Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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1997
July 1, 1997
Do Tax Rates Encourage Entrepreneurial Activity?
Description: When the top personal tax rates are above the corporate rate, high-income individuals have an incentive to reclassify their earnings as corporate rather than personal income for tax purposes. U.S. tax law at least imposes strict limits on the extent to which employees in publicly traded corporations can engage in such income shifting. However, entrepreneurs setting up new firms can easily reclassify their income for tax purposes. This tax incentive therefore favors entrepreneurial activity. The paper discusses how best to subsidize entrepreneurial activity while avoiding other economic distortions.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 45, No. 1, March 1998.
July 1, 1997
Capital Flows and the Twin Crises: The Role of Liquidity
Description: This paper develops a model that focuses on the interaction of liquidity creation by financial intermediaries with capital flows and exchange rate collapses. The intermediaries’ role of transforming maturities is shown to result in larger movements of capital and a higher probability of crisis. These movements resemble the observed cycle in capital flows: large inflows, crisis and abrupt outflows. The model highlights how adverse productivity and international interest rate shocks may trigger a sudden outflow of capital and an exchange collapse. The initial shock is magnified by the behavior of individual foreign investors linked through their deposits in the intermediaries. The expectation of an eventual exchange rate crisis links investors’ behavior even further.
July 1, 1997
Borrowing Risk and the Tequila Effect
Description: This paper models the Tequila effect (triggered by the collapse of the Mexican peso in December 1994) as a temporary increase in the risk premium faced by domestic private borrowers on world capital markets. The effects of this shock are studied in an intertemporal optimizing framework where firms’ demand for working capital is financed by bank credit. Under the assumption that the perceived duration of the shock is sufficiently long, the model is capable of reproducing some of the main features of Argentina’s economic downturn in the aftermath of the collapse of the Mexican peso: the rise in domestic interest rates, the reduction in net private capital inflows and the drop in official reserves, the reduction in bank deposits and credit supply, the fall in private consumption, the contraction in output, and the increase in unemployment.
July 1, 1997
Growth, Investment, and Savings in the Arab Economies
Description: Sustaining a high rate of economic growth is the major policy issue facing the Arab economies. A detailed analysis of growth, investment, and savings for the period 1971-96, including through a growth accounting exercise, shows that increasing long-run growth requires improvements in both investment and domestic savings. In the past, the Arab region’s growth was overly reliant on volatile external sources of funding, and total factor productivity growth was too low. The paper discusses the policy priorities to overcome the legacy of poor growth.
July 1, 1997
Do Central Banks Need Capital?
Description: Central banks may operate perfectly well without capital as conventionally defined. A large negative net worth, however, is likely to compromise central bank independence and interfere with its ability to attain policy objectives. If society values an independent central bank capable of effectively implementing monetary policy, recapitalization may become essential. Proper accounting practice in determining central bank profit or loss and rules governing the transfer of the central bank’s operating result to the treasury are also important. A variety of country-specific central bank practices are reviewed to support the argument.
July 1, 1997
Financial Sector Reforms in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia: A Preliminary Assessment
Description: This paper reviews and assesses the financial sector reforms in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. After a description of the financial sector before reforms, it explains the main features of the comprehensive reform process in each country. It also reviews the sequencing of reforms and discusses econometric evidence of the impact of the reforms on saving in each of the three countries. Subsequently, the paper sets out remaining issues to be addressed in the three countries, including a further strengthening of the banking system and development of financial instruments and markets.
July 1, 1997
Inflation in Transition Economies: How Much? and Why?
Description: Following very high inflation rates at the beginning of the reform process, most transition countries have succeeded in lowering their inflation to more moderate rates. Inflation rates in the Baltics, Russia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union are now typically in the range of 10–60 percent. This essay examines whether a further reduction in inflation may be necessary. It concludes that low inflation may be important for achieving remonetization of the economy and sustained output growth.