{"title":"Facing the Global Financial Cycle: What Role for Policy","authors":"Nicoletta Batini, Luigi Durand","doi":"10.5089/9781513569451.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513569451.001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper we ask whether countries can influence their exposure to changes in global financial conditions. Specifically, we show that even though we can model cross-country capital flows via a global factor that closely tracks changes in global financial conditions, there is a large degree of heterogeneity in the sensitivity of each country to this same global factor. We then evaluate whether this cross-country heterogeneity can be attributed to different policy choices, including measures of capital flow management, such as capital controls and macroprudential policies. In our main results, we show that higher levels of capital controls and macroprudential policies both dampen the sensitivity to the global factor. Furthermore, we show that countries’ monetary and exchange rate policies can also be successfully deployed. Overall, our results have implications that extend beyond the surge that preceded the 2008 global financial crisis, and that closely resonate in light of the financial disruptions that followed the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89017416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fair and Inclusive Markets: Why Dynamism Matters","authors":"P. Aghion, Reda Cherif, Fuad Hasanov","doi":"10.5089/9781513568669.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513568669.001","url":null,"abstract":"We show empirical evidence that there may not be a tradeoff between market income inequality and high sustained growth, which is key for poverty alleviation. We argue that the economies that achieved high sustained growth and low market income inequality are characterized by dynamism—a drive toward sophisticated export industries, innovation, and creative destruction and a high level of competition. What a country produces and how much it competes domestically and internationally are important for achieving fair and inclusive markets. We explore policy options to steer industrial and market structures toward providing growth opportunities for both workers and firms.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90551078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of r-g on the Euro-Area Government Spending Multiplier","authors":"Mario di Serio, Matteo Fragetta, Giovanni Melina","doi":"10.5089/9781513569512.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513569512.001","url":null,"abstract":"We compute government spending multipliers for the Euro Area (EA) contingent on the interestgrowth\u0000differential, the so-called r-g. Whether the fiscal shock occurs when r-g is positive or negative\u0000matters for the size of the multiplier. Median estimates vary conditional on the specification, but the\u0000difference between multipliers in the negative and positive r-g regimes differs systematically from\u0000zero with very high probability. Over the medium run (5 years), median cumulated multipliers range\u0000between 1.22 and 1.77 when r-g is negative, and between 0.51 and 1.26 when r-g is positive. We\u0000show that the results are not driven by the state of the business cycle, the monetary policy stance, or\u0000the level of government debt, and that the multiplier is inversely correlated with r-g. The calculations\u0000are based on the estimates of a factor-augmented interacted panel vector-autoregressive model. The\u0000econometric approach deals with several technical problems highlighted in the empirical\u0000macroeconomic literature, including the issues of fiscal foresight and limited information.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76486032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"At a Cost: The Real Effects of Thin Capitalization Rules","authors":"Ruud A. De Mooij, L. Liu","doi":"10.5089/9781513568553.001.A001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513568553.001.A001","url":null,"abstract":"Thin capitalization rules (TCRs) aim to mitigate profit shifting by multinational corporations (MNCs) but, by raising the cost of capital for affected affiliates, can also negatively affect real investment. Exploiting unique panel data on multinational companies in 34 countries during 2006-2014, we estimate that the size of this adverse investment effect can be large, and dependent on the statutory corporate tax rate and the tightness of the safe-haven ratio. Negative investment effects are more pronounced for highly-levered firms for which TCRs are more likely to be binding.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"99 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76987780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Transmission of External Shocks in Asia: Country Characteristics and Policy Responses","authors":"Pragyan Deb, Sanaa Nadeem, S. Peiris","doi":"10.5089/9781513566115.001.A001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513566115.001.A001","url":null,"abstract":"Asian economies are increasingly integrated to the global economy through trade and financial linkages, exposing them to the international financial cycle. This paper explores how external shocks are transmitted to Asian economies and whether the use of policies, such as the monetary policy interest rate, foreign exchange intervention (FXI) and macroprudential measures (MPMs), can mitigate the impact of these external shocks. It uses panel quantile regressions on a sample of 14 Asian advanced and emerging economies (AEs and EMs) to assess the impact of financial and real shocks on investment and GDP growth at the median and 5th percentile tail. It finds that external financial shocks tend to have a larger effect on Asian economies than real shocks, and that the main transmission channels through which shocks are propagated are capital flows (particularly via corporate and bank balance sheets) for EMs, and credit for AEs. It also finds evidence that for Asian EMs, FXI may help dampen the capital flows and real exchange rate channels and mitigate financial shocks in the short run, and monetary policy transmission tends to be relatively weak; meanwhile MPMs can help mitigate the credit channel for both AEs and EMs.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85972084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pandemics and Automation: Will the Lost Jobs Come Back?","authors":"Tahsin Saadi-Sedik, Jia Yoo","doi":"10.5089/9781513566849.001.A001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513566849.001.A001","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19 has exacerbated concerns about the rise of the robots and other automation technologies. This paper analyzes empirically the impact of past major pandemics on robot adoption and inequality. First, we find that pandemic events accelerate robot adoption, especially when the health impact is severe and is associated with a significant economic downturn. Second, while robots may raise productivity, they could also increase inequality by displacing low-skilled workers. We find that following a pandemic, the increase in inequality over the medium term is larger for economies with higher robot density and where new robot adoption has increased more. Our results suggest that the concerns about the rise of the robots amid the COVID-19 pandemic seem justified.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75848118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"We are All in the Same Boat: Cross-Border Spillovers of Climate Risk Through International Trade and Supply Chain","authors":"Alan Feng, Haishi Li","doi":"10.5089/9781513564586.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513564586.001","url":null,"abstract":"Are assets in a landlocked country subject to sea-level rise risk? In this paper, we study the cross-border spillovers of physical climate risks through international trade and supply chain linkages. As we base our findings on historical data between 1970 and 2018, we observe that globalization increased the similarity of countries’ global climate risk exposures. Exposures to foreign climatic disasters in major trade partner countries (both upstream and downstream) lower the home-country stock market valuation for the aggregate market and for the tradable sectors. We also find that exposures to foreign long-term climate change risks reduce the asset price valuations of the tradable sectors at home. Findings in this paper suggest that climate adaptation efforts in a country can have positive externalities on other countries’ macrofinancial performance and stability through international trade.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89328878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Investor Information and Bank Instability During the Euro Crisis","authors":"Silvia Iorgova, Chase P. Ross","doi":"10.5089/9781513566412.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513566412.001","url":null,"abstract":"Outside of financial crises, investors have little incentive to produce private information on banks’ short-term liabilities held as information-insensitive safe assets. The same does not hold true during crises. We measure daily information production using data from credit default swap spreads during the global financial crisis and the subsequent European debt crisis. We study abnormal information production around major events and interventions during these crises and find that, on average, capital injections reduced abnormal information production while early European stress tests increased it. We also link information production to outcomes: high levels of information production predict bank balance sheet contraction and higher government expenditures to support financial institutions. In an addendum, we show information production on nonfinancials dramatically increased relative to financials at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, reflecting the nonfinancial nature of the initial shock.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"90 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83553343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Some Alternative Monetary Facts","authors":"P. Stella, Manmohan Singh, Apoorv Bhargava","doi":"10.5089/9781513566429.001.A001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513566429.001.A001","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we discuss the modern history of monetarism and its alternatives, as well as the changing empirical relationship of various measures of money and inflation. After demonstrating that previous naïve correlations between money and inflation as established in the 20th century literature have largely disappeared, we explain why this cannot be taken as support for an increased reliance on permanent monetary finance. Rather, we argue that rapid technological innovation in payments systems—both public and private—including in global pledged collateral markets, portends a declining demand for central bank liabilities.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85925138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Repercussions of Pandemics","authors":"P. Barrett, Sophia Chen","doi":"10.5089/9781513567723.001.A001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513567723.001.A001","url":null,"abstract":"Epidemics may have social scarring effects, increasing the likelihood of social unrest. They may also have mitigating effect, suppressing unrest by dissuading social activities. Using a new monthly panel on social unrest in 130 countries, we find a positive cross-sectional relationship between social unrest and epidemics. But the relationship reverses in the short run, implying that the mitigating effect dominates in the short run. Recent trends in social unrest immediately before and after the COVID-19 outbreak are consistent with this historic evidence. It is reasonable to expect that, as the pandemic fades, unrest may reemerge in locations where it previously existed.","PeriodicalId":14326,"journal":{"name":"International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Paper Series","volume":"41 12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76362676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}