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Economic Convergence in the Euro Area: Coming Together or Drifting Apart?
We examine economic convergence among euro area countries on multiple dimensions. While there was nominal convergence of inflation and interest rates, real convergence of per capita income levels has not occurred among the original euro area members since the advent of the common currency. Income convergence stagnated in the early years of the common currency and has reversed in the wake of the global economic crisis. New euro area members, in contrast, have seen real income convergence. Business cycles became more synchronized, but the amplitude of those cycles diverged. Financial cycles showed a similar pattern: sychronizing more over time, but with divergent amplitudes. Income convergence requires reforms boosting productivity growth in lagging countries, while cyclical and financial convergence can be enhanced by measures to improve national and euro area fiscal policies, together with steps to deepen the single market.
Market Phoenixes and Banking Ducks Are Recoveries Faster in Market-Based Financial Systems?
Recoveries vary considerably across countries: our paper compares recoveries in bank-based and market-based economies and finds that market-based economies experience significantly and durably stronger rebounds than the bank-based ones (in particular the more bank-based economies of continental Europe). Further, stronger recoveries also tend to be associated with broader economic flexibility. Our findings suggest that dealing with bank sector vulnerabilities is paramount to support the recovery. In the medium term, structural policies to deepen financial markets are useful, but need to be complemented with structural measures to address rigidities more broadly in the real economy.
Youth Unemployment in Advanced Economies in Europe
The SDN will assess the youth unemployment problem in advanced European countries, with a special focus on the euro area. It will document the main trends in youth and adult unemployment in 22 European countries before and after the global financial crisis. It will identify the main drivers of youth and adult unemployment, focusing in particular on the role of the business cycle and structural characteristics of the labor market. It will outline the main elements of a comprehensive strategy to address the problem.
Public Debt and Productivity
The paper analyzes Jamaica's experience of low growth despite consistently high investment. Cross-country analysis provides evidence of a significant and negative relationship between total public debt and productivity growth. Looking at the specific channels through which high debt affects productivity growth and the allocation of resources in Jamaica, the study finds that high public debt has been associated with macroeconomic uncertainty and an output structure that relied excessively on a few maturing sectors with limited scope for productivity growth. Furthermore, public investment has been crowded out by debt service, further adversely affecting productivity growth.
Assessing Banking Sector Soundness in a Long-Term Framework
This paper combines financial soundness indicators (FSIs) and stress-testing methodologies to provide a broad assessment of the soundness of Venezuela's banking sector, based on a diagnosis of its structural and transient shortcomings. While the Venezuelan banking sector appears sound under current favorable economic conditions, it remains significantly vulnerable to cyclical downturns-which have been severe in the past. Banks are particularly exposed to interest rate and credit risks. This suggests that the strong FSIs may be partly the result of a conjunctural credit boom in the context of capital controls and very low real interest rates.
Public Debt and Productivity
The paper analyzes Jamaica''s experience of low growth despite consistently high investment. Cross-country analysis provides evidence of a significant and negative relationship between total public debt and productivity growth. Looking at the specific channels through which high debt affects productivity growth and the allocation of resources in Jamaica, the study finds that high public debt has been associated with macroeconomic uncertainty and an output structure that relied excessively on a few maturing sectors with limited scope for productivity growth. Furthermore, public investment has been crowded out by debt service, further adversely affecting productivity growth.
Inflation and Monetary Pass-Through in Guinea
The paper analyzes the dynamics of inflation in Guinea during 1992-2003 applying cointegration and error-correction modeling to a bivariate model that includes consumer price and monetary variables. The empirical results, based on quarterly data, confirm the existence of a long-run relationship between money supply and consumer prices. This paper argues further that the pass-through has increased in recent years. Short-term dynamics are shown to accentuate the long-run impact. Impulse response analysis shows that a shock in the money stock will have an increasing impact over two years and will then stabilize at a higher level.
Monitoring and Commitment in Bank Lending Behavior
The paper proposes a theoretical argument on the nature of bank lending, based on the idea that, through commitment and monitoring, banks overcome basic informational asymmetries with borrowers. By bringing together loan commitment theories and credit rationing theories, the paper shows that, within a framework of asymmetric information between lenders and borrowers and under costly termination of lending arrangements, commitment may explain the accumulation of nonperforming loans by banks. Two additional results follow: (i) that banks favor borrowers with well-known production functions and long-term credit history; and (ii) that interest rate spreads may be large if significant market imperfections prevail.
Microfinance in Africa
Based on the experience of selected countries, this paper offers a critical presentation of the development of the microfinance sector in Africa. The paper supports the view that microfinance institutions, especially those engaged in full financial intermediation, complement effectively the banking sector in extending financial services and successfully draw on the rich experience of community-based development and preexisting informal methods of financial intermediation in Africa. Growing linkages between microfinance institutions and the banking system and the dissemination of good practices by nongovernment organizations contribute to the sound development of the sector, supported by regulation and supervision by local authorities.
