Working Papers
2001
January 1, 2001
Modeling Politics with Economic Tools: A Critical Survey of the Literature
Description: Whereas the economics discipline possesses a highly refined theoretical apparatus to analyze the effects of government behaviour on the economy, it has not (yet) managed to fully develop a positively formulated "economic theory of politics" that would permit the integration of the decision-making processes of voters, parties and governments with those of consumers and firms. Considerable recent advances notwithstanding, the large and heterogeneous body of literature has (so far) remained outside the economic mainstrain. The paper surveys the main approaches used to endogenize democratic elements and assesses the underlying reasons for researchers' renewed interest in this field.
January 1, 2001
Inflation Targeting with NAIRU Uncertainty and Endogenous Policy Credibility
Description: Stochastic simulations are employed to compare performance of monetary policy rules in linear and nonlinear variants of a small macro model with NAIRU uncertainity under different assumptions about the way inflation expectations are formed. Cases in which policy credibility is ignored or treated as exogenous are distinguished from cases in which credibility and inflation expectations respond endogenuously policy credibility strengthens the case for forward-looking inflation forecast based rules relative to backward-looking Taylor rules.
January 1, 2001
Recursive Utility, Endogenous Growth, and the Welfare Cost of Volatility
Description: This paper proposes a measure of the welfare cost of volatitliy derived from an endogenous growth model (AK) under uncertainty extended to the case of a recursive utility function which disentangles risk aversion from intertemporal elasticity of substitution. It encompasses a direct welfare cost of fluctuations and a welfare cost due to the endogeneity of the consumption. The total welfare cost of volatility increases with both the risk aversion and the intertemporal elasticity of substitution. For plausible values of the agent's preference parameters, the cost of volatility may be greater than measures bases on an exogenous process for consumption.
January 1, 2001
Are African Current Account Deficits Different? Stylized Facts, Transitory Shocks, and Decomposition Analysis
Description: This paper analyzes the behavior of current account deficits in Africa and estimates whether the deficits are excessive with respect to fundamentals. The findings are the deficits are (i) not very persistent; (ii) positively linked with domestic growth; (iii) strongly linked with public (and private) savings, suggesting that fiscal consolidation in IMF-supported programs may be relatively effective; (iv) linked with aid flows, so as to close the external gap, and (v) linked with currency depreciation and the terms of trade. The deficit is "excessive," as it is almost 3 percent of the gross national disposable income above the equilibrium level.
January 1, 2001
China's Provincial Growth Dynamics
Description: China's rapid overall growth since 1978 masks significant differences in relative economic performance across its provinces. This paper finds that, while per capita income of poor provinces are catching up with those in the rich, the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a bimodal distribution--the costal provinces grativating toward one mode, and the remaining provinces toward the other--with economic structure and policies playing important roles in the growth dynamics.
January 1, 2001
Monetary Independence in Emerging Markets: Does the Exchange Rate Regime Make a Difference?
Description: This paper compares the impact of shocks to U.S. interest rates and emerging market bond spreads on domestic interest rates and exchange rates across several emerging market economies with different exchange rate regimes. Consistent with conventional priors, the results indicate that interest rates in Hong Kong react much more to U.S. interest rate shocks and shocks to international risk premia than interest rates in Singapore. The results are less clearcut in the comparison of Argentina and Mexico: While interest rates (and the exchange rate) in Mexico seem to react less to U.S. interest rate shocks, they react about the same to bond spread shocks, in addition to a significant impact on the exchange rate.
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