Working Papers
1999
June 1, 1999
How Persistent Are Shocks to World Commodity Prices?
Description: This paper examines the persistence of shocks to world commodity prices, using monthly IMF data on primary commodities between 1957–98. We find that shocks to commodity prices are typically long–lasting and the variability of the persistence of price shocks is quite wide. The paper also discusses the implications of these findings for national and international schemes to stabilize earnings from commodity exports and finds that if price shocks are long–lived, then the cost of stabilization schemes will likely exceed any associated smoothing benefits.
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1999
May 1, 1999
Simple Monetary Policy Rules Under Model Uncertainty
Description: Using stochastic simulations and stability analysis, the paper compares how different monetary rules perform in a moderately nonlinear model with a time-varying nonaccelerating-inflation-rate-of-unemployment (NAIRU). Rules that perform well in linear models but implicitly embody backward-looking measures of real interest rates (such as conventional Taylor rules) or substantial interest rate smoothing perform very poorly in models with moderate nonlinearities, particularly when policymakers tend to make serially correlated errors in estimating the NAIRU. This challenges the practice of evaluating rules within linear models, in which the consequences of responding myopically to significant overheating are extremely unrealistic.
May 1, 1999
The Evolution of Output in Transition Economies: Explaining the Differences
Description: What are the relative roles of macroeconomic variables, structural policies, and initial conditions in explaining the time path of output in transition and the large observed differences in output performance across transition economies? Using a sample of 26 countries, this paper follows a general-to-specific modeling approach that allows for differential effects of policies and initial conditions on the private and state sectors and for time-dependent effects of initial conditions. While showing some fragility to model specification, the results point to the preeminence of structural reforms over both initial conditions and macroeconomic variables in explaining cross-country differences in performance and the timing of the recovery.
May 1, 1999
Sticky Prices: An Empirical Assessment of Alternative Models
Description: This paper presents a model of staggered price setting that allows for a flexible distribution of the durations of the prices underlying aggregate price behavior, and estimates it with U.S. data. When tested against an unrestricted version of this model, standard models of sticky prices are rejected. In contrast, a stylized model that assumes a trimodal distribution of price durations—with clusters on the first, fourth, and eighth quarter after prices are set—easily passes the same test. In addition, this model is able to replicate the dynamic behavior of inflation and output found in the data.
May 1, 1999
A Test of the General Validity of the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem for Trade in the European Community
Description: While the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) theorem has been a dominant paradigm in trade theory, the empirical evidence to support it has been weak. This paper develops a modified HOV model that allows technologies to differ across countries. The revised model significantly improves the theory’s accuracy in predicting trade flows in contrast to the traditional model. The paper also illustrates that, since countries have different technologies, measures of factor contents of trade in final goods using direct and domestically produced indirect input requirements are more accurate and yield more consistent predictions than do traditional measures.
May 1, 1999
The Georgian Hyperinflation and Stabilization
Description: This paper anlayzes the Georgian hyperinflation of 1993-94, which featured endogenous fiscal expenditures and the money supply, depreciation, and currency substitution. Hyperinflation was stopped by removing generalized consumer subsidies and tightening of monetary policy, and not by a sudden rush of credibility or imposition of an exchange rate anchor. A de facto exchange rate anchor served ex post as a vehicle for building credibility, which ensured a dramatic reversal of currency substitution when the currency reform was implemented. The paper also discusses the relatively rapid output recovery in Georgia.