Working Papers
1993
November 1, 1993
Expected Devaluation and Economic Fundamentals
Description: Recent incidents of exchange rate collapse have provoked interest in the extent to which such events are determined by economic fundamentals. This paper considers whether interest rate differentials are appropriate measures of the risk of devaluation and whether this measure of devaluation risk reflects the movements of variables which capture internal and external balance. The paper finds that interest rate differentials reflect devaluation risk but that movements in fundamental variables have only a weak effect on devaluation risk in France and Italy. The most significant influence on devaluation risk is the position of the currency in its band in that the lower is the exchange value of a currency within the band, the greater is the perceived risk of devaluation.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 41, No. 2, June 1994.
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1993
October 1, 1993
Government Finance in a Model of Currency Substitution
Description: Our model is a variant of the cash-in-advance model. Goods must be purchased in the seller’s currency, but currency may be traded before shopping at a cost. This cost is a measure of substitutability. The model is applied to seignorage taxation. We show that optimal money growth is positive and increasing in substitutability if and only if first- and second-period consumption are gross substitutes. If governments act independently, money growth is suboptimally low if currencies are sufficiently substitutable and too high otherwise.
October 1, 1993
Efficiency Wages and Labor Mobility in an Open Economy
Description: The paper analyzes the role of labor market segmentation and relative wage rigidity in the transmission process of macroeconomic shocks in a two-sector optimizing model of a small open economy. The analysis is first conducted in the context of perfect intersectoral labor mobility. The discussion is then extended to consider the existence of short-run constraints on labor movements. The results highlight the role of efficiency considerations in the behavior of sectoral wages. A deflationary policy induces a reallocation of labor across sectors, but has no long-run effect on the unemployment rate.
October 1, 1993
A Framework for Assessing Fiscal Sustainability and External Viability, with An Application to India
Description: This paper presents a simple macroeconomic simulation model which can be used to evaluate alternative fiscal strategies and their implications for external viability. It attempts to bridge the gap between the literature on fiscal sustainability and the demands of operational work. The framework, developed in a spreadsheet format, generates estimates of public spending compatible with identified targets for growth, inflation and domestic and foreign borrowing. The difference between the spending path consistent with these targets and that based on current policies is the fiscal adjustment required to meet the authorities’ macroeconomic objectives. Alternatively, the framework can be used to assess the implications for inflation, interest rates and public indebtendess of a given spending path. Finally, one can analyze the impact of financial reform on fiscal and external performance. The model is applied to India to illustrate the types of simulations that may be conducted.
October 1, 1993
Asset Price Inflation in the 1980's: A Flow of Funds Perspective
Description: This paper examines how and why financial resources were channeled almost exclusively to specific asset markets in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the late 1980s. A decline in demand for funds by traditional borrowers, and a shift by savers from banks toward indirect securities investments were critical factors in all three cases. Until intermediaries and investors learned to evaluate new opportunities, funds were recycled in certain asset markets. The pressures on Japanese asset markets were particularly intense because of the size of Japan’s domestic saving relative to traditional domestic investment opportunities.
October 1, 1993
Testing the Credibility of Belgium's Exchange Rate Policy
Description: This paper examines the credibility of the exchange rate policy pursued by the Belgian monetary authorities of pegging the Belgian franc to a narrow fluctuation band around the deutsche mark, in the context of the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. Simple interest rate corridor analysis, based on the Belgian-German long-term interest rate differential and taking explicit account of the currency’s position within its fluctuation band, would appear to suggest that the hypothesis that long-run exchange rate credibility has been attained should be rejected, even though considerable progress has been made in this regard since the early 1980s. The paper proceeds to decompose the Belgian-German interest rate differential into a sovereign credit risk and an exchange rate risk component, via the modelling of inflationary expectations, and concludes that long-run exchange rate credibility cannot be rejected from 1990 onwards.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 41, No. 2, June 1994.
October 1, 1993
The Role of Financial Institutions in the Transition to a Market Economy
Description: Financial institutions intermediate between savers and investors and contribute to corporate governance. Equity and bond markets in the former centrally planned economies are not yet in a position adequately to provide these services. It is not yet clear that investment funds will provide the necessary financing and corporate management. Therefore the first priority for financial sector reforms must be to establish a healthy commercial banking sector. Banks are the most promising source of financing, provide payment services which are crucial to both the real and financial sectors and, by monitoring the use of loaned funds, will be the primary source of corporate governance during the transformation to a market economy.