Working Papers

January 1, 0001

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January 1, 0001

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January 1, 0001

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January 1, 2001

Counterfeit Goods and Income Inequality

Description: This paper examines the effect of counterfeit goods in a world where consumers are differentiated by level of income and innovation is quality enhancing. Counterfeit goods are defined as products with the same characteristics as “originals”, but of lower quality. The effect of imitation on firms’ profits and consumer welfare depends on the distribution of income within the country. In particular, the greater the level of income inequality the larger the increase in consumer welfare due to the imitation, and the smaller the effect on profits of the state-of-the-art firm.

January 1, 2001

Different Strokes? Common and Uncommon Responses to Financial Crises

Description: Much of the debate about the management of financial crises has focused on structural and psychological issues regarding the conditions that are supposed to be necessary to restore investor confidence. Nonetheless, the paramount requirement in the short term is for countries in crisis to adopt correct macroeconomic policies. An analysis of conventional macroeconomic models reveals that countries can afford to run expansionary policies to restore internal balance only if they can afford to ignore the requirements for external balance. This arithmetic does not depend on whether macroeconomic policies were inappropriate before the crisis hit.

January 1, 2001

The Role of Medium-Term Fiscal Frameworks for Transition Countries: The Case of Bulgaria

Description: This paper discusses the foundations for a medium-term fiscal framework for Bulgaria, a transition economy aspiring to join the European Union. The paper argues that a well-designed framework can help to enhance the credibility of macroeconomic policies and facilitate preparations for EU membership. It presents an illustrative scenario for Bulgaria, utilizing a broad concept of net public debt.

January 1, 2001

Time-To-Build and Convex Adjustment Costs

Description: This paper incorporates time-to-build into the standard investment model with convex adjustment costs. The empirical Euler equation is estimated using a U.S. firm-level panel from Compustat. In spite of the introduction of time-to-build, the magnitude of the implied adjustment costs is unrealistically high. Exploiting another approach, I test directly the restrictions imposed by time-to-build on the investment equation. The results indicate that these restrictions cannot be rejected for five of the sixteen industries in the sample. Finally I show that time-to-build can explain approximately one-third of the variation in persistence of structure investment across four-digit industries.

January 1, 2001

Budgetary Transparency for Public Expenditure Control

Description: This paper explains why EMU countries seem unable or unwilling to undertake structural reforms of public expenditure. One of the reasons is political. What public expenditure reforms might be pursued without changing the political system? Without political reforms, technical improvements made to increase budget transparency, such as strengthening budget procedure, integrating accrual into cash accounting, and removing accounting gimmicks, could indirectly affect reforms of public expenditure. Removing gimmicks and helping prevent the emergence of new creative accounting techniques may be a partial substitue for political reforms. Implementation of the Growth and Stability Pact should be dynamically consistent with budgetary transparency. Although other EMU countries resorted as well to budgetary gimmicks to bypass difficult fiscal constraints, the Italian case is used as a reference to clarify these issues. Transparency may help discourage the use of gim micks.

January 1, 2001

Growth Slowdown in Bureaucratic Economic Systems: An Issue Revisited

Description: Bureaucratically organized systems tend to be less efficient than economies in which agents are free to choose their output targets, as well as the means to meet them. This paper presents a simple model of planner-manager interactions and shows how bureaucratic economies can end up in a low-effort, low-growth equilibrium even though they may have started in high-effort , high-growth equilibrium. The empirical evidence from eight Central and Eastern European countries during 1948-49 is consistent with our model results, namely, that the growth decline was systemic in nature. The results are applicable to countries in other regions with heavy bureaucratic involvement in the economy.

January 1, 2001

Crises and Liquidity: Evidence and Interpretation

Description: In a large panel of countries, we find that less liquid countries are more likely to default on their external debt. Specifically, for given total external debt, the probability of a crisis increases with the proportion of short-term debt and debt service coming due and decreases with foreign exchange reserves. This correlation, however, is consistent with a standard model of optimal default and need not be ascribed to self-fulfilling creditor runs. Also, the correlation with short-term debt appears to be driven by joint endogeneity. The policy implications are discussed.