Election cycles and mining-sector governance in post-conflict Kosovo

Political business cycles are typically linked to the manipulation of fiscal or monetary policy instruments. In a recent article, Imami, Lami and Uberti (ILU) argue that opportunistic politicians may also choose to manipulate non-fiscal/non-monetary policy instruments. Here, we extend ILU’s study using time-series data on mining-sector licensing from post-conflict Kosovo (2001–2018). We find robust evidence that is consistent with electoral opportunism in the allocation of mining permits, despite the checks-and-balance mechanisms introduced by Kosovo’s international administrators in an attempt to reduce the politicisation of licensing. That said, the cycle effect is only observed prior to scheduled, as opposed to early, elections. Disaggregating the data by licence type, in addition, we find that the observed election cycle is driven primarily by the manipulation of licences for the mining of construction materials. We argue that, in the context of post-conflict Kosovo, this is the category of licences whose strategic manipulation offers the greatest pay-off to the incumbent. The results raise some questions about the feasibility of fighting political opportunism (and, relatedly, corruption) by establishing formal check-and-balance mechanisms.     

Election cycles in mining licensing: theory and evidence from Albania

Most of the literature on political business and budgetary cycles (PBBC) has focused on fiscal and monetary policy variables in advanced-country contexts. We extend this literature by investigating political cycle effects in a non-monetary, non-fiscal policy regime (the allocation of mining licences) in a transition country context. We propose a model of mining licensing that allows for corruption and for both supply and demand effects to determine the outcome. We then estimate this model using time-series data from post-communist Albania. Relying on a dynamic Poisson model, we find evidence of both opportunistic and partisan effects. Based on our theory, we suggest a corruption interpretation of political cycles in non-fiscal/non-monetary variables. This interpretation, we suggest, may be more applicable to the context of developing and transition countries. Our study raises important questions about the unintended (and often pernicious) effects of transition politics on economic regulation and economic performance in post-socialist economies.     

Can fiscal rules improve financial market access for developing countries?

A number of countries have introduced fiscal rules to deter fiscal profligacy, enhance the credibility of fiscal policy, and reduce borrowing costs. In this paper, we examine the outcome of fiscal rules in terms of improving financial market access for developing countries. We use entropy balancing and various propensity score matching. We find that the adoption of fiscal rules reduces sovereign bond spreads and increases sovereign debt ratings for a sample of 36 developing countries, which are part of the JP Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Global (EMBIG), for the period 1993-2014. We explain this finding by the effect of fiscal rules on the credibility of a country's fiscal policy: more credible governments are rewarded in the international financial markets by low sovereign bond spreads and high sovereign debt ratings. These results are robust to a wide set of alternative specifications. We also show that this favorable effect is sensitive to several country structural characteristics. Our findings confirm that the adoption and sound implementation of fiscal rules is an instrument for policy makers to improve developing countries’ financial market access.     

Trade,finance or policies: What drives the cross-border spill-over of business cycles?

In this paper we investigate how income growth rates in one country are affected by growth rates in partner countries, testing for the importance of pairwise country links as well as characteristics of the receiving country (trade and financial openness, exchange rate regime, fiscal variables). We find that trade integration fosters the spill-over of business cycles, both bilaterally and as a country characteristic (trade openness). Results for financial integration are mixed; financial links as pairwise country characteristic are either insignificant or negatively signed (indicating a dampening of cross country spill-overs), but financial openness as characteristic of the receiving country amplifies spill-overs. We find no evidence for a role of the exchange rate regime. Finally, we find that higher government spending and debt reduces countries’ vulnerability to foreign business cycles, presumably through the effect of automatic stabilizers.     

中国居民消费决定中的财政分权因素

本文首次建立引入财政分权因素的跨期消费资产定价模型,证明中国财政分权是居民消费决定中的关键因素:一方面,分权程度提高会带来居民收入增长,进而促进消费的增加;另一方面,分权程度提高会导致居民收入不确定性的增强,进而引起消费的下降。基于中国29个省区1990-2009年面板数据的实证研究验证了理论模型的判断。研究发现:预期收入水平和收入不确定性同时受财政分权因素影响,当它们共同进入模型时,只有预期收入水平系数显著为正,收入不确定性变量系数显著水平不稳定且符号不符合预期。无论引入控制变量,还是调整变量度量指标,研究结论都是稳健的。缺失财政分权因素的消费资产定价模型对于中国情况缺乏解释力,融入财政分权因素的模型则较好地拟合中国实际。     

The effectiveness of fiscal institutions: International financial flogging or domestic constraint?

Many have argued that financial markets are crucial in ensuring that governments maintain sustainable fiscal balances - the so called ‘market discipline hypothesis’. A recent version of this theory holds that both fiscal rules and fiscal transparency are necessary to enable markets to discipline overspending governments. I argue, however, that while these fiscal institutions are effective at improving governments fiscal balances, financial markets are likely not the causal mechanism which discipline governments’ fiscal policies. Instead, I propose that fiscal rules and transparency promote better budget balances because domestic political actors use fiscal institutions to constrain executive policymaking. I test these competing hypotheses of why these fiscal institutions are effective – financial markets vs political competition – and find that country budget balances are increased not as a consequence of financial markets, but when the level of political competition and civil society engagement is sufficiently high. These results are robust to accounting for the possible selection bias of who adopts fiscal institutions.     

Channels of interprovincial risk sharing in China

This paper decomposes consumption risk sharing among provinces in China over the 1980–2007 period. We find that 9.4% of the shocks to gross provincial product are smoothed by the interprovincial fiscal transfer system. This system also cushions a relatively large fraction of the province-specific shocks in the coastal provinces of China. Using a variety of indicators, we explore non-fiscal channels of consumption risk sharing. We find that the migration of rural labor to urban areas and the remittance of migrant wages play important roles in promoting interprovincial consumption risk sharing in the inland provinces of China. In contrast, the extent of risk sharing through financial intermediaries and the capital markets is very limited. These factors have resulted in a low degree of risk sharing among Chinese provinces, especially over the last decade.     

For how long do IMF forecasts of world economic growth stay up-to-date?

This study analyses the performance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook output forecasts for the world and for both the advanced economies and the emerging and developing economies. With a focus on the forecast for the current year and the next year, we examine the durability of IMF forecasts, looking at how much time has to pass so that IMF forecasts can be improved by using leading indicators with monthly updates. Using a real-time data set for GDP and for indicators, we find that some simple single-indicator forecasts on the basis of data that are available at higher frequency can significantly outperform the IMF forecasts as soon as the publication of the IMF’s Outlook is only a few months old. In particular, there is an obvious gain using leading indicators from January to March for the forecast of the current year.     

Labour unions and leverage: evidence from firm-level union data

ABSTRACT

Using firm-level labour union data from Japan, this paper investigates the effect of labour unions on firm leverage. We find that as union coverage increases, both the level of and extent of change in leverage decreases. These relations remain robust when a firm falls into deficit. We also find that firms with higher union coverage have a higher interest coverage ratio. In addition, we find that firms with higher union coverage are less likely to choose issuing debt compared to issuing equity when they face financial distress. Our results imply that significant employee influence enhanced by labour unions increases fixed costs, crowds out the firm’s debt capacity and consequently reduces the firm’s leverage.     

Debt sustainability in emerging market countries: Some policy guidelines from a fan-chart approach

This paper uses a probabilistic approach to simulate the medium-term public debt trajectories of several major emerging market countries. We extend the standard debt sustainability analysis framework so as to more faithfully reproduce these countries’ economic reality in two aspects. First, we allow them to differ in the cyclical stance of their fiscal policy and in their degree of fiscal responsiveness to debt. Second, we explicitly integrate the specific risk premium paid by each country when borrowing in foreign currency. It allows us to evaluate the impact of alternative policies that the government may consider to improve sustainability. The results lead to three policy recommendations: i) a country should consider decreasing its exposure to currency risk only in extreme cases (like Argentina); ii) on the contrary, greater fiscal responsiveness (i.e. stronger fiscal tightening whenever there is a debt increase) could enhance sustainability to a much greater extent; iii) countries with low responsiveness to debt or a poor fiscal consolidation track record should be cautious with countercyclical fiscal policies, as they may trigger an unsustainable debt trajectory in the trough of the economic cycle.     

How strongly can industrial structural transformation affect GDP?

It is well known that when a country develops, its leading industry shifts from agriculture to non-agriculture. This industrial structural transformation has recently attracted considerable attention from scholars. Then, how strongly can this industrial structural transformation affect a country’s income? In this study, we shed light on this research question. More specifically, we measure magnitudes of the industrial structural transformation’s influence on GDP, by examining the following counterfactual GDP. We calculate a country’s counterfactual GDP when the country specializes in agriculture. If the counterfactual GDP is considerably small without the non-agricultural sector, this suggests that the industrial structural transformation from agriculture to non-agriculture is considerably important, in terms of GDP. We use Japan as our sample economy. Consequently, we find that the counterfactual GDP is surprisingly small, which suggests that the industrial structural transformation’s influence on GDP is surprisingly large. We also find that one of the main factors responsible for the surprisingly small counterfactual GDP is land, which has not been deeply examined.     

The brighter side of being socially responsible: CSR ratings and financial distress among Chinese state and non-state owned firms

We examine the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) quality ratings on the financial distress levels of Chinese enterprises by using the previously unexplored new China-specific Altman ‘Z_China Score’ in the context of CSR and data from 749 firms over the 2009–2014 period. First, we find that CSR quality ratings significantly reduce Chinese firms’ distress levels. Second, we find that the ability of CSR to reduce distress levels in non-state-owned Chinese firms is higher than state-owned ones. Finally, we find similar results when we divide the data into high-low CSR ratings and levels of distress. Our results are robust to potential endogeneities.     

In government we trust: The role of fiscal decentralization

This paper looks whether fiscal decentralization is associated with trust of citizens in government related institutions. We expect a positive relationship based on the argument of governments' improved responsiveness to preferences of citizens that is perceived to result from more decentralized fiscal systems. Survey data from up to 42 countries over the period 1994–2007 confirm this positive relationship. It is robust to controlling for unobserved country heterogeneity and a wide array of other explanatory variables that are associated with trust in government related institutions. Moreover, we do not find that the positive association with fiscal decentralization extends to other, non-government related institutions.     

Robust Volatility Estimation with and Without the Drift Parameter

We find the closed form solution for the joint probability of the running maximum and the drawdown of the Brownian motion with a non-zero drift parameter at a random time that is exponentially distributed and independent of the Brownian motion. This characterization leads us to come up with a robust method of estimating volatility using open, high, low and closing prices. We rigorously show the independence of robust volatility estimators based on extreme values of asset prices relative to the standard robust volatility estimator based on closing price alone. We further prove that the proposed robust volatility ratio is unbiased with no drift parameter. Moreover, we find that the robust volatility ratio with a non-zero drift parameter has only a second order effect. We have shown that our proposed extreme value robust volatility estimator is 2–3 times relatively more efficient when compared to the classical robust volatility estimator based on Monte Carlo simulation experiment. On the empirical side, we test the proposed robust volatility ratio based on high and low prices on different asset classes like stock indices, exchange rate and precious metals.

     

Do fiscal rules cause better fiscal balances? A new instrumental variable strategy

This paper estimates the causal effect of fiscal rules on fiscal balances in a panel of 142 countries over the period 1985–2015. Our instrumental variable strategy exploits the geographical diffusion of fiscal rules across countries. The intuition is that reforms in neighboring countries may affect the adoption of domestic reforms through peer pressure and imitational effects. We find that the mere existence of fiscal rules correlates with lower deficits, but the positive link disappears when endogeneity is correctly addressed. However, when considering the strength of rules through a continuous index of fiscal rules’ design, we show that well-designed rules have a statistically significant impact on fiscal balances. We conduct several robustness tests and show that our results are generally robust and not affected by weak instrument problems.     

Fiscal sustainability and dollarization: the case of Ecuador

This article tries to disentangle the dynamic relationships between fiscal variables and economic activity in a small emerging economy characterized by full dollarization, namely, Ecuador. We find that fiscal policy in Ecuador seems to be sustainable, explained by its policy of debt payment through oil revenues, rather than by a fiscal discipline that dollarization is supposed to encourage. The non-oil tax revenues variable is a purely adjusting variable. This result suggests that in a dollarized country that cannot benefit from the ‘seignorage’ revenues, the reliance on volatile oil revenues and on smoothing tax revenues leaves the economy’s fiscal sustainability vulnerable.     

STABILITY OF THAI BAHT: TALES FROM THE TAILS

We demonstrate how the EVT‐based signalling approach for currency crises can be applied to an individual country with a small sample size. Using Thai historical data, first, we study the tail characteristics of the distributions of two Thai baht instability measures and 21 economic fundamentals. Then, we test asymptotic dependence between the currency instability measures and lagged economic fundamentals. Empirically, we find that the distributions of both currency instability measures and economic variables are heavy tailed. Assuming a normal distribution for the variables tends to underestimate the probability of extreme events. Furthermore, most of the economic variables which are usually used as signalling indicators for currency crises are asymptotically independent of the currency instability measures. Signals issued by these variables are thus not reliable. Nevertheless, the non‐parametric EVT approach facilitates the selection of economic indicators with credible signals and high crisis prediction success.     

Fiscal position and the financing of productive government expenditures: an application to Latin America

Government spending on public infrastructure, education, and health care can increase economic growth. However, the appropriate financing depends on a country’s fiscal position. We develop a two-sector endogenous growth model to explore how variations in the composition and financing of government expenditures affect economic growth. We find that, when tax rates are moderate, funding public investment by raising taxes may increase long-run growth. If existing tax rates are high, public investment is only growth enhancing if funded by restructuring the composition of overall public spending. Additionally, public investment that is debt financed can have adverse effects on long-run growth due to the resulting increases in interest rates and debt-servicing costs.     

Political repression in autocratic regimes

Theoretical models on autocracies have long grappled with how to characterize and analyze state sponsorship of repression. Moreover, much of the existing formal literature sees dictators’ behavior as determined by one type of opposition actor alone and disregards the potential role played by other types of actors. We develop a contest model of political survival with a ruler, the elite and the opposition, and show how the ruler needs to respond to revolutionary pressures while securing the allegiance of his own supportive coalition. We find that the ruler’s reliance on vertical and horizontal repression is antithetically affected by the country’s wealth and the optimal bundle of vertical and horizontal repression has important consequences for the regime’s political vulnerability. Our hypothesis about the impact of wealth on repression is strongly borne out by the empirical results, which are robust to endogeneity concerns.     

国有商业银行不良资产财政风险实证分析

在讨论我国财政风险问题时,大家关注的焦点主要在由财政行为、特别是政府公债引发的财政风险上,其实,我国由非财政行为所可能引致的财政风险可能要远远大于由财政行为产生的风险。本文试图从性质和规模两个方面对我国非财政行为中的国有商业银行不良资产所可能引致的财政风险进行实证分析。