Working Papers
1996
November 1, 1996
Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations and the Business Cycle: Evidence From Japan
Description: This paper analyzes the relationship between the real exchange rate and the business cycle in Japan during the floating rate period. A structural vector autoregression is used to identify different types of macroeconomic shocks that determine fluctuations in aggregate output and the real exchange rate. Relative nominal and real demand shocks are found to be the main determinants of variation in real exchange rate changes, while relative output growth is driven primarily by supply shocks. Historical decompositions suggest that the sharp appreciations of the yen in 1993 and 1995 and its subsequent depreciation can be attributed primarily to relative nominal shocks.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 44, No. 3, September 1997.
November 1, 1996
National Accounts in Transition Countries: Distortions and Biases
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
November 1, 1996
Business Cycle in Czechoslovakia Under Central Planning: Were Credit Shocks Causing it?
Description: This paper examines credit origins of the business cycle in the former Czechoslovakia. Industrial production is found to be cointegrated with various measures of bank credit during 1976-90 and it is shown that noninvestment credits are Granger-causing industrial production and that a feedback relation exists between investment credits and industrial production. Although the potency of credit supply shocks to industrial production has been changing, production decline (growth) seems to follow credit tightening (loosening). However, the paper confirms that credit shocks were only a minor part of the output decline in 1989-90.
November 1, 1996
Health and Education Expenditures in Russia, the Baltic States, and the Other Countries of the Former Soviet Union
Description: Russia, the Baltic states and the other countries of the former Soviet Union inherited health and education systems that were in need of substantial structural and financial reform. In spite of a sharp decline of real resources, this reform has barely begun. While health and education have not suffered disproportionate cuts, employment has been maintained, with real wages sharply compressed, purchases of materials reduced and energy-related spending taking a greater share of resources in many countries. Structural and financial reform would include reducing staffing and physical capacity, while increasing expenditures for materials and wages for the more highly qualified.
November 1, 1996
Equilibrium Exchange Rates in Transition Economies
Description: A stylized fact of the transition process is an early profound exchange rate depreciation followed by continuing real appreciation. Absent historical reference points, it is difficult to judge whether the real appreciation is threatening competitiveness. This paper interprets the stylized facts and offers estimates of the equilibrium real exchange rate based on an international comparison of dollar wages and on a study of the dynamics of real exchange rates in several transition economies. The results suggest that the process of real appreciation is a combination of a return to equilibrium following the early overshooting and equilibrium appreciation.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 44, No. 4, December 1997.
November 1, 1996
Wage Indexation and Macroeconomic Stability: The Gray-Fischer Theorem Revisted
Description: Since the seminal papers by Gray (1976) and Fischer (1977) were published, the major theorem of the wage indexation literature has been that indexing wages stabilizes output when shocks are nominal and destabilizes output when shocks are real. This paper reexamines the validity of this proposition taking into account the lags in actual indexation practices in an economy similar to that originally considered by those authors. It shows that in such a setup, wage contracts indexed to lagged inflation tend to destabilize output regardless of whether shocks are nominal or real.
November 1, 1996
The Taxation Implicit in Two-Tiered Exchange Rate Systems
Description: A two-tiered exchange rate system can be interpreted as a set of separate taxes on money and other financial assets. If the official two-tiered exchange rate system coexists with a black market for foreign exchange, then there is implicit taxation of the international goods trade as well. This paper presents some evidence on the tax rates and tax revenues implicit in the exchange rate systems of The Bahamas (from 1978 to 1995), the Dominican Republic (from 1970 to 1984), and South Africa (from 1973 to 1995).
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