bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
When Would Educational Standards Help Improve Scholastic Achievement?
Authors: Iyigun Murat
Published: August 2019

I study the potential effects on student performance to be expected from setting mandatory standards in primary and secondary education. To that end, I present a model in which investment in education is indivisible. Thus, if demand exceeds supply at any level of education, allocation is carried out--at least in part--via test scores. The model highlights how the effectiveness of educational standards in altering student performance depends on the college and secondary school education premia, the stringency of standards, and the supply of college education--factors which together determine the competitiveness of college admissions. A relatively high college education premium raises the incentive to finish high school and apply to college, but the marginal benefit of meeting standards or the cost of non-compliance depend on the secondary education premium. Thus, the effects on student performance if education standards are raised may be relatively small when the secondary education premium is relatively low. Moreover, when the supply of higher education is relatively abundant so that college entrance is a non-competitive process, students' incentive to make their best effort diminishes, and in that case, the role of education premia--and therefore of standards--as incentives may be limited.
High Frequency Data, Frequency Domain Inference and Volatility Forecasting
Authors: Wright Jonathan H. , Bollerslev Tim
Published: August 2019

While it is clear that the volatility of asset returns is serially correlated, there is no general agreement as to the most appropriate parametric model for characterizing this temporal dependence. In this paper, we propose a simple way of modeling financial market volatility using high frequency data. The method avoids using a tight parametric model, by instead simply fitting a long autoregression to log-squared, squared or absolute high frequency returns. This can either be estimated by the usual time domain method, or alternatively the autoregressive coefficients can be backed out from the smoothed periodogram estimate of the spectrum of log-squared, squared or absolute returns. We show how this approach can be used to construct volatility forecasts, which compare favorably with some leading alternatives in an out-of-sample forecasting exercise.
Long Memory in Emerging Market Stock Returns
Authors: Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

Many authors have investigated the possibility of long memory in asset returns. Generally, very little evidence has been found for long memory in either stock returns or exchange rate returns. This paper applies the log-periodogram regression to a wide range of emerging market stock returns and finds some evidence for positive long memory in 7 of the 17 series considered.
Monetary Policy's Role in Exchange Rate Behavior
Authors: Faust Jon , Rogers John Harold
Published: August 2019

While much empirical work has addressed the role of monetary policy shocks in exchange rate behavior, conclusions have been clouded by the lack of plausible identifying assumptions. We apply a recently developed inference procedure allowing us to relax dubious identifying assumptions. This work overturns some earlier results and strengthens others: i) Contrary to earlier findings of "delayed overshooting," the peak exchange rate effect of policy shocks may come nearly immediately after the shock; ii) In every otherwise reasonable identification, monetary policy shocks lead to large uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) deviations; iii) Monetary policy shocks may account for a smaller portion of the variance of exchange rates than found in earlier estimates. While (i) is consistent with overshooting, (ii) implies that the overshooting cannot be driven by Dornbusch's mechanism, and (iii) gives reason to doubt whether monetary policy shocks are the main source of exchange rate volatility.
The Evolution and Determinants of Emerging Market Credit Spreads in the 1990s
Authors: Kamin Steven , von Kleist Karsten E. B.
Published: August 2019

This paper develops measures of emerging market credit spreads for the 1990s, based on data on new bond issues and bank loans, that cover a broader range of borrowers than the Brady bond spreads most commonly used to date. These measures are used to identify the impacts of credit ratings, maturity and currency denomination on spreads. We find important regional differences in spreads across the developing world, even after controlling for risk and maturity. We also identify the evolution of spreads during the 1990s up until the advent of the Asian financial crisis, holding other determinants constant, and find that emerging market spreads declined by more than can be explained by improvements in risk. However, for emerging market instruments with relatively favourable credit ratings, trends in spreads differed considerably from those experienced by Brady bonds. Finally, and in contrast to much market commentary, we find that variations in industrial country short-term interest rates explain relatively little of the decline in emerging market bond spreads. Longer-term trends, perhaps reflecting globalisation, along with the temporary impact of the Mexican financial crisis, may have been more important factors in the behaviour of emerging market spreads.
A Simple Approach to Robust Inference in a Cointegrating System
Authors: Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

Cointegration requires all the variables in the system to have exact unit roots; accordingly it is conventional for researchers to test for a unit root in each variable prior to a cointegration analysis. Unfortunately, these unit root tests are not powerful. Meanwhile, conventional cointegration methods are not at all robust to slight violations of the requirement that each variable have a unit root. In this paper I show how this difficulty may be circumvented by instrumenting the regressors in the cointegrating regression by deterministic polynomial time trends or by artificially generated random walks.
Distributions of Error Correction Tests for Cointegration
Authors: Ericsson Neil R. , MacKinnon James G.
Published: August 2019

This paper provides cumulative distribution functions, densities, and finite sample critical values for the single-equation error correction statistic for testing cointegration. Graphs and response surfaces summarize extensive Monte Carlo simulations and highlight simple dependencies of the statistic's quantiles on the number of variables in the error correction model, the choice of deterministic components, and the estimation sample size. The response surfaces provide a convenient way for calculating finite sample critical values at standard levels; and a computer program, freely available over the Internet, can be used to calculate both critical values and p-values. Three empirical examples illustrate these tools.
Do Indicators of Financial Crises Work? An Evaluation of an Early Warning System
Authors: Edison Hali J.
Published: August 2019

The object of this paper is to develop an operational early warning system (EWS) that can detect financial crises. To achieve this goal the paper analyzes and extends the early warning system developed by Kaminsky, Lizondo, and Reinhart (1998) and Kaminsky and Reinhart (1999) that is based on the "signal" approach. This system monitors several indicators that tend to exhibit an unusual behavior in the periods preceding a crisis. When an indicator exceeds (or falls below) a threshold, then it is said to issue a "signal" that a currency crisis may occur within a given period. The model does a fairly good job of anticipating some of the crises in 1997/1998, but several weaknesses to the approach are identified. The paper also evaluates how this system can be applied to an individual country. On balance, the results in this paper are mixed, but the results suggest that an early warning system should be thought of as a useful diagnostic tool.
Modeling the IMF's Statistical Discrepancy in the Global Current Account
Authors: Marquez Jaime R. , Workman Lisa
Published: August 2019

This paper offers a framework for judging when the discrepancy embodied in current-account forecasts is large. The first step in implementing this framework involves developing an econometric model explaining the components of the aggregate discrepancy, estimating the associated parameters, and generating the aggregate discrepancy's conditional expectation. The second step is to compare this model-based forecast with the discrepancy embodied in countries' current-account forecasts. If the gap in discrepancies is below a critical value, then the discrepancy embodied in the countries' current-account forecasts is not large. Otherwise, the discrepancy is large and calls for a careful re-examination of the associated current-account forecasts.
Common Stochastic Trends, Common Cycles, and Asymmetry in Economic Fluctuations
Authors: Kim Chang-Jin , Piger Jeremy Max
Published: August 2019

This paper investigates the nature of business cycle asymmetry using a dynamic factor model of output, investment, and consumption. We first identify a common stochastic trend and a common transitory component by embedding the permanent income hypothesis within a simple growth model. We then investigate two types of asymmetry commonly identified in U.S. business cycle dynamics: (1) Infrequent negative permanent shocks, modeled as shifts in the growth rate of the common stochastic trend and (2) infrequent negative transitory shocks, modeled as "plucking" deviations from the common stochastic trend. Tests of marginal significance suggest both types of asymmetry were present in post-war recessions, although the shifts in trend are less severe than the received literature suggests.
Markov Regime-Switching and Unit Root Tests
Authors: Piger Jeremy Max , Zivot Eric , Nelson Charles
Published: August 2019

We investigate the power and size performance of unit root tests when the true data generating process undergoes Markov regime-switching. All tests, including those robust to a single break in trend growth rate, have very low power against a process with a Markov-switching trend growth rate as in Lam (1990). However, for the case of business cycle non-linearities, unit root tests are very powerful against models used as alternatives to Lam (1990) that specify regime-switching in the transitory component of output. Under the null hypothesis, the received literature documents size distortions in Dickey-Fuller type tests caused by a single break in trend growth rate or variance. We find these results do not generalize to most parameterizations of Markov-switching in trend or variance. However, Markov-switching in variance can lead to over-rejection in tests robust to a single break in the level of trend.
Output and Inflation in the Long Run
Authors: Ericsson Neil R. , Irons John S. , Tryon Ralph W.
Published: August 2019

Cross-country regressions explaining output growth often obtain a negative effect from inflation. However, that result is not robust, due to the selection of countries in sample, temporal aggregation, and omission of consequential variables in levels. This paper demonstrates some implications of these mis-specifications, both analytically and empirically. In particular, for most G-7 countries, annual time series of inflation and the log-level of output are cointegrated, thus rejecting the existence of a long-run relation between output growth and inflation. Typically, output and inflation are positively related in these cointegrating relationships: a price markup model helps interpret this surprising feature.
The Geography of Capital Flows: What We Can Learn from Benchmark Surveys of Foreign Equity Holdings
Authors: Warnock Francis E. , Mason Molly
Published: August 2019

To provide insight into the accuracy of U.S. data on international equity transactions, we compare estimates of U.S. holdings of equities in over 40 countries with actual holdings given by comprehensive U.S. benchmark surveys. If the rate of return used to revalue U.S. holdings in a given country is accurate, accurate holdings estimates imply accurate transactions data. For some countries, such as Canada and much of Latin America, the holdings estimates are quite accurate. For the majority of countries, however, there is a great disparity between our estimates and actual amounts, likely because U.S. data on international equity transactions record the country of the transactor, not the country of the issuer. Our estimates are far too high for financial centers--because many U.S. transactions that go through these countries involve securities issued in other countries--and far too low in most other countries, particularly in Europe and Asia. To illustrate the potential pitfalls of using estimated country-specific holdings data, we briefly present two cases in which the use of actual data leads to different conclusions. One case examines the determinants of U.S. equity holdings across countries; the other concerns the turnover rate of foreign equity portfolios.
Size, Charter Value and Risk in Banking: An International Perspective
Authors: De Nicoló Gianni
Published: August 2019

This paper documents the relationships between bank size and measures of charter value and insolvency risk in a sample of publicly traded banks in 21 industrialized countries for the 1988-1998 period. With the exception of small U.S. bank holding companies, charter values decrease in size and insolvency risk increases in size for most banks in the countries considered. Size-related diversification benefits and/or economies of scale in intermediation are either absent or, if they exist, are more than offset by banks' higher risk taking. Furthermore, banks operating in countries with more developed financial markets exhibit lower insolvency risk, and those operating in countries with either stricter regulation on banks' permissible activities or larger share of bank assets under state ownership exhibit higher insolvency risk. Overall, our evidence is at variance with some broad implications of modern financial intermediation theory, and suggests that absent future structural changes in banking markets of developed countries, bank consolidation is likely to result in an average increase in banks' insolvency risk.
News and Noise in G-7 GDP Announcements
Authors: Faust Jon , Rogers John Harold , Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

Revisions to GDP announcements are known to be quite large in all G-7 countries: many revisions in quarterly GDP growth are over a full percentage point at an annualized rate. In this paper, we examine the predictability of these data revisions. Previous work suggests that U.S. GDP revisions are largely unpredictable, as would be the case if the revisions reflect news not available at the time that the preliminary number is produced. We find that the degree of predictability varies throughout the G-7. For the U.S., the revisions are very slightly predictable, but for Italy, Japan and the UK, about half the variability of subsequent revisions can be accounted for by information available at the time of the preliminary announcement. For these countries, it appears that revisions reflect, to a significant degree, the removal of noise from the preliminary numbers, rather than the arrival of news.
Current Account Adjustment in Industrialized Countries
Authors: Freund Caroline L.
Published: August 2019

This paper examines the dynamics of current account adjustment among industrialized countries. We identify twenty-five episodes in which a large sustained improvement in the current account occurred between 1980 and 1997. We find that a typical current account reversal begins when the current account deficit is about 5 percent of GDP, that it is associated with slowing income growth and a 10-20 percent real exchange rate depreciation. Real export growth, declining investment, and an eventual leveling off in both the net international investment position and the budget deficit-GDP ratio are also likely to be part of the adjustment. These results suggest that current account reversals in industrialized countries are largely a function of the business cycle.
Patience, Persistence, and Welfare Costs of Incomplete Markets in Open Economies
Authors: Kim Jinill , Kim Sunghyun H. , Levin Andrew
Published: August 2019

In this paper, we investigate the welfare implications of alternative financial market structures in a two-country endowment economy model. In particular, we obtain an analytic expression for the expected lifetime utility of the representative household when sovereign bonds are the only internationally traded asset, and we compare this welfare level with that obtained under complete asset markets. The welfare cost of incomplete markets is negligible if agents are very patient and shocks are not very persistent, but this cost is dramatically larger if agents are relatively impatient and shocks are highly persistent. For realistic cases in which agents are very patient and shocks are highly persistent (that is, the discount factor and the first-order autocorrelation are both near unity), the welfare cost of incomplete markets is highly sensitive to the specific values of these parameters. Finally, using a non-linear solution algorithm, we confirm that a two-country production economy with endogenous labor supply has qualitatively similar welfare properties.
Home Bias and High Turnover Reconsidered
Authors: Warnock Francis E.
Published: August 2019

That foreign equities are underweighted but overtraded has become a stylized fact of international\nfinance. Since stylized facts drive research, theoretical models have been developed to explain the puzzling\ncoexistence of home bias and high turnover, and researchers have dismissed transaction costs as a plausible\nexplanation of home bias. I show, however, that part of the puzzle\xe2\x80\x94very high turnover rates on foreign\nequity portfolios\xe2\x80\x94is based on inaccurate estimates of cross-border holdings. Foreign turnover rates\ncalculated using information from comprehensive benchmark surveys on cross-border holdings are much\nlower than previously reported and comparable to domestic turnover rates. Thus, researchers should no\nlonger develop theoretical models to explain the coexistence of home bias and high turnover, and the\nrelationship between transaction costs and home bias warrants reexamination. On the latter point, the basic\nintuition from Tesar and Werner (1995) that transaction costs do not help explain the observed home bias\nis confirmed using actual data on transaction costs in 41 markets.
Home Bias and High Turnover Reconsidered
Authors: Warnock Francis E.
Published: August 2019

The Tesar and Werner (1995) finding of very high turnover rates on foreign equity portfolios is based on an underestimation of cross-border equity positions. Foreign turnover rates calculated using information from comprehensive benchmark surveys on cross-border holdings are much lower than previously reported and comparable to domestic turnover rates. However, the basic intuition from the Tesar-Werner study, that transaction costs do not help explain the observed home bias, is confirmed using data on transaction costs in 41 markets.
Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Pass-Through
Authors: Gagnon Joseph E. , Ihrig Jane
Published: August 2019

Recent research suggests that the pass-through of exchange rate changes into domestic inflation has declined in many countries since the 1980s. We develop a theoretical model that attributes the change in pass-through (defined as the correlation of inflation with exchange rate changes) to increased emphasis on inflation stabilization by many central banks. This hypothesis is tested on eleven industrial countries between 1971 and 2000. We find widespread evidence of both a decline in pass-through and a decline in the variability of inflation in the 1990s. We also find a statistically significant link between measured pass-through and inflation variability. However, our efforts to correlate the decline in pass-through with estimated changes in monetary policy behavior are inconclusive due to poor estimates of policy behavior.
An Empirical Comparison of Bundesbank and ECB Monetary Policy Rules
Authors: Faust Jon , Wright Jonathan H. , Rogers John Harold
Published: August 2019

We estimate a monetary policy reaction function for the Bundesbank and use it as a benchmark to assess the monetary policy of the ECB since the launch of the euro in January 1999. We find that euro interest rates are low relative to this benchmark. We consider several possible reasons for this, including the divergence between core and headline inflation, inflation having turned out to be higher than could have been foreseen by the ECB and the possibility that the ECB is focussing only on macroeconomic conditions in a subset of member countries. We argue that these potential explanations cannot account for the difference between recent interest rates and our estimated Bundesbank benchmark. Our results suggest that the reaction function of the ECB features a high weight on the output gap relative to the weight on inflation, compared to the Bundesbank.
Interpreting the Volatility Smile: An Examination of the Information Content of Option Prices
Authors: Weinberg Steven A.
Published: August 2019

This paper evaluates how useful the information contained in options prices is for predicting future price movements of the underlying assets. We develop an improved semiparametric methodology for estimating risk-neutral probability density functions (PDFs), which allows for skewness and intertemporal variation in higher moments. We use this technique to estimate a daily time series of risk-neutral PDFs spanning the late 1980's through 1999, for S&amp;amp;P; 500 futures, U.S. dollar/Japanese yen futures and U.S. dollar/deutsche mark futures, using options on these futures. For the foreign exchange futures, we find little discernable additional information contained in the estimated PDFs beyond the information derived from the Black-Scholes model, a fully parametric specification. For S&amp;amp;P; 500 futures, we find that the risk-neutral distribution implied by the volatility smile better fits the realized returns than the Black-Scholes model, although this better overall fit is not exhibited in the second and third moments.
The Less Volatile U.S. Economy: A Bayesian Investigation of Timing, Breadth and Potential Explanations
Authors: Kim Chang-Jin , Nelson Charles , Piger Jeremy Max
Published: August 2019

Using Bayesian tests for a structural break at an unknown break date, we search for a volatility reduction within the post-war sample for the growth rates of U.S. aggregate and disaggregate real GDP. We find that the growth rate of aggregate real GDP has been less volatile since the early 1980's, and that this volatility reduction is concentrated in the cyclical component of real GDP. The growth rates of many of the broad production sectors of real GDP display similar reductions in volatility, suggesting the aggregate volatility reduction does not have a narrow source. We also find a large volatility reduction in aggregate final sales mirroring that in aggregate real GDP. We contrast this evidence to an existing literature documenting an aggregate volatility reduction that is shared by only one narrow sub-component, the production of durable goods, and is not present in final sales. In addition to the volatility reduction in real GDP, we document structural breaks in the volatility and persistence of inflation and interest rates occurring over a similar time frame as the volatility reduction in real GDP.
A Simple Measure of the Intensity of Capital Controls
Authors: Edison Hali J. , Warnock Francis E.
Published: August 2019

We present a readily available monthly measure of the intensity of capital controls across 29 emerging market countries that is based on the degree of restrictions on foreign ownership of equities. The initial opening of a market as given by our measure corresponds well with the liberalization dates of Bekaert and Harvey (2000a). In addition, our measure provides information on the extent of the initial opening as well as the evolution of the liberalization over time. We discuss two versions of the measure. One version provides the better indication of the extent of controls at a point in time, and is thus better suited for cross-sectional analysis. The other version—smoothed of the relative price effects of asymmetric shocks provides a better indication of changes in controls, and is thus more appropriate for time series work. After describing the measure, we compare it to other existing measures of capital controls and briefly describe some empirical applications.
Exchange-Rate Exposure of Multinationals: Focusing on Exchange-Rate Issues
Authors: Ihrig Jane
Published: August 2019

This paper examines exchange-rate exposure of multinationals (MNEs) in light of detailed exchange rate data. Specifically, using MNE-specific exchange rates and accounting for the possibility that exchange-rate crises may impact a firm differently than periods of normal fluctuations, estimates suggest ¼ of all MNEs had significant exchange rate exposure between 1995 and 1999. On average, significant exposure is estimated to be 0.68, indicating that a firm's monthly return falls, on average, by 0.68 percentage points when the dollar appreciates one percent. This encompasses periods where there are normal fluctuations in the exchange rate and the average exposure is estimated to be 0.55, as well as crisis periods where the average exposure is estimated to be 2.8. Finally, results illustrate that MNEs operating in more than 20 countries (having more than 30 subsidiaries) have twice the exposure of MNEs operating in one country (having one subsidiary).
Testing Optimality in Job Search Models
Authors: Schindler John W.
Published: August 2019

This paper uses Bayesian techniques to compare three definitions of optimality for the basic job search model: the standard income-maximizing definition, an approximation to the standard definition, and a simple alternative. The important role of prior choice in these comparisons is illustrated. Using natural conjugate priors to represent hypothetical samples of data, we find that the simple alternative is preferred to the standard definition of optimality. However, using priors constructed from findings in the literature, we are able to find some evidence in favor of the standard definition of optimality.
The Contribution of Domestic and External Factors to Emerging Market Devaluation Crises: An Early Warning Systems Approach
Authors: Kamin Steven , Schindler John W. , Samuel Shawna L.
Published: August 2019

In this paper, a modified "early warning system" (EWS) approach is developed to identify the roles of domestic and external factors in emerging market crises. Several probit models of financial crises were estimated for 26 emerging market countries. These models were used to identify the separate contributions to the probabilities of crisis of domestic and external variables. We found that, relative to domestic factors, adverse external shocks and large external imbalances contributed little to the average estimated probability of crisis in emerging market countries, but accounted for much more of the spikes in the probability of crisis estimated to occur during actual crisis years. We interpret these results to suggest that while, on average over time, domestic factors have tended to contribute to much of the underlying vulnerability of emerging market countries, adverse swings in external factors may have been important in pushing economies "over the edge" and into financial crisis. In consequence, the costs of giving up exchange rate flexibility through adoption of strongly fixed exchange rate regimes--e.g., currency boards or dollarization--may be quite high for some countries.
On the Sequencing of Projects, Reputation Building, and Relationship Finance
Authors: Egli Dominik , Ongena Steven , Smith David C.
Published: August 2019

We study the decision an entrepreneur faces in financing multiple projects and show that relationship financing will arise endogenously in an environment where strategic defaults are likely, even when firms have access to arm's-length financing. Relationship financing allows an entrepreneur to build a private reputation for repayment that reduces the cost of financing. However, in an environment where the risk of strategic default is low, the benefits from reputation building are outweighed by holdup rents extractable by the incumbent lender. Entrepreneurs then choose to finance projects from single or multiple arm's-length lenders.
Inflation Targeting and Nominal Income Growth Targeting: When and Why Are They Suboptimal?
Authors: Kim Jinill , Henderson Dale W.
Published: August 2019

We derive optimal monetary stabilization rules and compare them to simple rules under both full and partial information. The nominal interest rate is the instrument of monetary policy. Special attention is devoted to inflation targeting and nominal-income-growth targeting. We use an optimizing-agent model of a closed economy which features monopolistic competition in both product and labor markets. A stabilization problem exists because there are one-period nominal contracts, either for wages alone or for both wages and prices, and three shocks that are unknown when contracts are signed. In order to highlight basic theoretical results, we deliberately keep our model simple enough that we can obtain exact solutions. Optimal rules maximize the expected utility of the representative agent subject to the information set of the policymaker. A key result, possibly surprising at first, is that even with monopolistic competition, the optimal full information policy makes the economy mimic the hypothetical equilibrium with flexible prices and wages. We explain why strict versions of inflation targeting, nominal income growth targeting, and other such simple rules are suboptimal under both full and partial information and derive flexible versions that are optimal under certain partial information assumptions. Nominal income growth targeting dominates inflation targeting for plausible parameter values.
Identifying VARs Based on High Frequency Futures Data
Authors: Faust Jon , Swanson Eric T. , Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

Using the prices of federal funds futures contracts, we measure the impact of the surprise component of Federal Reserve policy decisions on the expected future trajectory of interest rates. We show how this information can be used to identify the effects of a monetary policy shock in a standard monetary policy VAR. This constitutes an alternative approach to identification that is quite different, and, we would argue, more plausible, than the conventional short-run restrictions. We find that the usual recursive identification of the model is rejected, but we nevertheless agree with the literature's conclusion that only a small fraction of the variance of output can be attributed to monetary policy shocks.
Financial Centers and the Geography of Capital Flows
Authors: Warnock Francis E. , Cleaver Chad
Published: August 2019

We examine an assumption common in empirical work on bilateral portfolio capital flows that the countries the flows are attributed to are also the countries of the securityâ s issuer, seller, or ultimate buyer. We do this by estimating U.S. investorsâ holdings of debt and equities in over 40 countries and, for the same countries, foreign investorsâ holdings of U.S. debt and equities. A comparison of our estimates with data from benchmark surveys provides insight into U.S. data on international debt and equity transactions. We find that, contrary to the common assumption, the data do not track the location of U.S. investment or the location of investors in U.S. assets very well. Because the U.S. portfolio flow data collection system was designed to measure cross-border transactions with foreign counterparties who are often intermediaries, the majority of the flows are attributed to financial centers. By aggregating our country-level estimates, we find that U.S. data accurately portray net inflows into U.S. equities and net outflows into foreign bonds. However, the data substantially overcount net inflows into U.S. bonds and may undercount net outflows into foreign equities. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for research on capital flows.
Factor Endowments and Industrial Structure
Authors: Reeve Trevor A.
Published: August 2019

What determines industrial structure? Do sector-specific characteristics such as unionization, regulation, and trade policy dominate production patterns? One is inclined to believe so based on countless industry-level studies and the many political battles that are continually fought over trade and industrial policy. In contrast, standard neoclassical trade theory suggests that industrial structure is primarily driven by relative factor supplies. This paper demonstrates that aggregate factor endowments explain much of the structure of production---independent of industry idiosyncrasies---and quantifies the extent to which shifts in industrial structure in a cross section of countries are driven by the broad forces of factor accumulation. This result has important implications for policy. In particular, investment in physical capital and education may have as great an impact on the pattern of production as sector-specific trade and industrial policies. Thus, general equilibrium effects should not be ignored in efforts either to understand industrial structure or to form policies that attempt to alter it. These conclusions are reached through an empirical application of the factor proportions model of production.
Testing the Null of Identification in GMM
Authors: Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

This paper proposes a new test of the null hypothesis that a generalized method of moments model is identified. The test can detect local or global underidentification, and underidentification in some or all directions. The idea of the test is to compare the volume of two confidence sets - one that is robust to lack of identification and one that is not. Under the null hypothesis the relative volume of these two sets is Op(1), but under the alternative, the robust confidence set has infinite relative volume.
Productivity, Investment, and Current Accounts: Reassessing the Evidence
Authors: Marquez Jaime R.
Published: August 2019

The most widely accepted explanation for the inverse association between private investments and current accounts [Glick and Rogoff, 1995] rests on data for manufactures through 1990. Is this consensus robust to revisions to the national accounts and the expansion of information technologies since 1990? To address this question I replicate their results and I find that post 1990 developments eliminate the support for such a conclusion. I also implement alternative formulations and find, again, a lack of empirical support for their findings. Thus I examine the role of measurement errors and focus on the treatment of the manufacturing sector as representative of the whole economy and the exclusion of the contribution of capital when measuring productivity. Correcting these two measurement errors restores to Glick and Rogoff's conclusion its original strength.
Monetary Policy and the Financial Accelerator in a Monetary Union
Authors: Gilchrist Simon , Hairault Jean-Olivier , Kempf Hubert
Published: August 2019

In this paper, we consider the effect of a monetary union in a model with a significant role for financial market imperfections. We do so by introducing a financial accelerator into a stochastic general equilibrium macro model of a two country economy. We show that financial market imperfections introduce important cross-country transmission mechanisms to asymmetric shocks to supply and demand. Within this framework, we study the likely costs and benefits of monetary union. We also consider the effects of cross-country heterogeneity in financial markets. Both the presence of financial frictions and the use of a single currency have significant impacts on the international propagation of exogenous shocks. The introduction of asymmetries in the financial contract widens the difference in cyclical behavior of national economies in a monetary union, but financial integration compensates the loss of policy instruments.
International Coordination of Macroeconomic Policies: Still Alive in the New Millennium?
Authors: Meyer Laurence H. , Doyle Brian M. , Gagnon Joseph E. , Henderson Dale W.
Published: August 2019

In this paper we provide two building blocks for an analysis of international policy coordination: (1) a survey of models of policy coordination, and (2) an account of experience with policy coordination among the G-7 countries and within Europe since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System. Using these building blocks, we investigate the correspondence between the models and experience and attempt to draw lessons for both the modelers and the practitioners. We find that the correspondence is close enough that the models help in analyzing several instances of actual policy coordination, but that the correspondence could be even closer. As for lessons for modelers, we suggest that they devote more attention to the analysis of information exchange, a key feature of practical policy coordination; to the coordination of different types of policies; to the ramifications of political divisions within countries; and to the implications of market irrationality and speculative bubbles. As for lessons for policy makers, we suggest that they give more consideration to the choice of their ultimate objectives, in particular to whether the current account should always be close to balance; to achieving better internal policies; and to the greater use of fiscal policy as a stabilization tool.
International Comparisons of Productivity Growth: The Role of Information Technology and Regulatory Practices
Authors: Gust Christopher J. , Marquez Jaime R.
Published: August 2019

While information technologies (IT) are credited with the recent acceleration in productivity in the United States, many other industrial countries have not experienced a pickup in productivity growth. To explain this productivity divergence, we use panel data from 1992 to 1999 for 13 industrial countries and find that this divergence is driven in part by differences in both the production and adoption of information technologies. Based on this finding, we proceed to investigate what factors might play a role in explaining differences in IT adoption. Our results support the view that burdensome regulatory environments and in particular regulations affecting labor market practices have impeded the adoption of information technologies and slowed productivity growth in a number of industrial countries. We then develop a theoretical model with vintage capital and labor to evaluate the effect of more stringent labor market regulations on a firm's decision to adopt new technologies. We establish conditions under which a tax on firing workers delays the adoption of IT technology. These conditions occur when technological change is skill-biased and a firm must upgrade the quality of its workforce through labor turnover. The resulting delay in adopting IT technology then has negative implications for economy-wide productivity and is largely consistent with our empirical results.
Recent U.S. Macroeconomic Stability: Good Policies, Good Practices, or Good Luck?
Authors: Ahmed Shaghil , Levin Andrew , Wilson Beth Anne
Published: August 2019

The volatility of U.S. real GDP growth since 1984 has been markedly lower than that over the previous quarter-century. In this paper, we utilize frequency-domain and VAR methods to distinguish among several competing explanations for this phenomenon: improvements in monetary policy, better business practices, and a fortuitous reduction in exogenous disturbances. We find that reduced innovation variances account for much of the decline in aggregate output volatility. Our results support the "good-luck" hypothesis as the leading explanation for the decline in aggregate output volatility, although "good-practices" and "good-policy" are also contributing factors. Applying the same methods to consumer price inflation, we find that the post-1984 decline in inflation volatility can be attributed largely to improvements in monetary policy.
Are Depreciations as Contractionary as Devaluations? A Comparison of Selected Emerging and Industrial Economies
Authors: Ahmed Shaghil , Gust Christopher J. , Kamin Steven , Huntley Jonathan
Published: August 2019

According to conventional models, flexible exchange rates play an equilibrating role in open economies, depreciating in response to adverse shocks, boosting net exports, and stimulating aggregate demand. However, critics argue that, at least in developing countries, devaluations are more contractionary and more inflationary than conventional theories would predict. Yet, it is not clear whether devaluations per se have led to adverse outcomes, or rather the disruptive abandonments of pegged exchange-rate regimes associated with devaluations. To explore this hypothesis, we estimate VAR models to compare the responses to devaluation of developing economies and two types of industrial economies: those that have consistently floated, and those that have sustained fixed exchange-rate regimes as well. We find that both of these types of industrial economies exhibit conventional (i.e., expansionary) responses to devaluation shocks, compared with the contractionary responses exhibited by developing countries. This finding suggests that exchange rate movements may be more destabilizing in developing countries than in industrial countries, regardless of exchange rate regime.
International Monetary Policy Coordination and Financial Market Integration
Authors: Sutherland Alan
Published: August 2019

The welfare gains from international coordination of monetary policy are analysed in a two-country model with sticky prices. The gains from coordination are compared under two alternative structures for financial markets: financial autarky and risk sharing. The welfare gains from coordination are found to be largest when there is risk sharing and the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods is greater than unity. When there is no risk sharing the gains to coordination are almost zero. It is also shown that the welfare gain from risk sharing can be negative when monetary policy is uncoordinated.
Long-Run Supply Effects and the Elasticities Approach to Trade
Authors: Gagnon Joseph E.
Published: August 2019

Krugman (1989) argued that differences across countries in estimated income elasticities of import demand are due to omission of an exporter supply effect. He showed that such an effect can be derived in a theoretical model with economies of scale in production and a taste for variety in consumption. In his model, countries grow by producing new varieties of goods, and they are able to export these goods without suffering any deterioration in their terms of trade. This paper analyzes U.S. import demand from different source countries and finds strong evidence of a supply effect of roughly half the magnitude (0.75) of the income elasticity (1.5). Price elasticities for the most part are estimated close to -1, which is typical for the literature. Exclusion of the supply effect leads to overestimation of the income elasticity. Results based on U.S. exports to different destinations are less robust, but largely corroborate these findings.
Was There Front Running During the LTCM Crisis?
Authors: Cai Fang
Published: August 2019

This paper uses a unique dataset of audit trail transactions to examine the trading behavior of market makers in the Treasury bond futures market when Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) faced binding margin constraints in 1998. Although identities are concealed in the dataset, I find strong evidence that during the crisis market makers in the aggregate engaged in front running against customer orders from a particular clearing firm (coded "PI7") that closely match various features of LTCM's trades through Bear Stearns. That is, market makers traded on their own accounts in the same direction as PI7 customers did, but one or two minutes beforehand. Furthermore, a significant percentage of market makers made abnormal profits on most of the trading days during the crisis. Their aggregate abnormal profits, however, were more than offset by abnormal losses realized after the private sector recapitalization of LTCM. Moreover, I show that before the rescue, a market maker's cumulative abnormal profit was positively correlated both to her tie as contra party with PI7 and to the intensity of her front running, but these relationships turned negative after the rescue. The overall evidence suggests that the recapitalization plan effectively relaxed LTCM's binding constraints and therefore reversed the profitability of front running.
The Present-Value Model of the Current Account Has Been Rejected: Round Up the Usual Suspects
Authors: Nason James M. , Rogers John Harold
Published: August 2019

Tests of the present-value model of the current account are frequently rejected by the data. Standard explanations rely on the "usual suspects" of non-separable preferences, shocks to fiscal policy and the world real interest rate, and imperfect international capital mobility. We confirm these rejections on post-war Canadian data, then investigate their source by calibrating and simulating alternative versions of a small open economy, real business cycle model. Monte Carlo experiments reveal that, although each of the suspects matters in some way, a "canonical" RBC model moves closest to the data when it features exogenous world real interest rate shocks.
Are Financially Dollarized Countries More Prone to Costly Crises?
Authors: Arteta Carlos
Published: August 2019

In view of the role of liability dollarization in recent financial crises, whether or not the widespread presence of foreign-currency-denominated deposits and credits in developing-country banking systems leads to greater financial fragility is an open and pressing question. Using a comprehensive dataset on deposit and credit dollarization for a large number of developing and transition economies, I find little evidence that high dollarization heightens the probability of banking crises or currency crashes. Furthermore, while empirical results suggest that banking crises and currency crashes are contractionary, there is no robust evidence that they are more costly in highly dollarized countries than in countries where dollarization is low. This extensive empirical search highlights that macroeconomic and exchange rate policies are far more important than bank dollarization in determining crisis risks and costs.
Distance, Time, and Specialization
Authors: Evans Carolyn L. , Harrigan James
Published: August 2019

Time is money, and distance matters. We model the interaction of these truisms, and show the implications for global specialization and trade: products where timely delivery is important will be produced near the source of final demand, where wages will be higher as a result. In the model, timely delivery is important because it allows retailers to respond to fluctuating final demand without holding costly inventories, and timely delivery is only possible from nearby locations. Using a unique dataset that allows us to measure the retail demand for timely delivery, we show that the sources of US apparel imports have shifted in the way predicted by the model, with products where timeliness matters increasingly imported from nearby countries.