Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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1996
April 1, 1996
Transfers, Social Safety Nets, and Economic Growth
Description: This paper analyses the role of social safety nets in the form of redistributional transfers and wage subsidies. It is argued that public welfare programs can be viewed as a crime-preventing or disruption-preventing devices because they tend to increase the opportunity cost of engaging in crime or disruptive activities. It is shown that, in the presence of a leisure choice, wage subsidies may be better than pure transfers. Using a simple growth model, the optimal size of the public welfare program is found and it is argued that public welfare should be financed with income (not lump-sum) taxes, despite the fact that income taxes are distortionary. The intuition for this result is that income taxes act as a user fee on congested public goods and transfers can be thought of as productive public goods subject to congestion. Finally, using a cross-section of 75 countries, the partial correlation between transfers and growth is shown to be significantly positive.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 44, No. 1, March 1997.
April 1, 1996
Currency Convertibility and the Fund: Review and Prognosis
Description: This paper reviews experience with currency convertibility on both the current and capital accounts, with particular attention to the Fund’s concepts and policy implications. After discussing the basic concepts of convertibility, the paper reviews the experience with convertibility in three groups of Fund members--industrial countries, developing countries, and transition countries. The paper also discusses some policy options designed to encourage acceptance of convertibility by Fund members that have not yet done so.
April 1, 1996
Italian Unemployment 1975-1995: An Analysis of Macroeconomic Shocks and Policies Using Evidence From a Structural Vector Autoregression
Description: This paper examines the determinants of Italian unemployment by estimating and utilizing a structural vector autoregressive (VAR) model. Both long-run and short-run macroeconomic determinants of unemployment are examined; the latter are analyzed in much greater detail than is customary in the literature. The relative contribution of long-run and short-run causes is quantified and the different time horizons over which they operate are identified. Policies affecting labor market performance are described and their effect estimated whenever data permit; policy implications are also drawn whenever possible. The most recent labor market reforms together with the atypical effects of the most recent recession are examined, and forecasts of unemployment are produced. A number of scenarios are also constructed to highlight the effect of alternative labor market arrangements.
April 1, 1996
Have Institutional Investors Destabilized Emerging Markets?
Description: In the past few years there has been a large increase in portfolio capital flows into emerging markets, mostly fueled by mutual funds and other institutional investors. Based on a simple variance ratio test, this paper finds that emerging stock markets as a group experienced a sharp increase in autocorrelation in total returns at a time when institutional investors began to significantly expand their holdings in these markets. These results are consistent with the view that institutional investor sentiment toward emerging markets as an asset class can at times play a critical role in determining asset prices, with shifts in sentiment resulting in periods of bubble-like booms and busts and asset price overshooting.
April 1, 1996
Comovements in National Stock Market Returns: Evidence of Predictability But Not Cointegration
Description: This paper is a response to the literature that tests for cointegration between national stock market indices. It argues that apparent findings of cointegration in other studies may often be due to the use of asymptotic, rather than small-sample, critical values. In fact, economic theory suggests that cointegration is unlikely to be observed in efficient markets. However, this paper finds some evidence for the long-horizon predictability of relative returns, and the existence of “winner-loser” reversals across 16 national equity markets. A conclusion is that national stock market indices include a common world component and two country-specific components, one permanent and one transitory.
April 1, 1996
A Pecking Order Theory of Capital Inflows and International Tax Principles
Description: Even though financial markets today show a high degree of integration, the world capital market is still far from the textbook story of high capital mobility. The purpose of this paper is to highlight key sources of market failure in the context of international capital flows and to provide guidelines for efficient tax structure in the presence of capital market imperfections. The analysis distinguishes three types of international capital flows: foreign portfolio debt investment, foreign portfolio equity investment, and foreign direct investment. The paper emphasizes the efficiency of a nonuniform tax treatment of the various vehicles of international capital flows.
April 1, 1996
Capital Inflows and Policy Responses in the AsEAN Region
Description: This paper reviews the experience of four ASEAN countries in dealing with an unprecedently strong influx of foreign capital in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While there was some increase in inflation associated with the inflows, it was relatively minor, and real exchange rates did not appreciate. Countries responded in the first instance by using open market operations for sterilized intervention. Subsequently, the fiscal stance was tightened. There was reluctance to allow nominal currency appreciation and, with one exception, controls on capital inflows were avoided.