Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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1998
January 1, 1998
EMU, Adjustment, and Exchange Rate Variability
Description: This paper uses a three-country, three-good, factor-specific model of trade with wage rigidities to investigate how European Monetary Union (EMU) is likely to affect exchange rate variability. Focusing on international macroeconomic adjustment under both exogenous and optimizing monetary policies, it shows that the relative variability (against external currencies) of the euro (under EMU) and a basket of present currencies (pre-EMU) depends on relative sizes and specialization patterns of EMU countries and the relative importance of different shocks. EMU is likely to decrease (increase) exchange rate variability for shocks to industries in which large (small) EMU countries are specialized.
January 1, 1998
Currency Boards: The Ultimate Fix?
Description: The growing integration of world capital markets has made it fashionable to argue that only extreme exchange rate regimes are sustainable. Short of adopting a common currency, currency board arrangements represent the most extreme form of exchange rate peg. This paper compares the macroeconomic performance of countries with currency boards to those with other forms of pegged exchange rate regime. Currency boards are indeed associated with better inflation performance, even allowing for potential endogeneity of the choice of regime. Perhaps more surprisingly, this better inflation performance is accompanied by higher output growth.
January 1, 1998
Income Inequality: Does Inflation Matter?
Description: This paper contributes to the income inequality literature that is based on the traditional Kuznets model. Price stability, financial deepening, level of development, state employment, and fiscal redistribution are found to enhance income equality in a given country. While the effect of price stability is uniform for all levels of GDP per capita, the effect of financial deepening is found to increase with the level of development. Moreover, tight monetary policies do not seem to have any austere effects; low inflation reinforces, rather than counteracts, the income-equalizing effect of fiscal redistribution.
January 1, 1998
How to Deal with Azerbaijan’s Oil Boom? Policy Strategies in a Resource-Rich Transition Economy
Description: The petroleum-rich former Soviet republics around the Caspian Sea face the dual challenge of managing the transition to a market economy and a booming resource sector. This paper examines this challenge with particular reference to Azerbaijan. The standard “Dutch disease” model is modified to capture the special conditions of transition economies, with specific attention to the pattern of real exchange rate movement. “Transition factors” are found to add to the speed of real appreciation. Non-oil sectors may suffer, but less through the real appreciation than through transition-specific structural problems. The paper describes a medium-term policy strategy for Azerbaijan, relating its prospects to the experience in the 1970s of Ecuador, Indonesia, and Nigeria. The adverse effects of the Dutch disease may be avoided if Azerbaijan pursues policies to promote savings and open trade, and strengthens the supply side through structural policies.
January 1, 1998
Estimating Egypt’s Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate
Description: In light of the real appreciation of the Egyptian pound over the last six years and Egypt’s lackluster export growth, questions of external competitiveness and exchange rate policy have arisen. This paper sheds light on these issues by estimating empirically Egypt’s equilibrium real exchange rate, that is, the rate that is consistent with fundamentals. The results show that, while the real exchange rate was substantially overvalued before 1993, today it is only moderately above the equilibrium rate. Moreover, the analysis shows that the recent appreciation of the pound does not indicate a worsening misalignment.
January 1, 1998
Economic Security, Private Investment, and Growth in Developing Countries
Description: This paper provides empirical support for the view that enhanced economic security fosters private investment and growth in developing countries. An analysis for 53 developing countries suggests that most aspects of economic security have improved since the mid-1980s; that private investment is mostly influenced by the risk of expropriation, the degree of civil liberty, and the degree of independence of the bureaucracy; and that economic growth is affected by the risk of expropriation and political terrorism in the short run, and by corruption and contract repudiation in the long run.
January 1, 1998
Exchange Rate Uncertainty in Money-Based Stabilization Programs
Description: Complementing the explanation provided by Calvo and Vegh (1994) for money-based stabilization programs, exchange rate uncertainty introduced to a particular version of the portfolio approach with imperfect competition in the banking system leads to a bias toward appreciation that is directly related to the divergence of expectations and that dampens the interaction between portfolio movements and the real exchange rate. Based on Frankel-Froot, uncertainty exists when the fundamental equilibrium real exchange rate is temporarily unknown in a foreign exchange market with two types of agents: ‘parity-guessers,’ who expect a jump to a reference parity level, and ‘money-followers,’ who expect nominal depreciation equal to the monetary rule.
January 1, 1998
Developing Countries and the Feldstein-Horioka Puzzle
Description: The previous literature points to a high correlation between domestic rates of investment and savings among OECD countries. Some take this as evidence of limited financial integration in the industrialized world. This paper presents new empirical results, based on an extended sample of countries. The correlation coefficient in a regression of the rate of domestic investment on the rate of domestic savings is statistically insignificant most of the time and generally smaller than 0.3 for any sample other than the OECD. This finding is robust with respect to alternative time periods, subsample and estimation methods. In particular, we control for measurement error, business cycle effects, and country-specific fixed effects.
January 1, 1998
The Impact of Fiscal Policy Variables on Output Growth
Description: This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between taxation and public expenditure and economic growth. Particular attention is paid to the effect of taxation and government expenditure on the supply and productivity of labor and physical capital. Studies suggest that well-targeted government expenditures on health, education, and infrastructure should have a positive impact on growth. By contrast, the impact of taxation on the supplies of labor and capital, and on output growth, is more muted.