Working Papers
1992
October 1, 1992
Linkages Between External Debt Data and Balance of Payments, Government Finance and Monetary Statistics
Description: This paper examines the linkages between key macroeconomic statistics: external debt, balance of payments, government finance, and monetary statistics, which enable analysts and policy makers to monitor economic developments. The paper reviews statistical compilation issues and concludes that, while considerable progress has been made in recent years to account for external debt and related flows, further progress must be made. It makes recommendations, such as improved communication among compilers of related statistics, that may help compilers to achieve greater consistency between statistics concerned and thereby enhancing their usefulness for analysts and policy makers. The need for increased resources to develop statistical systems is also recognized.
October 1, 1992
Are Prices Countercyclical?
Description: This paper examines the comovement of prices with the cyclical component of output. It argues that determining the cyclical behavior of prices by applying the same stationarity-inducing transformation to the levels of both output and prices, and examining the correlations of the resulting series, can be misleading. A more appropriate procedure is to examine the correlations between the rate of inflation and the level of the cyclical component of output. In post-war U.S. data the correlations between similarly transformed price and output data are consistently and often strongly negative, as reported recently by a number of authors as evidence of countercyclical price behavior. The rate of inflation, however, is consistently and usually strongly positively correlated with various measures of the cyclical component of output.
Notes: Study on output and prices in the post-war United States. Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 1993.
October 1, 1992
Structural and Macroeconomic Determinants of the Output Decline in Poland: 1990-91
Description: This paper addresses two questions relating to the output decline in Poland since the initiation of market-oriented reforms at the beginning of 1990. First, to what extent is the decline in output a generalized phenomenon, rather than reflecting the short-term effects of resource reallocation in response to the new relative price structure? Second, what have been the main macroeconomic determinants of the output decline? In response to the first question, the paper finds relatively little evidence to favor a “structural change” view of the output decline. As far as the second question is concerned, the paper finds that both supply-side and demand-side factors have played a role, depending on the specific time period being considered.
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1992
September 1, 1992
A Taxonomy of Automated Trade Execution Systems
Description: A taxonomy of existing and planned automated trade execution systems in financial markets is provided. Over 50 automated market structures in 16 countries are analyzed. The classification scheme is organized around the principle that such markets consist of an algorithm that performs a trade matching function, together with information display and transmission mechanisms. Automated market structures are classified by ordered sets of trade execution priority rules, trade matching protocols and associated degree of automation of price discovery, and transparency, to include informational asymmetries between classes of market participants. Systematic differences in systems across types of financial instruments, geographical market centers, and over time are analyzed.
Notes: Taxonomy of existing and planned automated trade execution systems in over 50 automated market structures in 16 countries.
September 1, 1992
Wage Claims, Incomes Policy, and the Path of Output and Inflation in a Formerly Centrally Planned Economy
Description: The corporate governance problem of state enterprises in former socialist economies can give rise to excessive wage claims and/or capital decumulation. This paper focuses on these problems, highlighting the dynamic links between wage behavior, the fiscal deficit, inflation and the capital stock. Wage controls have been widely advocated as a response to the corporate governance problem. We show that in the presence of excessive wage claims a system of wage controls can help to limit capital decumulation and reduce inflation, since wage moderation implies higher government revenues from the profit tax and therefore lower money creation. More specifically, it is shown that when wage levels are initially excessive a reduction in the degree of wage indexation is effective in lowering inflation if nominal wages do not provide, on average, full protection against future inflation.
September 1, 1992
Losing Credibility: The Stabilization Blues
Description: In exchange rate-based stabilization programs, credibility often follows a distinct time pattern. At first it rises as the highly visible nominal anchor provides a sense of stability and hopes run high for a permanent solution to the fiscal problems. Later, as the domestic currency appreciates in real terms and the fiscal problems are not fully resolved, the credibility of the program falls, sometimes precipitously. This paper develops a political-economy model that focuses on the evolution of credibility over time, and is consistent with the pattern just described. Inflation inertia and costly budget negotiations play a key role in the model.
September 1, 1992
Macroeconomic Uncertainty, Precautionary Savings and the Current Account
Description: The relationship between current account developments and changes in the macroeconomic environment remains a key issue in open economy macroeconomics. This paper extends the standard intertemporal optimizing model of the current account to incorporate the effects of macroeconomic uncertainty on private savings behavior. It is shown that the greater the uncertainty in national cash flow, defined as output less investment less government expenditure, the greater is the precautionary demand for savings and, other things equal, the larger is the current account surplus. Empirical support for the model is found using quarterly data from four large industrial countries.