Working Papers
2021
April 29, 2021
Financial Cycles – Early Warning Indicators of Banking Crises?
Description: Can the upturns and downturns in financial variables serve as early warning indicators of banking crises? Using data from 59 advanced and emerging economies, we show that financial overheating can be detected in real time. Equity prices and output gap are the best leading indicators in advanced markets; in emerging markets, these are equity and property prices and credit gap. Moreover, aggregating this information flags financial crisis many years before the crisis. Lastly, we find that the length of financial cycles is of medium-term frequency, calling into question the longer frequency widely used in the estimation of countercyclical capital buffers.
April 29, 2021
SDG Financing Options in Rwanda: A Post-Pandemic Assessment
Description: This paper uses a novel macroeconomic framework to identify policy and financing options to help Rwanda achieve its sustainable development goals (SDGs). Under current policies, Rwanda would meet its SDGs right after 2050. Active policies that combine fiscal reforms and higher private sector participation could fulfill more than one third of Rwanda’s post-pandemic SDG financing gap, enabling the country to meet its SDG targets by 2040. For Rwanda to meet its SDGs by 2030, active policies would need to be complemented with about 13¾ percentage points of GDP in additional resources annually until then.
April 29, 2021
Can Fintech Foster Competition in the Banking System in Latin America and the Caribbean?
Description: This paper revisits the competitive environment of the banking system in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and investigates the early impact of fintech development in the region thus far. Against the backdrop of high net interest margins (NIMs) and limited financial depth in the region, panel regressions broadly confirm results of existing literature on the association of NIMs with the changes in the financial sector structure, including market concentration, administrative costs, and foreign banks, although differences between domestic and foreign banks narrowed after the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis. Difference-in-difference regressions and case studies on Brazil and Mexico suggest that fintech is associated with a reduction in NIMs and defensive responses by incumbent banks that benefit consumers. The case studies also shed light on regulatory approaches and prudential considerations in fostering financial innovation and banking sector competition.
April 29, 2021
Leakages from Macroprudential Regulations: The Case of Household-Specific Tools and Corporate Credit
Description: Sector-specific macroprudential regulations increase the riskiness of credit to other sectors. Using firm-level data, this paper computed the measures of the riskiness of corporate credit allocation for 29 advanced and emerging economies. Consistently across these measures, the paper finds that during credit expansions, an unexpected tightening of household-specific macroprudential tools is followed by a rise in riskier corporate lending. Quantitatively, such unexpected tightening during a period of rapid credit growth increases the riskiness of corporate credit by around 10 percent of the historical standard deviation. This result supports early policy interventions when credit vulnerabilities are still low, since sectoral leakages will be less important at this stage. Further evidence from bank lending standards surveys suggests that the leakage effects are stronger for larger firms compared to SMEs, consistent with recent evidence on the use of personal real estate as loan collateral by small firms.
April 29, 2021
Limits to Private Climate Change Mitigation
Description: As climate change looms larger, many look to sustainable investing that incorporates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns as part of the way forward. To assess scope for ESG-conscious investing to achieve climate change goals, we explore the link between emissions growth and ESG scores using firm-level data for the largest emitters around the world. Discouragingly, our analysis uncovers at best a weak relationship: firms with better ESG scores do display somewhat slower emissions growth but this link is substantially attenuated and no longer statistically significant if we limit attention to within-country or within-firm variation. Our findings suggest limited scope for sustainable investing strategies conditioned solely on ESG indicators to meaningfully help mitigate climate change and, more broadly, underscore the need to continue to build consensus towards effective economy-wide policies to address climate change.
April 29, 2021
Is There a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Inclusive Growth? A Case Study Analysis
Description: Is there a one-size-fits-all approach to inclusive growth? We look at four key case studies across advanced and emerging markets—the Nordics, India, Brazil, and Egypt—to try to answer this question. We highlight qualitatively in these countries the key components of inclusive growth models, outcomes from these models, and the road ahead in the respective countries. Some of the analysis focuses on co-operative labor markets in the Nordics, direct benefit transfers in India, the role of social assistance and commodity boom in Brazil, and the inequality puzzle in Egypt. The paper finds that there is a lack of homogeneity among the approaches by these countries and identifies the need for customized solutions to inclusive growth. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t seem to work. The more customized the inclusive growth model, the better the overall outcome.
April 23, 2021
Commodity Shocks and Exchange Rate Regimes: Implications for the Caribbean Commodity Exporters
Description: Declining commodity prices during mid-2014-2016 posed significant challenges to commodity-exporting economies. The severe terms of trade shock associated with a sharp fall in world commodity prices have raised anew questions about the viability of pegged exchange rate regimes. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures needed to contain its spread have been associated with a significant disruption in several economic sectors, in particular, travel, tourism, and hospitality industry, adding to the downward pressure on commodity prices, a sharp fall in foreign exchange earnings, and depressed economic activity in most commodity exporters. This paper reviews country experiences with different exchange rate regimes in coping with commodity price shocks and explores the role of flexible exchange rates as a shock absorber, analyzing the macroeconomic impact of adverse term-of-trade shocks under different regimes using event study and panel vector autoregression techniques. It also analyzes, conceptually and empirically, policy and technical considerations in making exchange rate regime choices and discusses the supporting policies that should accompany a given regime choice to make that choice sustainable. It offers lessons that could be helpful to the Caribbean commodity-exporters.
April 23, 2021
Parameterizing Debt Maturity
Description: This paper examines ways to summarize the maturity structure of public debts using a small number of parameters. We compile a novel dataset of all promised future payments for US and UK government debt from every month since 1869, and more recently for Peru, Poland, Egypt, and Nigeria. We show that there is a unique parametric form which does not arbitrarily restrict debt issuance – portfolios of bonds with exponential coupons. Compared to the most popular alternative, this form 1) more accurately describes changes in debt maturity for these six countries and 2) gives a quite different interpretation of historical debt maturity. Our work can be applied not just to analyze past debt movements, but – because parameter estimates are relatively similar across countries – also for monitoring changes in debt maturity, including in countries where data are partial or incomplete.
April 23, 2021
Sharing Resource Wealth Inclusively Within and Across Generations
Description: This paper discusses the main challenges faced by resource-rich nations in promoting equity; describes policy tools available for managing exhaustible natural resources; and analyzes the relationship between resource wealth and state fragility. It is argued that human capital accumulation, innovation, and technology diffusion can help escape the trap of low growth and resource dependence that plagues so many developing countries. But to make this possible, resource-rich nations must sustain strong citizen participation in the policy making to hold governments accountable and ensure the inclusive management of resource wealth.
April 23, 2021
Enhancing Resilience to Climate Change in the Maldives
Description: The increased likelihood of adverse climate-change-related shocks calls for building resilient infrastructure in the Maldives. Fulfilling these infrastructure needs requires a comprehensive analysis of investment plans, including with respect to their degree of climate resilience, their impact on future economic prospects, and their funding costs and sources. This paper analyzes these challenges, through calibrating a general equilibrium model. The main finding is that there is a significant dividend associated with building resilient infrastructure. Under worsened climate conditions, the cumulative output gain from investing in more resilient technologies increases up to a factor of two. However, given the Maldives’ limited fiscal space, particularly after COVID-19, the international community should also step up cooperation efforts. We also show that it is financially convenient for donors to help build resilience prior to the occurrence of a natural disasters rather than helping finance the reconstruction ex-post.