27 research outputs found
Dollarization and semi-dollarization in Ecuador
No full textOver the 1980s and 1990s, GDP growth had stagnated because of oil export price volatility and natural disasters, the sacrifice of capital formation to heavy external public debt service, and incomplete and uneven structural reform. The exchange rate depreciation that proved continually necessary to sustain the net-export surplus and limit external debt accumulation induced Ecuadorians to dollarize spontaneously. The 1998 shocks affected real economic activity--hence bank loan portfolios, and widened the fiscal and current acccount deficits. The external imbalance led to exchange rate depreciation. Dollar-denominated bank loans whose borrowers lacked dollar income increasingly turned non-performing. At the same time, the depreciation swelled the locla currency value of dollar deposit liabilities. Many depositors, fearing that banks had become unsafe, withdrew, and over 1999 the Central Bank had to provide banks massive liquidity support. By year's end, the resulting monetary issue ledto the exchange rate collapse and incipient hyperinflation that forced the move to full dollarization. Ecuador's Central Bank will continue operating, using its foreign exchange holdings to carry out limited liquidity management and lender-of-last-resort activities. Ecuador's public accounts and banking system remain vulnerable to commodity-price and natural shocks. Exchange rate adjustment and monetary expansion are no longer available, however, to manage the external accounts, accommodate the public deficit, or assist failing banks. Further structural reform remains essential to assure fiscal discipline and banking system safety.Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Financial Intermediation
Spectrums of investment in Doctor Who fandom
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Drawing upon a significant weight of empirical data, collected in the field, this thesis proposes a set of four spectrums of investment engaged in by cult media fans: the spectrum of financial investment; the spectrum of what is here termed 'participatory investment'; the spectrum of investment in the idea of textual authenticity; and the spectrum of multiple investments. The spectrum model allows the individual members of the research sample to be located within specific regions of each spectrum and correlations to be drawn between the distinct spectrums, in order for any patterns which emerge to be examined. The thesis also reviews a number of relevant theoretical concerns such as fan studies, ethnography and social psychology
The mirage of floating exchange rates
No full textThis note summarizes some of the highlights of my longer paper with Guillermo Calvo”Fear of Floating.” Many emerging market countries have suffered financial crises. One view blames soft pegs for these crises. Adherents to that view suggest that countries move to corner solutions--hard pegs or floating exchange rates. We analyze the behavior of exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates to assess whether there is evidence that country practice is moving toward corner solutions. We focus on whether countries that claim they are floating are indeed doing so. We find that countries that say they allow their exchange rate to float mostly do not--there seems to be an epidemic case of “fear of floating.”fear of floating fixed exchange rates interest rates reserves
A pump-and-probe method for the characterization of nonlinear material parameters within Fabry-Pérot microcavities
No full textThe Transmission of World Shocks to Emerging-Market Countries: An Empirical Analysis
No full textThe first step in designing effective policies to stabilize an economy is to understand business cycles. No country is isolated from the world economy and external shocks are becoming increasingly important. The author documents the sources of macroeconomic fluctuations in 22 emerging-market countries, and measures two specific shocks that could be transmitted from one country to another: a world real output shock and a world real interest rate shock. Her analysis shows that there are major differences in the transmission mechanism across emerging-market countries. To assess whether they are due to different economic structures or to the exchange rate regime, she divides the sample into groups of countries. The results indicate that the exchange rate regime is a critical factor, although restrictions on capital flows also play a crucial role. The author also shows that regional groups and trade openness do not play as important a role as the exchange rate regime and capital flows in determining the transmission of business cycles.International topics; Exchange rate regimes; Transmission of monetary policy
Design study of a hosted Arctic imager for weather and climate monitoring in the polar regions
No full textGlobal Imbalances and the Current Account Adjustment Process: An Empirical Analysis
No full textThis paper investigates the impact of the exchange rate regime on the current account adjustment process. In a first step, the present analysis assesses previous empirical work supporting the predominant view that more flexible exchange rate regimes facilitate current account adjustments. Using a FGLS estimator with fixed effects and panel corrected standard errors, the author draws upon the methodological approaches of two pertinent papers. The data set encompasses data for 171 countries for the 1970 to 2008 period. According to the fixed effects estimations, evidence in favor of the "conventional wisdom" does not prove to be robust. After pointing out fundamental weaknesses of the fixed effects estimator within this context, the author performs a dynamic panel estimation using a System GMM estimator fully developed in Blundell and Bond (1998). The results of this approach stand in contrast to the previous estimations, providing solid empirical evidence in favor of the predominant view. A monotonic relationship between exchange rate regime flexibility and the rate of current account reversion can be observed, indicating faster current account convergence for more flexible regimes. By employing an estimator that is more germane to the issue under investigation, the paper fills an important gap between economic common sense and its underlying empirics.Current account adjustment process, current account imbalances, exchange rate regime flexibility
