Working Papers
1992
November 1, 1992
Optimal and Sustainable Exchange Rate Regimes: A Simple Game-Theoretic Approach
Description: This paper examines the question of how to design an optimal and sustainable exchange rate regime in a world economy of two interdependent countries. It develops a Barro-Gordon type two-country model and compares noncooperative equilibria under different assumptions of monetary policy credibility and different exchange rate regimes. Using a two-stage game approach to the strategic choice of policy instruments, it identifies optimal (in a Pare to sense) and sustainable (self-enforcing) exchange rate regimes. The theoretical results indicate that the choice of such regimes depends fundamentally on the credibility of monetary policy commitments by the two countries’ authorities. The nature of shocks to the economies and the substitutability between goods produced in the two countries also play some role. International coordination on instrument choice is necessary to design optimal and sustainable exchange rate regimes.
Notes: Examines the question of how to design an optimal and sustainable exchange rate regime in a world economy of two interdependent countries. Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 1993.
November 1, 1992
Money and Credit Under Currency Substitution
Description: This paper examines the effects on the supply of money and credit of a repatriation of foreign assets in an economy subject to currency substitution. In the absence of 100 percent reserve requirements, such a change in the location of deposits, which is not compensated by an increase in money demand, induces a credit boom that works itself out through a transitory current account deficit and real currency appreciation. These results are illustrated with data from the recent experience in Argentina and Peru where local banks have been authorized to capture dollar deposits from residents.
Notes: Examines the effects on the supply of money and credit of a repatriation of foreign assets in an economy subject to currency substitution. Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 1993.
November 1, 1992
Fiscal Policy in Pakistan Since 1970
Description: The analysis in this paper suggests that the large fiscal deficits that Pakistan has experienced over most of the period since 1970 led to some crowding out of private investment, resulting in slower output growth than would otherwise have been observed. Past fiscal deficits have also resulted in a substantial accumulation of domestic and external debt. In addition, the possibilities for currency substitution that have been created by the removal of restrictions on capital flows from Pakistan, as well as on foreign currency holdings of domestic residents, may have limited the potential for collecting the inflation tax. Accordingly, continued effort is likely to be needed to attain a fiscal position that is sustainable over the medium term.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 1993.
November 1, 1992
Asymmetry in the ERM: A Case Study of French and German Interest Rates Since Basle-Nyborg
Description: We study empirically daily French and German interest rate changes since the Basle-Nyborg agreement of September 1987. In particular, we ask whether the shock associated with German unification altered the degree of leadership of German monetary policy in the ERM. We conclude that Germany’s leadership role within the ERM largely disappeared in the year following unification but that the Bundesbank has recently begun to reassert its predominance.
Notes: Empirical study on daily French and German interest rate changes since the Basle-Nyborg agreement of September 1987. Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 1993.
November 1, 1992
Managing Payment System Risk During the Transition From a Centrally Planned to a Market Economy
Description: The objectives and functions of payments systems in centrally planned economies are described and analyzed. These are compared to those of payments systems in market economies and to the characteristics of an ideal payments system. The dominant role of the state in the centrally planned economies meant that the state underwrote virtually all payments risk. With the withdrawal of the state, however, participants became exposed to credit, liquidity, and operational risks. In the transition, the central bank has a key role to play in payments systems. Areas where rapid improvements are possible are: accounting, clearing, settlement, netting and standardization.
November 1, 1992
Price Liberalization in Russia: The Early Record
Description: Prices in Russia have been decontrolled in several steps since early 1991, after decades of near-fixity. Their behavior before and after the January 1992 price liberalization is analyzed here, as are the associated movements of wages and overall consumer incomes and expenditures. The emphasis is on developments in the first half of 1992. Comparisons are made with recent experience in Eastern Europe. Evidence on shortages, saving and income distribution is also considered.
November 1, 1992
The Savings Trap and Economic Take-Off
Description: We develop an overlapping generations model of a developing economy in which ‘culture’ and technology interact to determine savings, investment and growth. Investment is assumed to involve intermediation or other costs which may, in each period, result in either of two stable equilibria for the savings rate. At the “good” equilibrium, savings and growth are higher than at the “bad” equilibrium, whether the country attains the good or bad equilibrium in any period depends on each individual’s belief about the savings behavior of other agents in the economy. The model implies that fiscal policy or public activities to facilitate private investment can influence saving. In particular, a sustained period of fiscal restraint can shift the economy onto a higher savings and growth path.
November 1, 1992
International Trade, Distortions and Long-Run Economic Growth
Description: The links between trade and growth are examined in a neoclassical model of an open economy in which domestic production requires both domestic and imported inputs. The model shows that trade distortions induced by such government policies as tariffs and exchange controls generate cross-country divergences in growth rates and in per capita income over a long transitional period. The empirical results confirm that tariff rates and black market premia, interacting with an estimate of the share of free trade imports, have significant negative effects on the growth rate of per capita income across countries in the orders of magnitude predicted by the model.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 1993.
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