Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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1996
May 1, 1996
Money Laundering and the International Financial System
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.
Notes: An earlier version of this paper was presented at International Conference on Preventing and Controlling Money Laundering and the Use of the Proceeds of Crime: A Global Approach," at Courmayer Mont Blanc, Italy,from June 17-21.
May 1, 1996
Have North-South Growth Linkages Changed?
Description: This paper provides preliminary econometric evidence suggesting that the traditional trade-based business cycle linkages between the North and the South have changed. Many countries in the South, in particular in Asia, appear to have become more resilient to cyclical movements in the North, and to have come to play a more significant role in sustaining global activity, in particular during the 1991-93 slowdown. A number of factors may have contributed to these changes: improved domestic policies and more open trade and exchange regimes; closer financial linkages with the North and a substantial increase in capital flows; a marked rise in inter-regional trade; and greater diversification of the exports of the South.
May 1, 1996
Implications of a Surge in Capital Inflows: Available tools and Consequences for the Conduct of Monetary Policy
Description: This paper seeks to extend discussion of monetary policy instruments to the situation of a country faced with major capital inflows when the process of domestic financial liberalization is incomplete. It briefly summarizes the recent usage of traditional monetary instruments, discusses the practical limits to classic sterilization measures as well as the pros and cons of using other supplementary measures including tax-based controls on capital inflows. It also examines the efficacy of such measures in Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Korea, Spain, and Thailand. The conclusion is that, for a time and as a transitional measure, a country may find it opportune to supplement the traditional instruments with certain “belt and braces” measures including, in some instances, indirect (tax-based) capital controls.
May 1, 1996
Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions
Description: By discussing the available theoretical and empirical literature, this paper argues that budget procedures and budget institutions do influence budget outcomes. Budget institutions include both procedural rules and balanced budget laws. We critically assess theoretical contributions in this area and suggest several open and unresolved issue. We also examine the empirical evidence drawn from studies on samples of OECD countries, Latin American countries and the United States. We conclude with a discussion of the normative implications of this literature and with some concrete proposals.
May 1, 1996
Credit and Exchange Rate-Based Stabilization
Description: This paper examines the behavior of private sector credit in chronic inflation countries that undergo exchange rate-based inflation stabilizations. It concludes that these programs are characterized by a strong increase in private sector credit, both in absolute terms and as a fraction of real economic activity. Empirical results using data for Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Israel support a negative statistically significant relationship between credit and inflation for Mexico, Argentina, and Chile, but not for Israel. In addition, for both Chile and Mexico, dummy variables representing periods of inflation stabilization are positive and statistically different from zero indicating a stronger expansion in private sector credit during stabilization. These results could potentially explain the consumption boom that is usually present in the early stages of these programs.
May 1, 1996
Infrequent Large Nominal Devaluations and their Impacton the Futures Prices for Foreign Exchange in Brazil
Description: This paper discusses the behavior of futures prices for foreign exchange in Brazil during a period of high inflation and successive stabilization attempts (1989-92). After testing for futures prices unbiasedness and predicability by applying the Generalized Method of Moments, the paper argues that the finding of excess returns may be viewed as a rational response to the frequent and unpredictable changes in the exchange rate policy during that period. This response could reflect (i) an informational problem where the exchange rate policy is assumed to be unknown; or, (ii) a “peso” problem of rational (under) overprediction where the futures bias is the market response to the known policy of infrequent large nominal devaluations. The second line of explanation is suggested by conditioning the probability distribution of the excess return of futures contracts on the event of a major devaluation.
May 1, 1996
The Output-Inflation Nexus in Ukraine: Is there a Trade-Off?
Description: This paper examines whether expansionary credit policy can help sustain output growth in transition economies, with particular reference to Ukraine’s experience since 1992. We find that, while real credit growth is indeed associated with higher output growth, an increase in the growth rate of nominal credit does not, in general equilibrium, stimulate output growth. Following a short-lived boom — caused by falling real wages — the increase in the growth rate of nominal credit leads to a decline in the level of output.
May 1, 1996
Taxation and Unemployment
Description: This paper reviews conceptual linkages between taxation and unemployment, available empirical evidence and country policies that may have a bearing on these linkages in the OECD and in a sample of developing and transitional economies, Fund policy advice on these issues, and tax policy options in addressing the unemployment problem. It concludes that the emphasis in policy should be placed on minimizing tax distortions, rather than on formulating activist tax policies to reduce unemployment.
May 1, 1996
Inflation Targeting in the United Kingdom: Information Content of Financial and Monetary Variables
Description: The main objective of this paper is to identify a set of leading indicators of inflation for the United Kingdom, and discuss the conceptual issues pertaining to inflation targeting. The main conclusions are that narrow money has strong leading indicator properties for inflation, while broad money does not. Long yields appear to have some information for the GDP deflator, and headline inflation, and short yields for underlying inflation. Spreads between commercial paper and gilts, and the yield curve, have very little predictive information on inflation. An interesting conclusion is that while the nominal effective exchange rate is not a good predictor of inflation, the sterling-deutsche mark exchange rate appears to have weak predictive information on the targeted measure of inflation.