Working Papers
2021
June 11, 2021
Is Digital Financial Inclusion Unlocking Growth?
Description: Digital financial services have been a key driver of financial inclusion in recent years. While there is evidence that financial inclusion through traditional services has a positive impact on economic growth, do the same results carry over for digital financial inclusion? What drives digital financial inclusion? Why does it advance more in some countries but not in others? Using new indices of financial inclusion developed in Khera et. al. (2021), this paper addresses these questions for 52 developing countries. Using cross-sectional instrument variable procedure, we find that the exogenous component of digital financial inclusion is positively associated with growth in GDP per capita during 2011-2018, which suggests that digital financial inclusion can accelerate economic growth. Fractional logit and random effects empirical estimation identifies access to infrastructure, financial and digital literacy, and quality of institutions as key drivers of digital financial inclusion. These findings are then used to help inform policy recommendations in areas related to the digitization of financial services to promote financial inclusion.
June 8, 2021
Electric Vehicles, Tax incentives and Emissions: Evidence from Norway
Description: This paper empirically estimates the effects of electric vehicles (EVs) on passenger car emissions to inform the design of policies that encourage EV purchases in Norway. We use exceptionally rich data on the universe of cars and households from Norway, which has a very high share of EVs, thanks to generous tax incentives and other policies. Our estimates suggest that household-level emission savings from the purchase of additional EVs are limited, resulting in high implicit abatement costs of Norway’s tax incentives relative to emission savings. However, the estimated emission savings are much larger if EVs replace the dirtiest cars. Norway’s experience may also help inform similar policies in other countries as they ramp up their own national climate mitigation strategies.
June 8, 2021
A Firm Lower Bound: Characteristics and Impact of Corporate Minimum Taxation
Description: This paper examines the role of minimum taxes and attempts to quantify their impact on economic activity. Minimum taxes can be effective at shoring up the corporate tax base and enhancing the perceived equity of the tax system, potentially motivating broader taxpayer compliance. Where political and administrative constraints prevent reforms to the standard corporate income tax, a minimum tax can help mitigate base erosion from excessive tax incentives and avoidance. Using a new panel dataset that catalogues changes in minimum tax regimes over time around the world, firm-level analysis suggests that the introduction or reform of a minimum tax is associated with an increase in the average effective tax rate of just over 1.5 percentage points with respect to turnover and of around 10 percent with respect to operating income. Minimum taxes based on modified corporate income lead to the largest increases in effective tax rates, followed by those based on assets and turnover.
June 7, 2021
Chinese Investment in Latin America: Sectoral Complementarity and the Impact of China’s Rebalancing
Description: Over the last decade China’s investment in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has increased substantially in volume and become more diversified from natural resources to other industries. Using cross-border mergers and acquisitions data, we demonstrate that since mid-2010s China’s overseas investment has tilted toward sectors where China has a comparative advantage in the global markets, a trend similar to that of other major foreign direct investment (FDI) source countries. Moreover, China’s rising overseas investment can be linked to the rebalancing of Chinese economy, and LAC stands to benefit from its complementarity vis-à-vis China in sectors where the rising Chinese overseas investment can be met with LAC’s own investment gaps. The COVID-19 pandemic could have a long-lasting impact on global value chains and FDI flows, which poses both challenges and opportunities to LAC in attracting FDI, including from China, to support the region’s long-run economic development.
June 4, 2021
How Have IMF Priorities Evolved? A Text Mining Approach
Description: This paper assess how priorities of the IMF’s membership have evolved over the past two decades, by using text mining techniques on a unique dataset combining IMFC communiqués and constituency statements. Our results reveal significant variation in priorities across time and constituencies. Statements can be characterized by the weight which they place on three key priorities: (i) growth; (ii) debt and development; and (iii) crisis management and quota reform. Sentiment analysis techniques also show that addressing climate change is a topic which is viewed positively by an increasing number of constituencies.
June 4, 2021
Are Passive Institutional Investors Engaged Monitors or Risk-Averse Owners? Both!
Description: We differentiate the effects of passive institutional investors, which mainly refer to index funds that adopt a passive portfolio strategy, on firms’ innovation activities and innovation strategies. Relying on plausibly exogenous variation in passive institutional ownership generated by Russell 1000/2000 index reconstitutions, we find that, with larger passive institutional ownership, while firms’ countable innovation activities increase, they shift their innovation strategies by focusing more on exploitation of existing knowledge instead of exploring new technology. Enhanced monitoring by passive institutional investors through active votes could explain their positive effects on firms’ innovation activities. Increasing risk aversion on the part of passive institutional investors appears the underlying force that drives firms’ shift to incremental innovation. Our paper uncovers a subtle relation between institutional investors and innovation, which is largely ignored by earlier studies.
June 4, 2021
COVID-19 Containment Measures and Expected Stock Volatility: High-Frequency Evidence from Selected Advanced Economies
Description: We study the effect of COVID-19 containment measures on expected stock price volatility in some advanced economies, using event studies with hand-collected minute-level data and panel regressions with daily data. We find that six-month-ahead volatility indices dropped following announcements of initial or re-imposed lockdowns, and that they did not drop significantly following the easing of lockdowns. Such patterns are not as strong for three-month-ahead expected volatility and generally absent for one-month-ahead expected volatility. These results provide suggestive evidence for the existence of an intertemporal trade-off: although stringent containment measures cause short-term economic disruptions, they may reduce medium-term uncertainty (reflected in expected stock volatility) by boosting markets’ confidence that the outbreak would be under control more quickly.
June 4, 2021
Are Climate Change Policies Politically Costly?
Description: Are policies designed to avert climate change (Climate Change Policies, or CCPs) politically costly? Using data on governmental popular support and the OECD’s Environmental Stringency Index, we find that CCPs are not necessarily politically costly: policy design matters. First, only market-based CCPs (such as emission taxes) generate negative effects on popular support. Second, the effects are muted in countries where non-green (dirty) energy is a relatively small input into production. Third, political costs are not significant when CCPs are implemented during periods of low oil prices, generous social insurance and low inequality.
June 4, 2021
The Long-Run Impact of Sovereign Yields on Corporate Yields in Emerging Markets
Description: We analyze the long-run impact of emerging-market sovereign bond yields on corporate bond yields, finding that the average pass-through is around one. The pass-through is larger in countries with greater sovereign risks and where sovereign bonds are more liquid. It is also greater for corporate bonds with lower ratings, shorter maturities, and for those issued by financial companies and government-related firms. Our results support theoretical arguments that corporate and sovereign yields are linked together through credit risks and liquidity premiums. Consequently, high sovereign risks may slowdown growth by persistently increasing private sector borrowing costs.
June 4, 2021
Authorities’ Fiscal Forecasts in Latin America: Are They Optimistic?
Description: Do governments in Latin America tend to be optimistic when preparing budgetary projections? We address this question by constructing a novel dataset of the authorities’ fiscal forecasts in six Latin American economies using data from annual budget documents over the period 2000-2018. In turn, we compare such forecasts with the outturns reported in the corresponding budget documents of the following years to understand the evolution of fiscal forecast errors. Our findings suggest that: (i) for most countries, there is no general optimistic bias in the forecasts for the fiscal balance-to-GDP ratio (though there may be for the components); (ii) fiscal forecasts have improved for some countries over time, albeit they have worsened for others; (iii) in terms of drivers, we show that forecast errors for the fiscal balance-to-GDP ratio are positively correlated with GDP growth and terms of trade changes and negatively with GDP deflator surprises; (iv) forecast errors for public debt-to-GDP ratios are negatively associated with surprises to GDP growth; (v) lastly, budget balance rules seem to help contain the size of the fiscal forecast errors.