812 research outputs found
With Greek debt negotiations at a critical phase it is time for Germany to end its policy of ‘muddling through’
No full textThe Greek government is currently attempting to negotiate a deal with other Eurozone states over the country’s debt. Joshua Aizenman writes on the approach of Germany throughout the crisis. He argues that the German government’s perspective is best characterised as a form of ‘muddling through’, whereby stronger action to solve the Eurozone’s instability is only advocated when Germany’s domestic priorities become threatened. He states that greater willingness for debt concessions tied to deeper structural reforms, as well as more aggressive policies aimed at hitting the ECB’s declared two per cent inflation target, would offer the best route out of the crisis
Sources for financing domestic capital - is foreign saving a viable option for developing countries?
No full textThis paper proposes a new method for measuring the degree to which the domestic capital stock is self-financed. The main idea is to use the national accounts to construct a self-financing ratio, indicating what would have been the autarky stock of tangible capital supported by actual past domestic past saving, relative to the actual stock of capital. We use the constructed measure of self-financing to evaluate the impact of the growing global financial integration on the sources of financing domestic capital stocks in developing countries. On average, 90% of the stock of capital in developing countries is self financed, and this fraction was surprisingly stable throughout the 1990s. The greater integration of financial markets has not changed the dispersion of self-financing rates, and the correlation between changes in de-facto financial integration and changes in selffinancing ratios is statistically insignificant. There is no evidence of any "growth bonus" associated with increasing the financing share of foreign savings. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite: throughout the 1990s, countries with higher self-financing ratios grew significantly faster than countries with low self-financing ratios. This result persists even after controlling growth for the quality of institutions. We also find that higher volatility of the self-financing ratios is associated with lower growth rates, and that better institutions are associated with lower volatility of the self-financing ratios. These findings are consistent with the notion that financial integration may have facilitated diversification of assets and liabilities, but failed to offer new net sources of financing capital in developing countries.developing countries, economic growth, institutions, savings, investments, financial opening, international capital flows
Capital flows: Catalyst or Hindrance to economic takeoffs?
No full textThis paper applies a probit estimation to assess the relationship between economic takeoffs during 1950-2000 and inflows of portfolio debt, portfolio equity, and FDI, controlling for country’s stock of short-term external debt and commodity terms of trade. Average level of FDI inflows is associated with a 23 percent higher takeoff probability relative to a zero FDI inflow benchmark, and this effect is highest for the Latin America subsample, with a 65 rise in takeoff probability. Higher stock of short term external debt has been associated with a substantial negative effect on the probability of a takeoff, and the effect of the short terms debt overhang is largest for Latin American countries. Yet, virtually all the takeoffs were associated with a rise in portfolio debt inflows. At the sample mean, inflow of portfolio debt is associated with approximately 25 percent higher probability of a takeoff. In contrast, a one standard deviation increase in equity outflows (inflows) is associated with a 47 percent (17 percent) decline in the probability of a takeoff. A one standard deviation improvement in commodity terms of trade is associated with 28 percent higher takeoff probability.
The Net Fiscal Expenditure Stimulus in the US, 2008-9: Less than What You Might Think, and Less than the Fiscal Stimuli of Most OECD Countries
No full textUnderstanding how the economy reacted to fiscal stimulus in the aftermath of the deepest recession of the last fifty years is essential. Joshua Aizenman of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Gurnain Kaur Pasricha of the Santa Cruz Institute for International Economics and the Bank of Canada show that aggregate fiscal expenditure stimulus in the United States, properly adjusted for the declining fiscal expenditure of the fifty states, was close to zero in 2009. Furthermore, the USA is ranked at the bottom third in terms of the rate of expansion of the consolidated government consumption and investment of the 28 OECD countries they studied recently.
Financial Crisis and the Paradox of Under- and Over-Regulation
No full textThis paper illustrates the paradox of prudential under-regulation in an economy that adopts financial reform, a reform which exposes the economy to future financial crises. There is individual-uncertainty about the crisis incidence, and the probability of the crisis is updated sequentially applying Bayesian inference. Costly regulation can mitigate the probability of the crisis. We identify conditions where the regulation level supported by the majority is positive after the reform, but below the socially optimal level. Tranquil time, when the crisis would not take place, reduces the regulation intensity. If the spell of no crisis is long enough, the regulation level may drop to zero, despite the fact that the socially optimal regulation level remains positive. The less informative is the prior regarding the probability of a crisis, the faster will be the drop in regulations induced by a no-crisis, good luck run. The challenges facing the regulator are aggravated by asymmetric information, as is the case when the public does not observe regulator's effort. Higher regulator effort, while helping avoiding a crisis, may be confused as a signal that the environment is less risky, reducing the posterior probability of the crisis, eroding the support for costly future regulation. The other side of the regulation paradox is that crisis resulting with unanticipated high costs may induce over-regulation and stagnation, as the parties that would bear the cost of the over regulation are underrepresented in the decision making process. We also outline a regulatory structure that mitigates the above concerns, including information disclosure; increasing the independence of the regulatory agency from the political process; centralizing the regulatory process and increasing its transparency; and adopting global standards of minimum prudential regulations and information disclosure, enforced by the domestic regulator.
Net Fiscal Stimulus During the Great Recession
No full textThis paper studies the patterns of fiscal stimuli in the OECD countries propagated by the global crisis. Overall, we find that the USA net fiscal stimulus was modest relative to peers, despite it being the epicenter of the crisis, and having access to relatively cheap funding of its twin deficits. The USA is ranked at the bottom third in terms of the rate of expansion of the consolidated government consumption and investment of the 28 countries in sample. Contrary to historical experience, emerging markets had strongly countercyclical policy during the period immediately preceding the Great Recession and the Great Recession. Many developed OECD countries had procyclical fiscal policy stance in the same periods. Federal unions, emerging markets and countries with very high GDP growth during the pre-recession period saw larger net fiscal stimulus on average than their counterparts. We also find that greater net fiscal stimulus was associated with lower flow costs of general government debt in the same or subsequent period.
Trade Reforms, Credibility, and Development
No full textThis paper analyzes the role of investment policies in regimes undergoing trade liberalization with policy makers of uncertain credibility. We consider an economy producing exportable and importable goods. The economy is liberalized, and tariffs are eliminated. The public views the reform credibility as questionable, and expects the possibility of future policy reversal. The policy maker sets policies and public investment as to maximize the expected utility of a risk averse representative agent. We identify the need to tax private investment in the importable sector, and to subsidize private investment in the outward-oriented sector. We show that the signaling effect of public investment nay generate a positive externality for public investment in the outward sector, and a negative externality for public investment in the inward-oriented activity. We demonstrate that the elimination of sectorial private investment policies call for a rise in the public/private capital ratio in the outward-oriented activities, and a drop in that ratio in the inward-oriented activities. In the presence of an external credit ceiling, a higher degree of risk aversion increases the magnitude (without changing the nature) of the policies.
Financial Opening: Evidence and Policy Options
No full textThis paper evaluates the empirical evidence of increasing the chances of financial crises induced by opening up developing countries to short-term capital inflows, and appraises the various proposals made for mitigating the severity of financial crises. We point out that there is solid evidence that financial opening increases the chance of financial crises. There is more tenuous evidence that financial opening contributes positively to long-run growth. Hence, there may be a complex trade off between the adverse intermediate run and the beneficial long run effects of financial opening. The literature is abounded with proposals aimed at improving this intertemporal trade-off, reducing the costs of financial crises. A version of the Lucas critic may limit the welfare gain of these proposals. Hence, a better understanding of the structural characteristics leading to exposure and crises is the key for designing a successful restructuring of the global capital market. Some of the reforms may fall short of success due to coordination failure: they may be effective only if they were adopted comprehensively by all the relevant financial centers. Finally, some of the proposals may be too optimistic, ignoring the time inconsistency and political economy considerations, as well as presuming the ability to verify unambiguously the quality of adjustment.
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