Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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2000
June 1, 2000
Optimal Fiscal Strategy for Oil Exporting Countries
Description: This paper develops simple guidelines for fiscal policy in oil producing countries, focusing on three issues: intergenerational oil distribution, precautionary saving, and adjustment costs. The paper presents a framework to analyze how the revenue generated by an exhaustible source of wealth that belongs to the government should be distributed between current and future generations. This framework is used to show the strengths and limitations of existing answers, which motivates a new approach for dealing with this question. The paper derives simple, closed form approximations to the optimal level of government expenditure when an important part of government revenue is generated by an uncertain and exhaustible natural resource such as oil. Price uncertainty, budget uncertainty, and the (possibly asymmetric) costs of adjusting expenditure levels are considered.
June 1, 2000
Corruption and the Provision of Health Care and Education Services
Description: Government intervention to correct market failures is often accompanied by government failures and corruption. This is no more evident than in social sectors that are characterized by significant market failures and government intervention. However, the impact of corruption on the public provision of social services has not been analyzed. This paper reviews the relevant theoretical models and users’ perceptions of corruption in the public provision of social services. It then provides evidence that reducing corruption can result in significant social gains as measured by decreases in child and infant mortality rates, percent of low-birthweight babies, and primary school dropout rates.
June 1, 2000
Threshold Effects in the Relationship Between Inflation and Growth
Description: This paper reexamines the issue of the existence of threshold effects in the relationship between inflation and growth, using new econometric techniques that provide appropriate procedures for estimation and inference. The threshold level of inflation above which inflation significantly slows growth is estimated at 1–3 percent for industrial countries and 7–11 percent for developing countries. The negative and significant relationship between inflation and growth, for inflation rates above the threshold level, is quite robust with respect to the estimation method, perturbations in the location of the threshold level, the exclusion of high-inflation observations, data frequency, and alternative specifications.
June 1, 2000
Budgetary Convergence in the WEAMU: Adjustment Through Revenue or Expenditure?
Description: A regional convergence pact adopted recently by the Conference of Heads of States of WAEMU provides a framework for fiscal convergence similar to the European Union’s Maastricht Treaty. Using bivariate co-integration and error-correction models, this paper investigates the relationship between revenue and expenditure in seven member countries to determine the feasibility and nature of the policy adjustment required to meet the new convergence criteria. The results indicate that, in the long run, there is causality running from revenue to expenditure in Burkina Faso and Senegal, from expenditure to revenue in Benin and Togo, a bidirectional causality in Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, and no causality in Niger.
June 1, 2000
The Impact of Intersectoral Labor Reallocationon Economic Growth
Description: This study seeks to explain economic growth differences in an aggregate production function framework, where labor reallocation from agriculture to modern sectors influences labor efficiency growth. The econometric analysis uses a panel of 65 countries over 1960-90. The results highlight: (a) the differences in labor reallocation impact on growth, controlled for using the intersectoral wedge in labor productivities; (b) the significance of labor reallocation effects, even after controlling for capital accumulation, initial conditions, and country effects; (c) the role of slow labor reallocation in explaining the dummy variable for Sub-Saharan Africa; (d) the role of initial education levels in explaining differences in labor reallocation rates.
June 1, 2000
Currency Boards, Credibility, and Macroeconomic Behavior
Description: Currency boards operate differently from standard pegs. The former exhibit greater currency stability and lower transaction costs, inflation, and nominal interest rates, but are limited in their use of devaluation. We extend Drazen and Masson’s (1994) signaling model to consider the choice between currency board arrangements and standard pegs. The model shows that currency boards’ effectiveness hinges on their credibility properties and that they can improve welfare even with high unemployment persistence. By reducing expected inflation and the negative employment effect arising from expected but unrealized inflation, currency boards can produce less unemployment than peg regimes that abstain from devaluation.
June 1, 2000
The Yen-Dollar Rate: Have Interventions Mattered?
Description: Using daily data for 1995–99, this paper estimates a simple forward looking model of the exchange rate to show that foreign exchange interventions have, on the whole, had small but persistent effects on the yen-dollar rate. Contrary to conventional wisdom, sterilized interventions have mattered. Consistent with conventional wisdom, coordinated interventions have a higher probability of success and move the yen-dollar rate by a larger margin than unilateral interventions. A probit model indicates that both an excessive appreciation and depreciation of the yen provoke interventions, and that interventions occur in clusters—if there is one today, there will likely be another tomorrow.