Working Papers
2001
February 1, 2001
Competitiveness and the Equilibrium Exchange Rate in Costa Rica
Description: This paper evaluates several indicators of external vulnerability and estimates the equilibrium real exchange rate for Costa Rica. While current indicators are mostly positive, declining market shares of domestic exports, the expected decline in foreign direct investment, and the desirability of strengthening the reserve position recommend an improvement in the current account. Costa Rica’s equilibrium real exchange rate is then estimated using the CGER and the FEER methodologies. The overall conclusion is that while there are no signs of serious external vulnerability, the real exchange rate appears to be somewhat overvalued, a situation that would be best addressed through increased fiscal discipline.
February 1, 2001
Bank Competition and Firm Creation
Description: This paper investigates the empirical relationship between competition in the financial sector and the creation of firms in the non-financial sector. It finds that bank competition has an overall positive effect on firm creation. However, consistent with theories of banking arguing that competition may reduce the availability of credit to informationally opaque firms, it also finds that asymmetric information limits the overall positive effect of bank competition on firm creation. Indeed, bank competition is less favorable to the emergence of new firms in industrial sectors where informational asymmetries are more important, and in extreme cases has a negative effect.
February 1, 2001
Flight to Quality or to Captivity: Information and Credit Allocation
Description: Superior information exchanged over the course of lending relationships generates bank-client specificities to the extent that such information cannot be communicated credibly to outsiders. Consequently, banks obtain higher profits from more captured borrowers than from borrowers with financing alternatives. We refer to this as a “flight to captivity” effect. Negative shocks, associated with monetary contractions or foreign entry, cause a reallocation of bank credit away from more transparent borrowers and toward more opaque, more captured borrowers. The paper applies these ideas to the analysis of bank behavior in transition economies after financial liberalization and monetary policy contractions.
February 1, 2001
On the Long and Short of Central Bank Independence, Policy Coordination, and Economic Performance
Description: This paper examines the implications of central bank independence for equilibrium macroeconomic performance. The focus is on institutional arrangements governing financial relationships between central banks and ministries of finance, in the presence of competing objectives and constraints across institutions. Abstracting from long-run considerations, higher central bank independence increases fiscal discipline and results in lower inflation and growth, generating a short-run institutional Phillips curve. In the presence of sufficiently strong negative long-run externalities of inflation onto growth, higher CBI also increases fiscal discipline and generates lower inflation, however, it also yields higher growth and generates an inverted institutional Phillips curve. Strikingly, higher central bank independence is found to be frequently sub-optimal for a wide set of stylized economies. Whether these economies are empirically relevant is an open question.
February 1, 2001
Currency Crises and Foreign Reserves: A Simple Model
Description: This paper addresses the important question of how far a government will run down its stock of foreign reserves in a defense of a fixed exchange rate. An optimizing model of currency crisis is presented in which the decision of whether or not to borrow in a defense of a peg is explicitly analyzed. The threshold level of reserves is then determined endogenously and shown to be a function of fundamental economic variables. The analysis also demonstrates how an increase in the level of reserves, a credit-rating upgrade, or the imposition of capital controls can remove the multiplicity of equilibria.
February 1, 2001
Explaining Russia's Output Collapse: Aggregate Sources and Regional Evidence
Description: This paper explores sources of the output collapse in Russia during transition. A modified growth accounting framework is developed that takes into account changes in factor utilization typical of the transition process. The results indicate that declines in factor inputs and productivity were both important determinants of the output fall. The contribution of the productivity drop was critical, but smaller than previously reported. Possible causes of the reduction in productivity are assessed using data on sub-national regions within Russia. Privatization and entry of private firms are found to have generated productivity gains, while lack of exit of unviable enterprises constituted a drag on efficiency.
February 1, 2001
The Macroeconomic Effects of Higher Oil Prices
Description: The paper uses MULTIMOD to analyze the macroeconomic effects of oil price shocks, distinguishing between temporary, more persistent, and permanent shocks. It provides perspectives on several findings in the literature and the key role of monetary policy in influencing macroeconomic outcomes. Specific attention is paid to the channels through which oil price increases can pass through into core inflation, a possible explanation of the asymmetric relationship between oil prices and economic activity, the role of monetary policy credibility, the implications of delayed policy responses, and the relative merits of leaning in different directions when the correct policy response is uncertain.
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