU: Differences in the Transmission Mechanism?
Description: This study identifies differences in the monetary policy transmission mechanism across the countries in the euro area. It is argued that part of the differences in the response of economic activity to monetary policy during the pre-EMU period, found in other studies, reflected differences in monetary policy reaction functions, rather than different transmission mechanisms. In light of this, the paper constructs an empirical model on the basis of common reaction functions. The results confirm that even when a common monetary policy is implemented, its effects on economic activity are likely to differ across EMU countries. The paper also constructs an aggregate measure of the effect of monetary policy on prices and output. Finally, the paper examines the relative strength of the credit, exchange rate, and interest rate channels of monetary transmission in EMU countries.
August 1, 2001
Consumption-Based Interest Rate and the Present-Value Model of the Current Account—Evidence from Nigeria
Description: This paper presents a model of current account determination, based upon the permanent-income hypothesis. A present-value relationship among the current account, changes in net output, the exchange rate and the terms of trade is derived and the implications of such a relationship are tested using data for Nigeria during 1960-97. This paper presents a model of current account determination, based upon the permanent-income hypothesis. A present-value relationship among the current account, changes in net output, the exchange rate and the terms of trade is derived and the implications of such a relationship are tested using data for Nigeria during 1960-97.
August 1, 2001
Bond Restructuring and Moral Hazard: Are Collective Action Clauses Costly?
Description: Many official groups have endorsed the wider use by emerging market borrowers of contract clauses which allow for a qualified majority of bondholders to restructure repayment terms in the event of financial distress. Some have argued that such clauses will be associated with moral hazard and increased borrowing costs. This paper addresses this question empirically using primary and secondary market yields and finds no evidence that the presence of collective action clauses increases yields for either higher- or lower-rated issuers. By implication, the perceived benefits from easier restructuring are at least as large as any costs from increased moral hazard.