Working Papers

October 1, 1997

Sources of Debt Accumulation in a Small Open Economy

Description: This paper analyzes the borrowing behavior of a small open economy of a developing country that relies heavily on imports for its capital formation and faces an upward-sloping supply function of foreign loans. Decision makers face uncertainty about the longevity of external shocks. That uncertainty generates forecast errors that lead to substantial debt accumulation. It is found that the assumption of an upward-sloping supply function of foreign loans, which is a more realistic formulation for developing countries than the usual perfect elasticity, offers an alternative to the Uzawa-type utility function for analyzing asset accumulation in the small open economy framework.

October 1, 1997

Reform of the Canada Pension Plan: Analytical Considerations

Description: Like other transfer programs, a pay-as-you-go public pension system can significantly affect economic behavior and, hence, relative prices and macroeconomic aggregates. This paper illustrates some of these effects, which are important in weighing options for reforming public pensions, in the context of a stylized model of the Canadian economy. It shows that introducing such a system can reduce aggregate saving, income, and wages and increase interest rates. It also shows that a significant part of the distortion can occur because benefits are not explicitly linked to contributions and that creating a linkage can reduce the distortions associated with the wage tax that funds plan contributions.

October 1, 1997

Transparency and Ambiguity in Central Bank Safety Net Operations

Description: To mitigate the risks of contagion from problems arising in the banking sector, many countries operate some form of banking sector safety net. Such safety nets generally involve a judicious mixture of transparency and ambiguity. This ambiguity may be important to counter moral hazard effects but may lead to excessive forbearance in the face of banking problems. While the scope for ambiguity has been declining, some ambiguity in the handling of individual institutions remains. In any case, ex post transparency is essential for reviewing the propriety of any assistance and preserving the authorities’ future reputation and policy credibility.

October 1, 1997

Implications for Savings of Aging in the Asian “Tigers”

Description: Significant aging is projected for many high-saving emerging economies of East and Southeast Asia. By 2025, the share of the elderly in their populations will at least double in most of these countries. The share of the young will fall. Aging populations could adversely affect saving rates in these economies, particularly after 2025. For the world, one may observe that, initially, the Asian Tigers could become increasingly important for world savings, reflecting their increased weight in the world economy, their high saving and growth rates, and the aging of the industrial countries. After 2025, the aging of the Tigers may reinforce the tendency toward a declining world saving rate.

October 1, 1997

Macroeconomic Cycles in China

Description: This paper investigates the macroeconomic cycles China has experienced since the onset of reform in the late 1970s. It finds that the recurrent inflationary episodes that characterize the cycles are associated primarily with surges in the main components of aggregate demand. The most recent cycle stands out in achieving for the first time a reduction in inflation without a major slowdown in growth. The soft landing was facilitated by a number of factors, including increases in capacity as a result of the surge in investment spending early on in the cycle.

October 1, 1997

External Finance and Foreign Debt in Central and Eastern European Countries

Description: External finance can provide a positive contribution to the transition process and can enhance welfare in former centrally planned economies, especially when domestic saving has not fully recovered after the initial contraction. However, as was pointed out at the beginning of the transition process, foreign debt could exert a strong constraint on the borrowing capacity of some central and eastern European countries. This paper analyzes the determinants of net external borrowing in ten transition economies during 1990-95 and assesses the impact of the outstanding stock of foreign liabilities on net financial inflows.

October 1, 1997

Time-Series Estimation of Structural Import Demand Equations: A Cross-Country Analysis

Description: This paper derives a structural import demand equation and estimates it for a large number of countries, using recent time series techniques that address the problem of nonstationarity. Because the statistical properties of the different estimators have been derived only asymptotically, econometric theory does not offer any guidance when it comes to comparing different estimators in small samples. Consequently, the paper derives the small-sample properties of both the ordinary-least-squares (OLS) and the fully-modified (FM) estimators using Monte Carlo methods. It is shown that FM dominates OLS for both the short- and long-run elasticities.

Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 45, No. 2, June 1998.

October 1, 1997

The Scope for Inflation Targeting in Developing Countries

Description: Inflation targeting (IT) serves as monetary policy framework in several advanced economies, where it has enhanced policy transparency and accountability. The paper considers its wider applicability to developing countries. The prerequisites for a successful IT framework are identified as an ability to carry out an independent monetary policy (free of fiscal dominance or commitment to another nominal anchor, like the exchange rate) and a quantitative framework linking policy instruments to inflation. These prerequisites are largely absent among developing countries, though several of them could with some further institutional changes and an overriding commitment to low inflation make use of an IT framework.

October 1, 1997

Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: The Chinese System in Perspective

Description: This paper provides an overview of recent Chinese reforms to introduce a modern system of fiscal federalism that balances the need for central macroeconomic control with the economic advantages of decentralized government. Following a discussion of the rationale for decentralization, the paper describes the main structural and economic developments in China in this area, including their impact on economic stabilization. The key measures in the 1994 fiscal reforms as well as reform initiatives needed in the future are also discussed.

October 1, 1997

Contagion and Volatility with Imperfect Credit Markets

Description: This paper interprets contagion effects as an increase in the volatility of aggregate shocks impinging on the domestic economy. The implications of this approach are analyzed in a model with two types of credit market imperfections: domestic banks borrow at a premium on world capital markets, and domestic producers (whose demand for credit results from working capital needs) borrow at a premium from domestic banks. Higher volatility of producers’ productivity shocks increases both domestic and foreign financial spreads and the producers’ cost of capital, resulting in lower employment and higher incidence of default. Welfare effects are nonlinearly related to the degree of international financial integration.

Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 45, No. 2, June 1998.