Search

39051. Sustainability of Public Debt in the United States and Japan

Author:
William R. Cline
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
This paper applies the probabilistic debt sustainability model developed for the euro area in Cline (2012, 2014) to sovereign debt in the United States and Japan. The results indicate that to avoid further increases in the expected ratio of public debt to GDP over the next decade, average annual primary deficits will need to be reduced by about 0.75 percent of GDP in the United States and by about 3 percent of GDP in Japan from the likely baselines as of mid-2014.
Topic:
Debt, Diplomacy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and East Asia

39052. Official Financial Flows, Capital Mobility, and Global Imbalances

Author:
Joseph E. Gagnon, Tamim Bayoumi, and Christian Saborowski
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
We use a cross-country panel framework to analyze the effect of net official flows (chiefly foreign exchange intervention) on current accounts. We find that net official flows have a large but plausible effect on current account balances. The estimated effects are larger with instrumental variables (42 cents to the dollar on average compared with 24 without instruments), reflecting a possible downward bias in regressions without instruments owing to an endogenous response of net official flows to private financial flows. We consistently find larger impacts of net official flows when international capital flows are restricted and smaller impacts when capital is highly mobile. A further result is that there is an important positive effect of lagged net official flows on current accounts that we believe operates through the portfolio balance channel.
Topic:
Economics, Foreign Exchange, and Monetary Policy

39053. What Goes into a Medal: Women's Inclusion and Success at the Olympic Games

Author:
Marcus Noland and Kevin Stahler
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
This paper examines determinants of women's participation and performance in the Olympics. Female inclusion and success are not merely functions of size, wealth, and host advantage, but a more complex process involving the socio-economic status of women and, more weakly, broad societal attitudes on gender issues. Female labor force participation and educational attainment in particular are tightly correlated with both participation and outcomes, even controlling for per capita income. Female educational attainment is strongly correlated with both the breadth of participation across sporting events and success in those events. Host countries and socialist states also are associated with unusually high levels of participation and medaling by female athletes. Medal performance is affected by large-scale boycotts. Opening competition to professionals may have leveled the playing field for poorer countries. But the historical record for women's medal achievement is utterly distorted by the doping program in the former East Germany, which specifically targeted women. At its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, the program was responsible for 17 percent of the medals awarded to women, equivalent to the medal hauls of the Soviet or American team in 1972, the last Olympics not marred by widespread abuse of performance-enhancing drugs.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Human Rights, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
America and Germany

39054. Wages and Labor Market Slack: Making the Dual Mandate Operational

Author:
Adam S. Posen and David G. Blanchflower
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In this paper we examine the impact of rises in inactivity on wages in the US economy and find evidence of a statistically significant negative effect. These nonparticipants exert additional downward pressure on wages over and above the impact of the unemployment rate itself. This pattern holds across recent decades in the US data, and the relationship strengthens in recent years when variation in participation increases. We also examine the impact of long-term unemployment on wages and find it has no different effect from that of short-term unemployment. Our analysis provides strong empirical support, we argue, for the assessment that continuing labor market slack is a key reason for the persistent shortfall in inflation relative to the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) 2 percent inflation goal. Further, we suggest our results point towards using wage inflation as an additional intermediate target for monetary policy by the FOMC.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

39055. Turkey and the PKK: Saving the Peace Process

Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The peace process to end the 30-year-old insurgency of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) against Turkey's government is at a turning point. It will either collapse as the sides squander years of work, or it will accelerate as they commit to real convergences. Both act as if they can still play for time – the government to win one more election, the PKK to further build up quasi-state structures in the country's predominantly- Kurdish south east. But despite a worrying upsurge in hostilities, they currently face few insuperable obstacles at home and have two strong leaders who can still see the process through. Without first achieving peace, they cannot cooperate in fighting their common enemy, the jihadi threat, particularly from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Increasing ceasefire violations, urban unrest and Islamist extremism spilling over into Turkey from regional conflicts underline the cost of delays. Both sides must put aside external pretexts and domestic inertia to compromise on the chief problem, the Turkey-PKK conflict inside Turkey.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnic Conflict, Peace Studies, Treaties and Agreements, War, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Asia

39056. TSG IntelBrief: Economic Drivers of an Iran Nuclear Deal

Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
There are clear and compelling economic imperatives for Iran to accept a nuclear agreement with the P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany) by a November 24 deadline. The Iranian public has chafed under comprehensive sanctions since 2010 and expect President Hassan Rouhani to deliver a nuclear agreement that enables the economy to recover and grow. U.S. and other P5+1 officials stress the economic opportunities for Iran that will result, including the eventual re-opening of Iran's oil and gas sector to foreign investment. Major international firms are poised to re-enter the Iranian market in the event of a nuclear deal, although firms will initially be cautious due to lingering uncertainty.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Arms Control and Proliferation, Islam, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Russia, China, and Middle East

39057. The Islamic State

Author:
Richard Barrett
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
The self-styled Islamic State is an accident of history, emerging from multiple social, political and economic tensions in the Middle East and beyond. It has challenged the territorial divisions imposed on the region following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by carving out for itself a large area of territory. But ultimately, its impact will flow as much from its challenge to established concepts of government, national sovereignty, and national identity. The Islamic State is most notable for the violence with which it asserts control, but its ruthless tactics will likely prevent the group from ruling effectively and building broader support beyond the front line fighters who protect its security and the authoritarian killers who patrol its streets.
Topic:
Security, Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Middle East and Arabia

39058. TSG IntelBrief: The Death of the Free Syrian Army?

Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
The collapse of two prominent coalition-supported Syrian rebel groups at the hands of al-Qaeda-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) has not just compounded doubts against the capabilities and loyalties of these groups but also doubt as to whether any "moderate" rebel group can succeed. This long-simmering uncertainty about arming and training rebel groups that aren't as cohesive or even as moderate as once hoped throws into question the prospects of an acceptable military solution to the almost four-year long Syrian civil war. The coalition-equipped rebel groups Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front were overrun in northern Syria by JN-though most rebel groups have long cooperated with it and, unlike Washington, don't consider the group to be a terrorist organization. Reports of increased airstrikes against JN will further drive a wedge between most rebel groups and the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), that demands the primary target is the Bashar al-Assad regime and not extremist groups fighting it. The realities of settling the civil war exclusively, thus far, via rebel military might open up other avenues for non-military actors to assume a role in resolving the war; after all, there are an estimated 2.5 million refugees and another 6.5 internally displaced persons in Syria, with obvious needs that perhaps new Syrian civilian leadership might stand up to address.
Topic:
Armed Struggle, Insurgency, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

39059. TSG IntelBrief: The Islamic State: An Accident of History

Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
The following IntelBrief is excerpted from The Soufan Group's recent long-form report on The Islamic State, which takes an in-depth look at the extremist group's operations across Iraq and Syria. From late 2011 up to today, The Islamic State has shown itself both tactically and strategically adept. After years of surviving as a persistently violent criminal/terrorist gang able to mount multiple synchronized attacks in urban areas in Iraq but little more, it achieved unparalleled gains when the collapse of government in northern and eastern Syria allowed it to expand across the border. At the same time, the sectarian approach of then-Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki had made the Sunni minority in Iraq ready to support any group that appeared to have the potential to reverse its increasing marginalization. It's accurate to say the group would still exist-but in nothing like its current form-had only one of those two catastrophes-Syria and Maliki-occurred; that both played out as they did made what has happened seem an almost inevitable accident of history.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

39060. TSG IntelBrief: The Islamic State: A Monopoly on Messaging

Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
The deliberate targeting and killing of journalists by The Islamic State (IS) and the resulting lack of outside reporting has created a nearly information-free zone for the group to fill with its own messaging. The group's embrace of the decentralized nature of social media has allowed its many thousands of cyber-supporters to create and operate their own ministries of propaganda. Abu Mohammad al-Adnani is the official spokesman for the group, but the notion of an official spokesman does not really apply to IS in the way it has applied to al Qaeda; the crowdsourcing of messages negates the need for a single point of contact.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, Communications, Mass Media, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Iraq, North Africa, and Syria