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Innovation and Corporate Cash Holdings in the Era of Globalization
We document a broad-based trend in rising cash holdings of firms across major industrialized countries over the last two decades, a trend that is most pronounced for firms engaged strongly in R&D activities. Our contributions to the literature are twofold. First, we develop a simple model that brings together the insights from modern trade theory (Melitz, 2003) with those of contract theory in corporate finance (Holmström and Tirole, 1998) to show that increased openness to trade can result in rising returns to innovation and in turn greater demand for cash as firms insure against innovation-induced liquidity risk. Second, we derive sharp empirical predictions and find supporting evidence for them using firm-level data across major G7 countries during 1995-2014, a period that saw an unprecedented rise in globalization and business innovation.
The Rise in Corporate Saving and Cash Holding in Advanced Economies: Aggregate and Firm Level Trends
Using cross-country national accounts and firm-level data, we document a broad-based trend in rising gross saving and net lending of non-financial corporates across major industrialized countries over the last two decades, though most pronounced in countries with persistent current account surpluses. We find that this trend holds consistently across major industries, and is concentrated among large firms, driven by rising profitability, lower financing costs, and reduced tax rates. At the same time, higher gross corporate saving have not supported a commensurate increase in fixed capital investment, but instead led to a build-up of liquid financial assets (cash). The determinants of corporate cash holding and saving are also broad-based across countries, with the growth in assets of large firms, R&D intensity, and lower effective tax rates accounting for most of the increase over the last 15 years.
Demographics, Old-Age Transfers and the Current Account
Building on the evolving literature on the topic, this paper reviews the relationship between demographics and long-run capital flows in both theory and in the data. For this purpose, we develop a two region overlapping generations model where countries differ in their population growth and mortality risk. Besides exploring the implications of demographics for saving and the current account over the long-run, we also study how these might be affected by differences in the coverage and sustainability of old-age transfer schemes. The model predicts that population structure and life expectancy (which affects the need to save to meet old age consumption) affect current account levels, and that while countries with more generous unfunded transfer schemes tend to have lower saving and more capital inflows over the long-run, this effect may be dampened by natural limits (on taxation) of these schemes. The key predictions of the model are generally supported by a rich panel dataset.
Finance and Employment in Developing Countries: The Working Capital Channel
We study the effect of external financing constraint on job creation in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDC) at the firm level by looking at a specific transmission channel - the working capital channel. We develop a simple model to illustrate how the need for working capital financing of a firm affects the link between financial constraint and the firm's job creation. We show that the effect of relaxing financial constraint on job creation is greater the smaller the firm scale and the more labor-intensive its production structure. We use the World Bank Enterprise Surveys data to test the main predictions of the model, and find strong evidence for the working capital channel of external finance on firm employment.
The Economics of Belonging
A radical new approach to economic policy that addresses the symptoms and causes of inequality in Western society today Fueled by populism and the frustrations of the disenfranchised, the past few years have witnessed the widespread rejection of the economic and political order that Western countries built up after 1945. Political debates have turned into violent clashes between those who want to “take their country back” and those viewed as defending an elitist, broken, and unpatriotic social contract. There seems to be an increasing polarization of values. The Economics of Belonging argues that we should step back and take a fresh look at the root causes of our current challenges. In t...
Unconventional Fiscal Policy in Times of High Inflation
The surge in energy prices in 2022 has been a defining factor behind the increase in euro area inflation. We assess the impact of “unconventional fiscal policy,” defined as the set of fiscal measures, possibly expansionary, motivated by a desire to mute the effects of the increase in energy prices and to lower inflation. Overall, we find that these unconventional measures reduced euro area inflation by 1 to 2 percentage points in 2022 and may avoid an undershoot later on. When nonlinearities in the Phillips curve are taken into account, the net effect is to reduce inflation by about 0.5 percentage points in 2021-24, and keep it nearer to its target. About one-third to one-half of the red...
Cyprus
The Selected Issues Paper focuses on Cyprus' banking sector vulnerabilities and its pension system. The most salient risks for the banking sector come from commercial banks domiciled in Cyprus. These banks have the strongest links with the local economy and are likely to experience further deterioration of their loan portfolios in both Greece and Cyprus. The paper reveals that, in 2011, Cypriot banks face capital needs estimated at €3.6 billion on a preliminary basis.
External Sector Report 2022
Global current account balances—the overall size of current account deficits and surpluses—continued to widen in 2021 to 3.5 percent of world GDP, and are expected to widen again this year. The IMF’s multilateral approach suggests that global excess balances narrowed to 0.9 percent of world GDP in 2021 compared with 1.2 percent of world GDP in 2020. The pandemic has continued to affect economies’ current account balances unevenly through the travel and transportation sectors as well as a shift from services to goods consumption. Commodity prices recovered from the COVID-19 shock and started rising in 2021 with opposite effects on the external position of exporters and importers, a trend that the war in Ukraine is exacerbating in 2022. The medium-term outlook for global current account balances is a gradual narrowing as the impact of the pandemic fades away, commodity prices normalize, and fiscal consolidation in current account deficit economies progresses. However, this outlook is highly uncertain and subject to several risks. Policies to promote external rebalancing differ with positions and needs of individual economies.
Germany
This Selected Issues paper explores wealth inequality and private savings in Germany. Trends in increasing corporate profits and gross savings have widened top income inequality, as corporations are typically owned by households in the top of the wealth distribution. The impact on income inequality is more pronounced in countries where the rise in profitability was a result of lower wage growth and labor income shares to start with, as was the case in Germany. The evidence strongly suggests this is not the case and underscores the important role of German business wealth concentration in this context. As high corporate savings and underlying profits largely reflect capital income accruing to wealthy households and increasingly retained in closely-held firms, the build-up of external imbalance has been accompanied by widening top income inequality, rising private savings and compressed consumption rates. The concentration of privately held and publicly listed firm ownership in the hands of industrial dynasties and institutional investors is especially prevalent in Germany, possibly reflecting distortions in firm entry, financing conditions and tax incentives.
United States
The U.S. economy has turned in a remarkable performance over the past few years. Hysteresis effects from the pandemic did not materialize and both activity and employment now exceed pre-pandemic expectations. Real incomes were diminished by the unexpected rise in inflation in 2022 but have now risen above prepandemic levels. Job growth has been particularly fast, with 16 million new jobs created since end-2020. However, income and wealth gains have been uneven across the income distribution and poverty remains high, particularly following the expiration of pandemic era support. The outlook is for a continued healthy rate of growth with balanced risks around the baseline forecast.
