Working Papers
2000
August 1, 2000
Chile's Rapid Growth in the 1990's-Good Policies, Good Luck, or Political Change?
Description: Chile’s average economic growth between 1990 and 1998 was above 7 percent per year, more than double than in previous decades, and higher than in any other Latin American country in the same period. This paper assesses empirically the main hypotheses suggested in the literature about the factors underlying this rapid growth: good economic policies, good luck in the external sector, and the country’s return to a democratic system of government. The statistical and quantitative results indicate that Chile’s rapid growth during the 1990s was due to good policies and the improved political situation.
August 1, 2000
External Capital Structure: Theory and Evidence
Description: Recent years have witnessed a change in the composition of capital flows to developing countries, and FDI and equity flows have been playing an increasing role. In this paper we discuss the challenges for international macroeconomics that these developments pose and characterize stylized facts associated with the structure of external liabilities in developing countries, focusing in particular on FDI and equity stocks.
August 1, 2000
The Case Against Harry Dexter White: Still Not Proven
Description: Harry Dexter White, the principal architect of the international financial system established at the end of the Second World War, was arguably the most important U. S. government economist of the 20th century. His reputation, however, has suffered because of allegations that he spied for the Soviet Union. That charge has recently been revived by the declassification of documents showing that he met with Soviet agents in 1944 and 1945. Evaluation of that evidence in the context of White’s career and worldview casts doubt on the case against him and provides the basis for a more benign interpretation.
August 1, 2000
The Benefits and Costs of Intervening in Banking Crises
Description: This paper provides a framework to assess the benefits and costs of intervening in a banking crisis. Intervention involves liquidity support and resolution actions. Principal benefits of intervention include avoiding panic and eliminating the economic costs of distorted incentives. Principal costs include fiscal costs and the economic costs of delay. The government’s main decision concerns the length of the resolution horizon—whether to adopt a deliberate or an aggressive resolution strategy. Dominant factors affecting net benefits are the relative size of the banking system and the loss liquidation rate on assets financed by bank loans.
August 1, 2000
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Banking Soundness and Recent Lessons
Description: After several years of transition, major weaknesses in the banking and enterprise sectors remain the root cause of low growth. A large share of nonperforming assets in the portfolio of large banks, stemming from losses in the enterprise sector, has been a key impediment to financial sector development. The banking system has been crippled with low levels of intermediation, high cost of capital, severe lack of financial discipline, and poor allocation of credit. Reforms aimed at strengthening lending practices, encouraging foreign bank participation, improving bank supervision and, above all, a consolidation process that breaks away from the past are helping pave the path to economic recovery.
August 1, 2000
Filtering the Beer: A Permanent and Transitory Decomposition
Description: In this paper we extend the BEER (Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate) approach which identifies an estimated equilibrium relationship between the real exchange rate and economic fundamentals. Here the economic fundamentals are decomposed using Johansen cointegration methods into transitory and permanent components, with the latter used to estimate the Permanent Equilibrium Exchange Rate, or PEER, for the U.S. and Canadian dollars and the pound sterling. The BEER and the PEER move closely together for the U.S. and Canadian dollars and generally track the actual exchange rate. By contrast, for the pound sterling the BEER and the PEER diverge sharply, with the latter following the actual exchange rate quite closely.
August 1, 2000
Predictable Movements in Yen/DM Exchange Rates
Description: This paper examines the relevance of PPP, the adjustment channel of real exchange rate and the predictability of the movement in nominal exchange rate by studying the behavior of yen/DM exchange rate, using cointegration method. Results support PPP and find that the real exchange rate is mean-reverting. The change in the nominal exchange rate exhibits significant auto-regressive property. These findings imply that movements in the nominal yen/DM exchange rate is actually predictable. The error-correction model and a simple first order autoregressive model both outperform the random walk model in out-of-sample forecasting.
August 1, 2000
The Impact of Monetary Policyon the Exchange Rate: Evidence From Three Small Open Economies
Description: This paper studies the impact effect of monetary policy shocks—identified by the reaction of three month market interest rates to policy announcements—on the exchange rate in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand during the 1990s. The main results are that (1) on average, a 100 basis point contractionary shock will appreciate the exchange rate by 2-3 percent on impact; (ii) seemingly “perverse” reactions of the exchange rate to monetary policy are mainly attributable to reverse causality; (iii) in a few instances, there were true “perverse” reactions of exchange rates to policy— generally, appreciations following expansionary shocks.
August 1, 2000
Reforming Pensions: Myths, Truths, and Policy Choices
Description: This paper discusses the strategic building blocks of pension reform. The early sections set out the simple economics of pensions and discuss a series of myths which have proved remarkably persistent. Subsequent sections draw together the conclusions for policy design from earlier theoretical discussion, set out the prerequisites which any pension reform must respect, and discuss the range of choices facing policymakers. The main conclusions are threefold: the key variable is effective government; from an economic perspective the difference between PAYG and funding is second order; and the range of potential choice over pension design is wide.
August 1, 2000
Wage Flexibility and Economic Performance: Evidence Across Industrial Countries
Description: This paper provides new empirical evidence on the degree of nominal wage flexibility in a sample of nineteen industrial countries. Across countries, aggregate uncertainty increases the degree of wage flexibility in the face of various shocks. Wage flexibility stabilizes fluctuations in real output and guarantees workers a higher real standard of living in response to aggregate demand shocks. Wage flexibility in response to energy price shocks guarantees workers higher real wages without exacerbating price inflation or output contraction. Nominal wage inflation decreases in response to productivity shocks, reinforcing output expansion.