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Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 25 Years

1361. Political Parties, Institutions, and the Dynamics of Social Expenditure in Times of Austerity

Author:
Herbert Obinger and Bernhard Kittel
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The containment of social expenditure growth has been (and still is) a core issue of public policy in advanced industrial countries since the 1980s and has received much academic attention during that period. Among the most extensively discussed explanatory factors of social expenditure are partisan politics and political institutions, as well as the dependency of the real impact of the former on the latter. The paper distinguishes five competing theoretical perspectives and explores their power to explain the empirical variation in the period 1982–1997 in 21 OECD countries. The empirical analysis of short-term dynamics is performed in a time-series cross-section framework while long-term level effects are explored in a cross-sectional setting. By using an interactive model specification the authors show that there is empirical evidence for this conditional effect, albeit it is neither thoroughly convincing nor leading to lasting long-term level effects. Extensive specification tests show that the 1990s witnessed a weakening of partisan effects which were still present in the 1980s. In total, the evidence tends to give most support to the “growth-to-limits” and the “new politics” perspectives.
Topic:
Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy

1362. Globalization and Catching-up in Emerging Market Economies

Author:
Grzegorz W. Kolodko
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The study discusses conditions and prospects for fast and durable growth in emerging market economies. In the course of history less than 30 nations have become rich and still more than 80 per cent of the world population lives in the middle and low-income countries, some of them in extreme poverty. It is true not only for the majority of economies traditionally considered as 'developing countries', but also for the new, post-socialist emerging markets. Thus the questions arise: what is the influence of globalization process on economic growth and how real are the prospects for these emerging markets to catch up with more advanced countries? What factors may contribute to sustained and rapid growth over the long term? The paper examines strategies that can help taking the contemporary wave of globalization to the advantage of fast growth of less advanced countries and hence containing the existing development gaps.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance

1363. The Benefits and Costs of Group Affiliation: Evidence from East Asia

Author:
Stijn Claessens, Joseph P.H. Fan, and Larry H.P. Lang
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper investigates the benefits and associated agency costs of using internal capital markets through affiliating with groups using data of two thousand firms from nine East Asian economies between 1994-6. We find that mature and slow-growing firms with ownership structures more likely to create agency problems gain more from group affiliation, while young and high-growth firms more likely lose. Agency problems are important explanatory factors of firm value in economies outside Japan, but less so in Japan. Consistent with the literature, financially constrained firms benefit from group affiliation. Our results are robust to different time periods and estimation techniques.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Israel and East Asia

1364. The Macroeconomic Repercussions of Agricultural Shocks and their Implications for Insurance

Author:
Paul Collier
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper considers the macroeconomic impact of shocks to agricultural output and of negative and positive price shocks. It is shown that negative price shocks have particularly large externalities: it is estimated that the overall impact of these negative shocks on GDP may well be double their direct impact. In terms of policy, the presence of externalities justifies subsidising the provision of insurance. If insurance is not feasible, then foreign aid may be helpful. Turning to other systemic shocks, it is argued that the macroeconomic consequences of negative output shocks are far less important. Positive price shocks also have substantial macroeconomic externalities via their effect on asset demand. Appropriate central bank policy is crucial and requires a detailed understanding of asset demand changes in response to price shocks. Since this may well be unlikely, dollarization may be a better strategy.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance

1365. Debt Relief under the HIPC Initiative. Context and Outlook for Debt Sustainability and Resource Flows

Author:
Lisandro Abrego and Doris C. Ross
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper analyses debt relief efforts by creditors to alleviate the debt burden of low- income countries. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative builds on traditional debt relief, and for the first time involves relief on multilateral debt. It seeks to reduce debt to sustainable levels and eliminate any debt overhang that might hinder growth and investment. It provides substantial debt relief to eligible countries by reducing their overall debt stocks by about one-half, or, together with traditional relief over time, by some 80 per cent. It lowers debt service payments of HIPCs substantially, provides room for increased social spending, and provides a solid basis for debt sustainability. The latter requires efforts by both debtors and creditors. To find poverty reduction efforts, HIPC relief is important, but much broader international support is needed as external transfers to HIPCs in the past far exceeded debt service paid. Experience has shown that external support can only be effective if it reinforces sound policies implemented by HIPCs themselves. Thus debt relief and ODA are most important not in isolation, but as help for self-help.
Topic:
Economics, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance

1366. Assessing the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Poverty

Author:
Andrew McKay
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Fiscal policy measures are a key means by which governments can influence distribution and poverty, but in fact the relationships between fiscal policy and poverty are not well understood. The most commonly used technique for assessing the distributional impact, benefit incidence analysis, is straightforward, but applied by itself it suffers from a number of serious limitations. Assessment of the impact of fiscal policy needs to be developed in various directions, including allowing for behavioural responses and incorporating a broader range of information. In parallel with this careful attention needs to be paid to more effective monitoring of the poverty impsact of fiscal policy.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance

1367. International Bank Lending. Water Flowing Uphill?

Author:
John Hawkins
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
International bank lending is a major component of capital flows between advanced and emerging economies. However, in recent years these flows have been going the wrong way, like water flowing uphill. Even four years after the Asian crisis, there is a net flow of funds from emerging economies to banks in advanced economies. This paper looks at this phenomenon, starting by setting out the relevant data, and then looking at factors influencing these flows. These include both cyclical influences (both 'push' and 'pull') and structural changes within the banking industry. There is some evidence that international lenders are now discriminating more between the various emerging economies.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Asia

1368. Countercyclical Fiscal Policy. A Review of the Literature, Empirical Evidence and some Policy Proposals

Author:
Carlos Budnevich L.
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
For many emerging market economies, over reliance on monetary policy may bring worse macro results, when compared to a more balanced framework of countercyclical fiscal and monetary policy. The use of countercyclical fiscal policy requires as a precondition solvent and sustainable fiscal accounts and the re-engineering of fiscal institutions to increase the timeliness and flexibility of fiscal policy. A higher degree of tax or pension fund and/or unemployment insurance contribution flexibility may help in economies subject to significant external shocks. Automatic indexing rules to terms of trade or country risk spreads for pension contributions and interest payments on public debt may also contribute to the stabilization effort. If fiscal revenues are highly volatile, structural budget rules and commodity stabilization funds may provide the necessary framework to achieve saving (dissaving) during expansions (contractions).
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance

1369. Aid, Public Sector Fiscal Behaviour and Developing Country Debt

Author:
Mark McGillivray and Simon Feeny
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper looks at public sector debt in developing countries, being concerned specifically with the relationship between aid inflows and the public sector borrowing requirement net of aid loans. After examining the public sector budget constraint and various conditions under which aid might lead to an increase in this borrowing, the paper surveys the empirical results of literature on aid and public sector fiscal behaviour. It finds that the results of a number of studies are consistent with aid leading to increases in this borrowing. Further investigation, in the form of econometric analysis of panel data, also points to this outcome. The paper then looks at a number of theoretical scenarios in which aid leads to increases in borrowing net of aid loans.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance

1370. Producing an Improved Geographic Profile of Poverty: Methodology and Evidence from Three Developing Countries

Author:
Chris Elbers, Peter Lanjouw, Johan Mistiaen, Gabriel Demombynes, Jenny Lanjouw, and Berk Özler
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper implements a methodology for estimating poverty in Ecuador, Madagascar and South Africa, at levels of disaggregation that to date have not generally been available. The methodology is based on a statistical procedure to combine household survey data with population census data, imputing into the latter a measure of per capita consumption from the former. The countries are very unlike each other—with different geographies, stages of development, quality and types of data, and so on. Yet the paper demonstrates that in all three countries the poverty estimates produced from census data are both plausible (in that they match well stratum-level estimates calculated directly from the household surveys) and satisfactorily precise (at a level of disaggregation far below that allowed by household surveys).
Topic:
Development, Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
South Africa