International Financial Contagion and the Fund —A Theoretical Framework

In this paper we provide a model of contagion in which countries are linked through the international capital market which allows borrowing and lending for consumption smoothing. Borrowing from the International Monetary Fund also provides a mechanism for countries to smooth consumption intertemporally. Facing a large shock that makes it impossible for a country simultaneously to achieve a desired minimum level of consumption and to service its foreign debt, the country will default. This will put some upward pressure on world interest rates, which raises the debt service costs of other indebted countries and can generate further rounds of defaults. In this environment the Fund has an important systemic function in lending to members to limit the extent of contagion and default. The Fund can be seen as internalizing the externality generated by the contagion that spreads through the channel of the world capital market that links all countries. JEL Classification Numbers: E44, E61, F33, F34     

High‐Frequency Contagion of Currency Crises in Asia*

Using daily data from the Asian currency crisis, the present paper examines high‐frequency contagion effects among six Asian countries. The ‘origin’ (of exchange rate depreciation, or decline in stock prices) and the ‘affected’ (currencies, or stock prices) in the daily spillover relationship were defined and identified. Indonesia is found to be the main origin country, affecting exchange rates of other countries. Contrary to conventional wisdom, evidence of high‐frequency crisis spillover from the Thai exchange rate to other currencies was weak at best. There exists a high‐frequency contagion in stock markets among East Asian countries. Contagion coefficients are positively correlated with trade indices, indicating that investors lower their financial assessment of a country that has trade linkage to a crisis origin country within days, if not hours, of a shock.     

Foreign Exchange Market Contagion in the Asian Crisis: A Regression-Based Approach

This paper investigates whether, during the Asian crisis, contagion occurred from Thailand to the other crisis countries through the foreign exchange market, and, if so, determines the contribution of this contagion to the crisis. More specifically, we examine whether the effect of the exchange market pressure (EMP) of Thailand, the origin of the crisis, on the EMP of four Asian crisis countries increased during the crisis. Instead of measuring contagion by the commonly used correlation coefficients, we apply regression analysis. To control for the impact of macroeconomic fundamentals, we construct a time-varying indicator measuring the fragility of each economy. Additionally, we control for spillovers and common external shocks. We find evidence of contagion from Thailand to Indonesia and Malaysia, with 13 and 21 percent of the pressure on the respective currencies attributable to that contagion. For Korea and the Philippines there is no evidence of contagion from Thailand. JEL no. F30, F31, G15     

Are Investment Promotion Agencies Effective in Promoting Outward Foreign Direct Investment? The Cases of Japan and Korea

In this paper we examine the role of investment promotion agencies (IPA) in promoting outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from Japan and Korea. Looking at two home countries enables us to control for both country‐pair time‐invariant characteristics and host‐country time‐varying characteristics. Our empirical results suggest that home‐country IPA tend to be more effective in promoting outward FDI in politically risky host countries. However, this finding depends on whether the home‐country firm is listed or unlisted. More specifically, we find that the positive effect of home‐country IPA on outward FDI in politically risky countries is limited to unlisted home‐country firms, which tend to be less productive.     

Multivariate contagion and interdependence

This paper proposes a multivariate test to measure the statistical and economic significance of contagion through analysis of extreme unobserved common shocks. Contagious episodes are endogenously determined with no need, but the possibility, to specify the source country. Application to a panel of equity returns during the Asian crisis of 1997–1998 finds that interdependencies are substantially more important than contagion. However, the periods of contagion evident show that it is short-lived, split between positive and negative movements and reverses quickly. In comparison to other Asian crisis countries, Hong Kong is the main driver of contagion in the crisis. The proposed methodology and the empirical findings provide a more detailed picture of contagion than commonly applied tests.     

Contagion and Crises Clusters: Toward a Regional Warning System?

This paper studies the spatial heterogeneity of the relationship between contagious currency crises and their determinants using a Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) framework. This novel method enables a vector of local parameter estimates to be estimated for each country of the data set, according to its nearest neighbours. The approach makes it possible to derive locally-specific models, thereby improving standard prevention schemes and assessments for international financial assistance. Our findings suggest that economic attributes and imbalances of neighbouring countries can be introduced into country-specific warning systems. JEL no. F31, C31     

The main determinants of banking crises in OECD countries

Banks’ stability can be affected by economic fluctuations, banks’ risk-taking behavior, connections among banks and countries’ financial system structure. At the same time, banking regulation and supervision were designed to protect banks from failure, but a large number of banking crises were not prevented recently. Using binary response models for panel data and focusing on OECD countries, this paper studies the main determinants of banking crises over a period of 21 years. Results suggest a bank’s high debt and a country’s low GDP growth rate as the major determinants of banking crises. There is also evidence of contagion across countries from the same geographical region and from G7 to other countries, and that bank-based financial systems are less prone to borderline banking crises. Regulatory and supervision practices are found not to have been relevant in bankruptcy prevention.     

Why are currency crises contagious? A comparison of the Latin American Crisis of 1994–1995 and the Asian Crisis of 1997–1998

Why Are Currency Crises Contagious? A Comparison of the Latin American Crisis of 1994–1995 and the Asian Crisis of 1997–1998.—This paper analyzes three channels through which currency crises are transmitted between countries: contagion based on unsustainable economic fundamentals; contagion resulting from herding behaviour in financial markets; contagion induced by close trade integration. The presented model that links currency crises with these three types of contagion is employed to analyze the transmission of the Mexican crisis in 1994–1995 and the Thai crisis in 1997 to other emerging economies. The empirical results show that, first, the most important contagion channels were based on close financial and trade integration rather than on the weakness of macroeconomic fundamentals. Second, the vulnerability to capital flow reversals and weak financial sectors made countries particularly prone to a currency crisis, while external imbalances and currency misalignments were much less important. JEL no. F30, E60, E65, E44     

Government Debt Denomination Policies Before and After the EMU Advent

Through a cost-minimizing approach, this paper derives joint indicators to assess the efficiency of the mix of sovereign debt currencies between the countries belonging to the European Monetary Union (EMU). This theoretical insight enables us to explain why and how the introduction of the euro and the adoption of a common monetary policy may have led to significant changes in debt structure among EMU members, notably in favor of further euro-denominated debt. The interplay of intrinsic and strategic variables yields stylized facts that are consistent with country-specific empirical evidence. Following the sovereign debt crisis, we further emphasize the value-added of a coordinated debt issuance policy among EMU countries.     

Are stricter investment rules contagious? Host country competition for foreign direct investment through international agreements

We argue that competitive diffusion is a driver of the trend toward international investment agreements with stricter investment rules, namely defensive moves of developing countries concerned about foreign direct investment (FDI) diversion in favor of competing host countries. Accounting for spatial dependence in the formation of bilateral investment treaties and preferential trade agreements that contain investment provisions, we find that the increase in agreements with stricter provisions on investor-to-state dispute settlement and pre-establishment national treatment is a contagious process. Specifically, a developing country is more likely to sign an agreement with weak investment provisions if other developing countries that compete for FDI from the same developed country have previously signed agreements with similarly weak provisions. Conversely, contagion in agreements with strong provisions exclusively derives from agreements with strong provisions that other FDI-competing developing countries have previously signed with a specific developed source country of FDI.     

近朱者赤:幸福的传染效应——基于CLDS 2014-2016的实证分析

研究他人幸福感对个体幸福感的影响有助于更加全面地理解和评价公共政策的真实效果,如何有效识别幸福感人际传递的因果关系是分析幸福传染效应的核心问题。文章利用2014年和2016年中国劳动力动态调查（CLDS）数据,以社区为参照单位讨论与检验了人际间的幸福传染效应及其作用机制。研究发现：在控制了个人、家庭与社区层面的相关因素后,社区其他人的幸福感对个体幸福感有显著的正向影响。同时,分别以社区其他人的父母教育程度以及受访时间和天气作为工具变量,并进行两阶段最小二乘估计（2SLS）的结果依然支持“幸福会传染”的结论。此外,包括指标、样本和方法调整在内的稳健性检验仍显示结果一致可靠。从群体差异来看,幸福的传染效应更加明显地发生于农村、家庭收入较低,以及自身幸福感和社会资本处于中高水平的群体。幸福在人际间传染的主要渠道有两条：一是个体通过捕捉模仿或认知联想他人的情绪与行为来改变其精神健康与社会信任水平,进而影响其幸福状态;二是他人积极的情绪与反馈有助于社会网络的构建与发展,从而通过促进社会互助影响个体的幸福感。幸福传染效应的存在为完善政策与项目的全面评估、加强社会文化基础设施的建设,以及促进正能量的传播等提供了参考与启示。     

Third-person Effect and Financial Contagion in the Context of a Global Game

In this paper we present a psychological channel of financial contagion. We incorporate this new channel of financial contagion in the global game. Our basic assumption is that agents are overestimating the influence of negative messages they ascribe to others, and are thus acting on the basis of this perception. We resort to the psychological studies on the so-called third-person effect to justify this assumption. We show that the third-person effect is rationalizable. Our model has the feature that a crisis in a foreign country can be transmitted to the domestic country, even though there has been no changes in domestic fundamentals. Our model also provides intuitive explanations to the empirical observations that many governments have lost in a confidence game in the past crisis episodes.     

Institutional Investors,Trade Linkage,Macroeconomic Similarities,and Contagion of the Thai Crisis

This paper empirically investigates the presence of contagion effects and their causes in the 1997 Southeast Asian crisis. Our empirical results indicate that the Thai crisis was transmitted to neighboring Southeast Asian countries through contagion. They also suggest that the international investors' institutional practice of securing sufficient liquidity and trade linkage were important in spreading the contagion, but the financial integration channel was not important. In addition, the similar macroeconomic conditions of the Southeast Asian countries, such as large capital inflows, large accumulation of current account deficit, and high level of external debt prior to the onset of the Thai crisis, were also responsible for the contagion. J. Japan. Int. Econ., June 2001, 15(2), pp. 199–224. Department of Ecnomics, Korea University, 5-1 Anam-dong, Songbuk-ku, Seoul 136-701, Republic of Korea; and School of Economics, Kookmin University, 861-1 Chongnung-dong, Songbuk-ku, Seoul 136-702, Republic of Korea. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: F30, F31.     

The impact of migration and remittances on labor supply in Tajikistan

Remittances from labor migrants abroad have become the largest component of financial flows to developing countries. While they are an important source of foreign currency for low-income countries, the impact of outmigration and remittances on the economic development of the sending country is ambiguous. To narrow this knowledge gap, this paper examines their impact on the domestic labor market, using the case of Tajikistan – a labor migrant contributor and remittance dependent country in Central Asia. Specifically, we estimate the impact of international migration and receipt of remittances on the labor supply decisions and employment of the family members left behind. To ensure rigorous inferences, we apply a control function approach using unique high-frequency household panel data. Our method enables us to correctly address the simultaneity of migration/remittance and labor supply decisions of the left-behind members. Our main estimates are that sending migrants reduces the labor supply of the left-behind members by 5.4 percentage points, and that receiving remittances reduces it by 10.2 percentage points, respectively. These findings suggest that the reservation wage effect of having a migrant member and receiving remittances is large and surpasses other positive effects they might have.     

Contagion in the stock markets: The Asian financial crisis revisited

This paper presents empirical evidence of herding contagion in the stock markets during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, above and beyond macroeconomic fundamental driven co-movements. We analyze the cross-country time-varying correlation coefficients among the stock prices for the countries of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, and the Philippines, between crisis and tranquil periods. Macromodels are constructed and implemented to capture the pure contagion effects on the markets. After controlling for the economic fundamentals for the five countries, the paper finds strong evidence of herding contagion.     

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global GDP growth

This paper describes one of the first attempts to gauge the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global trajectory of real GDP over the course of 2020 and 2021. It is also among the first efforts to distinguish between the role of domestic variables and global trade in transmitting the economic effects of COVID-19. We estimate panel data regressions of the quarterly growth in real GDP on pandemic variables for 90 countries over the period 2020 Q1 through 2021 Q4. We find that readings on the number of COVID-19 deaths had a very small effect in our aggregate sample. On the other hand, changes in the stringency of the lockdown measures taken by governments to restrict the spread of the virus were an important influence on GDP. The economic effects of the pandemic differed between rich and poor countries: COVID-19 deaths exerted a somewhat greater drag on GDP in advanced economies, although this difference was not statistically significant, whereas lockdown restrictions were more injurious to economic activity in emerging and developing economies. In addition to these domestic pandemic effects, global trade represented a significant channel through which the economic effects of the pandemic spilled across national borders. This finding underscores how globalization makes each country vulnerable not only to medical contagion from the COVID-19 pandemic, but to economic contagion as well.     

Regional Business Cycles and National Economic Borders: What Are the Effects of Trade in Developing Countries?

Using regional gross product data for Argentina and Brazil over the period 1961–2000, we find that business cycle synchronization within countries is substantially larger than across them. Factors such as monetary policy and large country-specific shocks play a significant role in explaining this observed border effect. Furthermore, our GMM single and multiple equation estimates based on Brazilian states and Argentinean national data provide indicative evidence that the higher level of trade among regions within a country is an important factor that accounts for differences in output correlations across countries. JEL no. F15, F42, E32, R11     

Bilateral investment treaties as deterrents of host-country discretion: the impact of investor-state disputes on foreign direct investment in developing countries

The recent boom of investor-state disputes filed under international investment agreements has fueled a controversial academic and policy debate. We study the impact of these compensation claims on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to the responding host country. Our econometric analysis focuses on differences in the FDI response from BIT-partner and non-partner countries of developing host countries. This approach allows us not only to distinguish competing hypotheses about BIT function, but also to address endogeneity concerns in earlier studies. We find that BITs stimulate bilateral FDI flows from partner countries—but only so long as the developing host country has not had a claim brought against it to arbitration. Our results provide an additional explanation for the policy-changes observed in many states subsequent to their first experience of an investor-state dispute.     

Testing contagion of the 1997–98 crisis in Asian stock markets with structural breaks and incubation periods

This study tests for the existence of financial contagion, using a method that allows an incubation period before contagion takes effect. We define contagion as an increase in cross-market linkages following shocks. With daily data on Asian stock markets during the 1997–98 crisis, we find significant upward shifts in the linkages between the Asian markets of both crisis and non-crisis countries. The upward shifts are maintained even after controlling for heteroskedasticity and common world and regional factors, providing strong evidence for financial contagion.     

Cross-country causes and consequences of the 2008 crisis: Early warning

This paper models the causes of the 2008 financial crisis together with its manifestations, using a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model. Our analysis is conducted on a cross-section of 107 countries; we focus on national causes and consequences of the crisis, ignoring cross-country “contagion” effects. Our model of the incidence of the crisis combines 2008 changes in real GDP, the stock market, country credit ratings, and the exchange rate. We explore the linkages between these manifestations of the crisis and a number of its possible causes from 2006 and earlier. We include over sixty potential causes of the crisis, covering such categories as: financial system policies and conditions; asset price appreciation in real estate and equity markets; international imbalances and foreign reserve adequacy; macroeconomic policies; and institutional and geographic features. Despite the fact that we use a wide number of possible causes in a flexible statistical framework, we are unable to link most of the commonly cited causes of the crisis to its incidence across countries. This negative finding in the cross-section makes us skeptical of the accuracy of “early warning” systems of potential crises, which must also predict their timing.