Working Papers
1990
June 1, 1990
Capital Controls and International Portfolio Theory: A Microeconomic Approach
Description: This paper examines the effects of capital controls on asset prices. A closed-form valuation model by Eun and Janakirimanan (1986) is extended to analyze the impact of three restrictions on international portfolio investment: a percentage quantity constraint on the amount of foreign securities a domestic resident may hold in her portfolio; a constraint on the absolute amount of foreign securities a domestic resident may hold; and a percentage tax on the domestic purchase price of a foreign security. Comparative statics and numerical analysis are used to reveal the effects of these distortions on domestic and world equilibrium prices.
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1990
May 1, 1990
Stabilization Policy with Bands
Description: This paper discusses stabilization policy in the presence of bands for the exchange rate. The bands are modelled in a probabilistic sense: monetary policy has to be such as to keep the probability, that the exchange rate stays within the bands, above a certain threshold. In contrast to other models of target zones, this formulation leads to a linear decision rule and implies sizeable intra-marginal interventions, which corresponds to the experience in the EMS. The extent to which short-run monetary policy is constraint by the bands depends on its own long-run components and on fiscal policy.
May 1, 1990
Fiscal Revenue and Inflationary Finance
Description: This paper analyzes the erosion of fiscal revenue by inflation resulting from the issuance of money. The empirical evidence for a number of developing countries supports the well-known hypothesis that an increase in inflation will result in a fall in real fiscal revenue because of collection lags, thereby possibly widening the fiscal deficit. As such, attempts to generate resources to finance government expenditures via the inflation tax will involve a loss in other revenues, making this form of taxation even less desirable.
May 1, 1990
The Transmission Mechanism for Monetary Policy in Developing Countries
Description: In many developing countries the financial system is characterized by the absence of organized markets for securities and equities, by capital controls, and by legal ceilings on bank borrowing and lending rates, a situation which gives rise to parallel markets for foreign exchange and informal loan markets. This paper analyzes how changes in monetary policy instruments (bank credit, administered interest rates, required reserve ratios, and intervention in the parallel exchange market) are transmitted to domestic aggregate demand in a financially-repressed economy. Such an analysis is necessary to understand how the move to a more market-oriented system would affect the economy in the short run.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 38, No. 1, March 1991.
May 1, 1990
Wages, Profitability, and Growth in a Small Open Economy
Description: This paper examines issues raised by the evolution of a rapidly growing small open economy—Singapore—from a labor-intensive, low-technology production base to a capital-intensive, high-technology, knowledge-and-skill-intensive emphasis as it approached the limits of its resource constraints in the labor market. In order to analyze the process of restructuring a model of endogenous growth for a small open economy that is driven by increases in labor productivity from learning and that allows for the dynamic acquisition of comparative advantage is developed. In this framework the effects of various policies and exogenous shocks on the direction and pace of restructuring are investigated.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 38, No. 1, March 1991.
April 1, 1990
The Integration of Macro and Microeconomic Relations in Dynamic Policy Models: The Case of Saving and Investment Behavior
Description: This paper examines how two types of fiscal policy models, namely, dynamic macroeconomic models and applied general equilibrium models, have integrated macro- and microeconomic relationships within a framework of intertemporal equilibrium. After emphasizing the potential advantages of integrating macro- and microeconomic relations, the study discusses the limitations of intertemporal equilibrium models--in particular the weaknesses of saving and investment theories incorporated in the models. It concludes that, despite recent important advances, policymakers need to exercise caution when they interpret results derived from these models.
April 1, 1990
Equilibria with Unemployment in Segmented Labor Markets
Description: The paper proves four theorems in an n-sector model of a segmented labor market, with search costs, and a continuum of workers with different reservation wages, who can apply to any number of sectors. The main conclusions are that: (i) an equilibrium with unemployment always exists; and (ii) some of the unemployment is involuntary, in the sense that it consists of workers with reservation wages below the equilibrium wage in the secondary market. These conclusions hold in the case of both separate and non-separate markets.
April 1, 1990
The Significance of the Current Account: Implications of European Financial Integration
Description: This paper reasseses the significance of persistent current imbalances as they become easier to finance in the process of European integration. After highlighting some limitations of simple saving-investment guidelines for policies toward the current account, the paper shows that an economy’s current account position may be an indicator of its attitude toward risk. Externalities in the incidence of risk could warrant government concern over current imbalances, even if they are caused by privately motivated investment and saving decisions. Such externalities may arise from credit markets’ conventional perceptions about country risk and from existing deposit insurance arrangements.