You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
We estimate shocks that explain most of the variation in the current account at business cycle frequencies and over the long run. We then explore, using a standard open-economy macro model, which macroeconomic shocks are behind the empirical dominant drivers of the current account at business-cycle frequency. Rather than financial shocks or aggregate shocks to supply or demand, shocks to the relative demand between home and foreign goods are found to play a pivotal role in current account dynamics.
Over the past two years, the IMF staff has been developing a new multicountry macroeconomic model called the Global Economy Model (GEM). This paper explains why such a model is needed, how GEM differs from its predecessor model, and how the new features of the model can improve the IMF’s policy analysis. The paper is aimed at a general audience and avoids technical detail. It outlines the motivation, structure, strengths, and limitations of the model; examines three simulation exercises that have been completed; and discusses the future path of GEM.
Several emerging market central banks in Europe deployed asset purchase programs (APPs) amid the 2020 pandemic. The common main goals were to address market dysfunction and impaired monetary transmission, distinct from the quantitative easing conducted by major advanced economy central banks. Likely reflecting the global nature of the crisis, these APPs defied the traditional emerging market concern of destabilizing the exchange rate or inflation expectations and instead alleviated markets successfully. We uncover some evidence that APPs in European emerging markets stabilized government bond markets and boosted equity prices, with no indication of exchange rate pressure. Examining global an...
The populations of Central and Eastern European (CESEE) countries—with the exception of Turkey—are expected to decrease significantly over the next 30 years, driven by low or negative net birth rates and outward migration. These changes will have significant implications for growth, living standards and fiscal sustainability.
Demographic developments have been regarded as one important cause of the long-term movement in global interest rates. This paper provides empirical evidence of the relationship between demographics and interest rates over a wide sample of advanced and emerging market economies. It also finds that capital account openness limits the direct sensitivity of a country’s interest rates to its own demographics. The results suggest that future demographic developments will continue to apply downward pressure on the interest rates in Asia which foresees a rapid aging.
The driving force of U.S. economic growth is expected to rotate from the fiscal stimulus and inventory rebuilding in 2009 to private demand in 2010, with consumption and particularly investment expected to be important contributors to growth. The strength of U.S. investment will hence be a crucial issue for the U.S. and global recovery. On the basis of several traditional models of investment, we forecast that the U.S. investment in equipment and software will grow by about 10 percent on average over the 2010-12 period. The contribution of investment to real GDP growth will be 0.8 percentage points on average over the same period.
This paper compares the importance of precautionary and mercantilist motives in the hoarding of international reserves by developing countries. Overall, empirical results support precautionary motives; in particular, a more liberal capital account regime increases international reserves. Theoretically, large precautionary demand for international reserves arises as a self-insurance to avoid costly liquidation of long-term projects when the economy is susceptible to sudden stops. The welfare gain from the optimal management of international reserves is of a first-order magnitude, reducing the welfare cost of liquidity shocks from a first-order to a second-order magnitude.
We revisit the time-honored link between productivity and the real exchange rate. Consistent with the traditional view, we find that higher labor productivity tends to lead to appreciation of the real exchange rate. Contrary to the traditional view, however, we find that the positive productivity effect is transmitted through the real exchange rate based on tradable prices, rather than through relative prices between tradables and nontradables. Moreover, higher total factor productivity is found, if anything, to lead to depreciation of the real exchange rate. These last two pieces of evidence provide support for the emerging view that limited tradability of goods and services provides scope for the strategic pricing decision, which has material consequences for the aggregate real exchange rate.
The pass-through effects of oil price shocks on wage and consumer price inflation vary with the states or structural characteristics of an economy. The effects have declined over time in Europe and been higher in emerging European economies than in advanced economies. The pass-through to wages is found to have been higher when the prevailing level of inflation was higher or when the degrees of unionization and centralized bargaining were higher, while lower under a higher credibility of monetary policy. The effects of oil price shocks on core inflation and inflation expectations are consistent with their effects on wages.
We undertake a quantitative analysis of the dispersion of current accounts in an open economy version of incomplete insurance model, incorporating important market frictions in trade and financial flows. Calibrated with conventional parameter values, the stochastic stationary equilibrium of the model with limited borrowing can account for about two-thirds of the global dispersion of current accounts. The easing of financial frictions can explain nearly all changes in the current account dispersion in the past four decades whereas the easing of trade frictions has almost no impact on the current account dispersion.