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The External Balance Assessment Methodology: 2018 Update
The assessment of external positions and exchange rates is a key mandate of the IMF. This paper presents the updated External Balance Assessment (EBA) framework—a key input in the conduct of multilaterally-consistent external sector assessments of 49 advanced and emerging market economies—following the two rounds of refinements adopted since the framework was introduced in 2012 (as described in Phillips et al., 2013). It also presents new complementary tools for shedding light on the role of structural factors in explaining external imbalances and assessing potential biases in the measurement of external positions. Remaining challenges and areas of future work are also discussed.
Foreign Exchange Intervention: A Dataset of Public Data and Proxies
Foreign exchange intervention (FXI) is a highly debated topic. Yet, comprehensive and comparable data on FXI is hard to find. This paper provides a new dataset of FXI covering a large number of countries over the period 2000-20 at monthly and quarterly frequencies. It includes publicly available data for about 40 countries and carefully constructed proxies for 122 countries. Proxies are focused on both spot and derivative transactions that alter the central bank’s foreign currency position and account for a wide range of central bank operations, including vis-à-vis residents, the first proxy to do so to our knowledge. The paper discusses the merits of the new proxy relative to coarser measures traditionally used like the change in reserves, and potential definitional differences with published data. The paper also presents stylized facts using our newly constructed FXI proxies.
Macroeconomic Impact of Foreign Exchange Intervention: Some Cross-country Empirical Findings
Based on VAR analyses across 26 countries, we show that, although foreign exchange intervention (FXI) is effective in stabilizing the nominal exchange rate in the short run, its impacts on the real exchange rate are less significant: Limitations on nominal exchange rate flexibility may induce adjustments to the real exchange rate through domestic prices. We find that countries that intervene more heavily in response to external shocks experience greater general and asset price volatility, which is not conducive to countering the impact of external shocks. We show that China’s macroeconomic responses to external shocks are broadly consistent with international experiences among intervening countries. The simple methodological framework adopted in this paper is meant to examine a broad set of macroeconomic variables and bears limitations; our findings serve to motivate more structural analysis on FXI’s macroeconomic impacts going forward.
Patterns of Foreign Exchange Intervention under Inflation Targeting
The paper documents the use of foreign exchange intervention (FXI) across countries and monetary regimes, with special attention to its use under inflation targeting (IT). We find significant differences between advanced and emerging market economies, with the former group conducting FXI limitedly and broadly symmetrically, while the use of this policy instrument in emerging market countries is pervasive and mostly asymmetric (biased towards purchasing foreign currency, even after taking into account precautionary motives). Within emerging markets, the use of FXI is common both under IT and non-IT regimes. We find no evidence of FXI being used in response to inflation developments, while there is strong evidence that FXI responds to exchange rates, indicating that IT central banks in EMDEs have dual inflation/exchange rate objectives. We also find a higher propensity to overshoot inflation targets in emerging market economies where FXI is more pervasive.
Preemptive Policies and Risk-Off Shocks in Emerging Markets
We show that “preemptive” capital flow management measures (CFM) can reduce emerging markets and developing countries’ (EMDE) external finance premia during risk-off shocks, especially for vulnerable countries. Using a panel dataset of 56 EMDEs during 1996–2020 at monthly frequency, we document that countries with preemptive policies in place during the five year window before risk-off shocks experienced relatively lower external finance premia and exchange rate volatility during the shock compared to countries which did not have such preemptive policies in place. We use the episodes of Taper Tantrum and COVID-19 as risk-off shocks. Our identification relies on a difference-in-differ...
OECD Economic Surveys: Switzerland 2024
Switzerland has proved resilient through the pandemic, geopolitical turmoil and reverberations in energy markets. Unemployment and inflation are low, and living standards are among the highest in the OECD. This is reinforced by a dynamic market-based economy, highly skilled workforce and prudent macroeconomic policies. Yet, slowing growth amid continued price pressures pose challenges. A tight monetary policy is necessary to ensure that inflation remains durably within the central bank’s target range. Although a broadly neutral fiscal stance is warranted in the short term, longer-term fiscal pressures call for structural reform to counter rising cost of ageing and to support the green transition. S
External Sector Report, 2020
Produced since 2012, the IMF’s annual External Sector Report analyzes global external developments and provides multilaterally consistent assessments of external positions, including current accounts, real exchange rates, external balance sheets, capital flows, and international reserves, of the world’s largest economies, representing over 90 percent of global GDP. Chapter 1 discusses the evolution of global external positions in 2019, external developments during the COVID-19 crisis, and policy priorities for responding to the crisis and for reducing excess imbalances over the medium term. Chapter 2 analyzes the relationship between the structure of external assets and liabilities—the...
Credit Cycles, Fiscal Policy, and Global Imbalances
We study the role that changes in credit and fiscal positions play in explaining current account fluctuations. Empirically, the current account declines when credit increases, and when the fiscal balance declines. We use a two-country model with financial frictions and fiscal policy to study these facts. We estimate the model using annual data for the U.S. and “a rest of the world” aggregate that includes main advanced economies. We find that about 30 percent of U.S. current account balance fluctuations are due to domestic credit shocks, while fiscal shocks explain about 14 percent. We evaluate simple macroprudential policy rules and show that they help reduce global imbalances. By taming the financial cycle, macroprudential rules that react to domestic credit conditions or to domestic house prices would have led to a smaller and less volatile U.S. current account deficit. We also show that a countercylical fiscal policy rule that stabilizes output growth reduces the level and volatility of the U.S. current account deficit.
Review of Implementation of The 2018 Framework for Enhanced Fund Engagement on Governance
This paper reviews the implementation of the “2018 Framework for Enhanced Fund Engagement on Governance” (the “2018 Governance Framework”). The Board adopted the 2018 Governance Framework to promote a more systematic, effective, candid, and evenhanded engagement with member countries regarding corruption of macro critical dimensions and governance vulnerabilities that allow corruption. Building upon various sources of information, including surveys with key stakeholders, the paper provides a comprehensive stocktaking of the Fund’s work in governance and corruption since 2018, and makes specific proposals to further improve implementation of the Framework.
