Working Papers
1991
December 1, 1991
The Information Content of Prices in Derivative Security Markets
Description: Prices in futures markets and option markets reflect expectations about future price movements in spot markets, but these prices can also be influenced by risk premia. Futures and forward prices are sometimes interpreted as market expectations for future spot prices, and option prices are used to calculate the market’s expectations for future volatility of spot prices. Do these prices accurately reflect market expectations? The purpose of this paper is to examine the information that is reflected in futures prices and option prices. The issue is examined by reviewing both the relevant analytical models and the empirical evidence.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 39, No. 3, September 1992.
December 1, 1991
Price and Volume Effects of a Devaluation in Developing Countries
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
December 1, 1991
Financial Sector Reforms and Monetary Policy
Description: In recent years a number of countries have undertaken far-reaching reforms of their financial sectors. Generally speaking, financial sector reforms aim at achieving greater flexibility of interest rates, an enhanced role for market forces in credit allocation, increased independence for the central bank, and a deepening of money and securities markets. Such reforms, and the developments that follow, have important implications for the design and conduct of monetary policy. This paper provides an overview of the linkages between financial sector reforms and the monetary policy framework, focusing in particular on the objectives, instruments, and operating procedures of monetary policy.
December 1, 1991
Energy Pricing in the Soviet Union
Description: Energy exports, which are already the primary source of Soviet convertible currency earnings and an important contributor to the budget, could bring in much more revenue if the Soviet Union were to reduce its extremely high levels of energy consumption. To encourage this process, energy prices need to be raised substantially. Under plausible assumptions, it is shown that an increase in prices could yield sizable foreign exchange earnings. Large increases in energy prices could, however, threaten the solvency of industrial enterprises, precipitate major economic and social dislocation, and severely strain interrepublican economic relationships.
December 1, 1991
Sticky Exchange Rates and Flexible Prices: A Heretic View From the Interwar Period
Description: Real exchange rate variability tends to be higher under flexible than under fixed exchange rates. The neokeynesian view attributes the higher variability to the combination of volatile nominal exchange rates with sticky prices. The neoclassical approach regards an increased incidence of real shocks as the culprit. We test the crucial assumptions underlying the two models for the interwar period. Prices and exchange rates are found to be equally flexible. We hence reject the neokeynesian sticky price view for our sample period. In contrast, our results are consistent with, while not constituting evidence for, the neoclassical equilibrium approach.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 39, No. 3, September 1992.
December 1, 1991
Growth Strategies, Employment, and Income Distribution in Brazil: An Input-Output Assessment
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
December 1, 1991
The Structure and Operation of the World Gold Market
Description: This paper describes the structure of the world gold market, its sources of supply and demand, and how it functions. The market has three principal functions in three major locations: the New York futures market speculates on spot prices, which are largely determined in London, whereas physical gold is in large part shipped through Zurich. The market is dominated by large suppliers and gold holders, including monetary authorities. Some unique characteristics of the gold market ensure confidentiality, and as a result, there are gaps in existing knowledge and data. The paper identifies and attempts to fill these gaps.
December 1, 1991
Market Liberalization Policies in a Reforming Socialist Economy
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 39, No. 3, September 1992.
December 1, 1991
The Determinants of U.S. Real Interest Rates in the Long Run
Description: This paper examines the factors which influence the behavior of real interest rates in the United States over the long run. Data on real and nominal returns to bonds and equities are tested for unit root non-stationarity. The results indicate that real and nominal interest rates and inflation are integrated of order one while the evidence on returns to equities is mixed. Short- and long-term real rates were found to be cointegrated with government deficits, government debt relative to GNP, private wealth, real balances relative to GNP, demographic factors and the marginal productivity of capital; demographic, fiscal, and monetary policy variables appear to be particularly significant.
December 1, 1991
Apartheid, Growth and Income Distribution in South Africa: Past History and Future Prospects
Description: Estimates of a supply-side model of the nonprimary sectors, in which particular attention has been paid to modeling key characteristics of the evolution of the apartheid system, are presented. These imply that the wage differential between white and nonwhite workers doing similar jobs fell significantly over the last two decades to around 14 percent in 1990. This relatively small gap implies that medium-term prospects for the advancement of the disadvantaged groups in South Africa depend heavily on their ability to take up skilled employment, with the direct gains from the elimination of apartheid being relatively small.