You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
We analyze a range of macrofinancial indicators to extract signals about cyclical systemic risk across 107 economies over 1995–2020. We construct composite indices of underlying liquidity, solvency and mispricing risks and analyze their patterns over the financial cycle. We find that liquidity and solvency risk indicators tend to be counter-cyclical, whereas mispricing risk ones are procyclical, and they all lead the credit cycle. Our results lend support to high-level accounts that risks were underestimated by stress indicators in the run-up to the 2008 global financial crisis. The policy implications of conflicting risk signals would depend on the phase of the credit cycle.
We explore the early warning properties of a composite indicator which summarizes signals from a range of asset price growth and asset price volatility indicators to capture mispricing of risk in asset markets. Using a quarterly panel of 108 advanced and emerging economies over 1995-2017, we show that the combination of rapid asset price growth and low asset price volatility is a good predictor of future financial crises. Elevated levels of our indicator significantly increase the probability of entering a crisis within the next three years relative to normal times when the indicator is not elevated. The indicator outperforms credit-based early warning metrics, a result robust to prediction horizons, methodological choices, and income groups. Our results are consistent with the idea that measures based on asset prices can offer critical information about systemic risk levels to policymakers.
There is an ongoing debate in the literature on whether global trade flows have become disconnected from the large real effective exchange rate movements in the wake of the global financial crisis. The question has important policy implications for the role of exchange rates in supporting growth and restoring external balance. In this paper, we use Turkey---a large and open emerging market economy that has experienced sizable swings of the real effective exchange rate---as a case study to test competing hypotheses. Our results lend support to the finding in existing cross-country studies that the real effective exchange rate remains an important determinant of trade flows. But, its effect is not symmetric in secular periods of appreciation and depreciation and is, oftentimes, dwarfed by the impact on trade flows of the income growth differential between trade partners.
Le secteur financier de la Communauté économique et monétaire de l’Afrique centrale (CEMAC) a été durement touché par la crise financière mondiale et par la récession mondiale qui s'en est suivie. Cette note examine la réaction des autorités des pays de la CEMAC à la crise et à la récession, et s'intéresse particulièrement aux incidences des politiques actuelles sur la viabilité des finances publiques de chaque pays, ainsi qu'à la viabilité de la position extérieure de la région et de son taux de couverture des réserves. Elle présente ensuite des recommandations de politique générale aux autorités des pays de la CEMAC, alors où celles-ci ajustent leur réaction à la crise mondiale.
The synchronized disinflation across Europe since end-2011 raises the question of whether non-euro area EU countries are affected by the undershooting of the euro area inflation target. To shed light on this issue, we estimate an open-economy, New Keynsian Phillips curve, in which we control for imported inflation. Regression results suggest that falling food and energy prices have been the main disinflationary driver. But low core inflation in the euro area has also had a clear and significant impact. Countries with more rigid exchange-rate regimes and higher share of foreign value added in domestic demand have been more affected. The scope for monetary response to low inflation in non-euro area EU countries depends on concerns about financial stability and unanchoring of inflationary expectations, as well as on exchange rate regime and capital flows dynamics.
The paper estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model for Ghana. Regression results show that most of the REER's long-run behavior can be explained by real GDP growth, real interest rate differentials (both relative to trading-partner countries), and the real world prices of Ghana's main export commodities. On the basis of these fundamentals, the REER in late 2006 was found to be very close to its estimated equilibrium level. The results also suggest, that deviations from the equilibrium path are eliminated within two to three years.
We examine the interest rate elasticity of housing prices, advancingthe empirical literature in two directions. First, we take a commonly used cross-country panel dataset and evaluate the housing price equation using a consistent estimator in the presence of endogenous explanatory variables and a lagged dependent variable. Second, we carry-out a novel analysis of determinants of residential housing prices in a cross-section of countries. Our results show that the short-term interest rate, and hence monetary policy, has a sizable impact on residential housing prices.
Do changes in monetary policy affect inflation and output in the East African Community (EAC)? We find that (i) Monetary Transmission Mechanism (MTM) tends to be generally weak when using standard statistical inferences, but somewhat strong when using non-standard inference methods; (ii) when MTM is present, the precise transmission channels and their importance differ across countries; and (iii) reserve money and the policy rate, two frequently used instruments of monetary policy, sometimes move in directions that exert offsetting expansionary and contractionary effects on inflation—posing challenges to harmonization of monetary policies across the EAC and transition to a future East African Monetary Union. The paper offers some suggestions for strengthening the MTM in the EAC.
Despite its vast oil wealth, central Africa still struggles to sustain strong, inclusive economic growth and to generate sufficient employment opportunities, particularly for its fast-growing youth population. Drawing on new research, Oil Wealth in Central Africa lays out the macroeconomic and growth challenges facing the region; examines oil wealth management and its implications for poverty reduction; and includes four case studies that exemplify lessons learned.
This paper examines the issue of controlling fiscal corruption by providing incentives to fiscal officers. First, a case study of a successful attack on corruption is presented that shows the importance of attending to the conditions of service of fiscal officers. Second, a model is developed drawing on the conclusions of the case study that shows their consistency with optimization behavior. It confirms that simply providing bonuses is not enough. Corruption at higher levels of management has to be contained so as to allow bonuses to become more effective, and thereby to initiate a virtuous circle.