Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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1997
December 1, 1997
Empirical Determinants of Household Saving: Evidence From OECD Countries
Description: This paper analyzes the empirical determinants of household saving using data from 21 OECD countries for 1975-95. A particular focus is the influence of the tax and social security systems on household saving. The paper therefore extends the usual set of explanatory variables used to explain household saving behavior to include variables that capture the structure of the tax system and the financing and generosity of the social security and welfare system. These variables are found to have an important impact on household saving. Accordingly, by changing the design of these systems, governments may be able to influence saving.
December 1, 1997
Sharp Reductions in Current Account Deficits: An Empirical Analysis
Description: The paper studies determinants and consequences of sharp reductions in current account imbalances (reversals) in low- and middle-income countries. It poses two questions: what triggers reversals, and what factors explain how costly reversals are? It finds that both domestic variables, such as the current account balance, openness to trade, and the level of reserves, and external variables, such as terms of trade shocks, U.S. real interest rates, and growth in industrial countries, seem to play important roles in explaining reversals in current account imbalances. It also finds some evidence that countries with a less appreciated real exchange rate, higher investment, and more openness before the reversal tend to grow faster after a reversal occurs.
December 1, 1997
Private Investment and Endogenous Growth: Evidence From Cameroon
Description: This paper investigates empirically the factors that have influenced economic growth in Cameroon during 1963-96. The results, which support the endogenous-growth-type model, indicate that (1) the aggregate production function exhibits increasing returns to scale; (2) the impact of increases in private investment on growth is large, significant, and robust; (3) increases in government investment have a positive impact on growth; (4) human capital development plays an important role in output expansion; (5) positive externalities are generated by physical and human capital accumulation; and (6) growth is boosted by economic policies that foster external competitiveness and a prudent fiscal stance.
December 1, 1997
Policy Reform As Collective Action
Description: A government desiring support for its policy reform program, without coercion, behaves as if it faces a political constraint. Citizen support depends on the estimate, by at least some minimum proportion of the population, that the program will succeed and the outcome will be in their individual self-interest. Government behavior has implications for the program, whose contents constitute the set of signals used by citizens to estimate the probability that the program will succeed. The government uses various devices to mobilize support for its program. An informed expert could design a program acceptable to both the government and the citizens.