Financial constraints and investment: assessing the impact of a World Bank credit program on small and medium enterprises in Sri Lanka

Abstract.  This paper examines the investment behaviour of a sample of small, credit-constrained firms in Sri Lanka. Using a unique panel data set, we analyze and compare the activities of two groups of small firms distinguished by their differential access to financing; one group consists of firms with subsidized loans from the World Bank, while the other group consists of firms without such subsidies. The paper shows that the program led to higher levels of investment for financially constrained firms. However, the evidence is inconclusive on whether the program improved economic efficiency.     

Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of investment?: Micro-evidence from developing countries

Using firm level panel data from 12 developing countries we explore whether financial liberalization improves the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated. A summary index of the efficiency of investment allocation that measures whether investment funds are going to firms with a higher marginal return to capital is developed. We examine the relationship between this and various measures of financial liberalization and find that liberalization increases the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated. This holds after various robustness checks and is consistent with firm level evidence of a stronger association between investment and fundamentals after financial liberalization.     

LAND PRICE,COLLATERAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH*

This paper extends Kiyotaki and Moore's (1997 ) to an endogenous growth model and investigates the dynamic properties of a growing economy with binding credit constraint when land is used not only as an input of production but also as collateral. There exists a balanced growth path in an economy with binding credit constraint. In response to a once and for all productivity shock, the developed model shows the propagation mechanism among output, capital, bank credit and the land price in terms of the growth rate. The model's tractability allows us to derive interesting qualitative and quantitative findings on business cycles.     

Vertical integration and investor protection in developing countries

The industrial organization of developing countries is characterized by the pervasive use of subcontracting arrangements among small, financially constrained firms. This paper asks whether vertical integration relaxes those financial constraints. It shows that vertical integration trades off the benefits of joint liability against the costs of rendering the supply chain more opaque to external investors. In contrast to the commonly held view that pervasive input and capital market imperfections are conducive to vertical integration, the model predicts that the motives for vertical integration are not necessarily higher in developing countries. In particular, vertical integration is more likely to arise at intermediate levels of investor protection and better contract enforcement with suppliers reduces vertical integration only if financial markets are sufficiently developed. Evidence supporting both predictions is discussed.     

Financial liberalization,private investment and portfolio choice: Financialization of real sectors in emerging markets

Using firm level panel data, we analyze the impacts of rates of return gap between financial and fixed investments under uncertainty on real investment performance in three emerging markets, Argentina, Mexico and Turkey. Employing a portfolio choice model to explain the low fixed investment rates in developing countries during the 1990s, we suggest that rather than investing in irreversible long-term fixed investments, firms may choose to invest in reversible short-term financial investments depending on respective rates of returns and the overall uncertainty in the economy. The empirical results show that increasing rates of return gap and uncertainty have an economically and statistically significant fixed investment reducing effect while the opposite is true with respect to financial investments.     

Vintage capital and the dynamics of the AK model

This paper analyzes the equilibrium dynamics of an AK-type endogenous growth model with vintage capital. The inclusion of vintage capital leads to oscillatory dynamics governed by replacement echoes, which additionally influence the intercept of the balanced growth path. These features, which are in sharp contrast to those from the standard AK model, can contribute to explaining the short-run deviations observed between investment and growth rates time series. To characterize the optimal solutions of the model we develop analytical and numerical methods that should be of interest for the general resolution of endogenous growth models with vintage capital.     

Does international mobility of high-skilled workers aggravate between-country inequality?

This paper analyzes the interaction of international migration of high-skilled labor and relative wage income between source and destination economies of expatriates. We develop an overlapping-generations model with increasing returns which suggests that international integration of the market for skilled labor aggravates between-country inequality by harming those which are source economies to begin with while benefiting host economies. The result is robust to allowing governments to optimally adjust productivity-enhancing investments which could potentially attenuate brain drain. Optimal public investment tends to decrease in response to higher emigration.     

Why are interest spreads so high in Uganda?

Using international comparisons and a unique bank-level dataset on the Ugandan banking system over the period 1999 to 2005, we explore the factors behind consistently high interest rate spreads and margins. International comparisons show that the small size of Ugandan banks, persistently high T-Bill rates and institutional deficiencies explain large proportions of the high Ugandan interest rate margins. The Ugandan bank panel confirms the importance of macroeconomic factors, such as high inflation, high T-Bill rates and exchange rate appreciation. There is also evidence for the small market place and high costs of doing business explaining persistently high spreads and margins; smaller banks and banks targeting the low end of the market incur higher costs and therefore higher margins. Spreads and margins also vary significantly with the sectoral loan portfolio composition of banks, while there is little evidence for foreign bank entry, privatization or changes in market structure explaining variation in spreads or margins over time.     

Do large recessions reduce output permanently?

We apply a recent quantile autoregression unit root test to US GDP. The test takes into account that the transmission of a shock might depend on the sign and the size of the shock. We find that positive and negative shocks including large recessionary shocks like the 2008/2009 crisis have permanent effects on output.     

Are external shocks responsible for the instability of output in low-income countries?

External shocks, such as commodity price fluctuations, natural disasters, and the role of the international economy, are often blamed for the poor economic performance of low-income countries. This paper quantifies the impact of these different external shocks using a panel vector auto-regression approach and determines their contributions to output volatility in low-income countries. We find that they can only explain a small fraction of the output variance of a typical low-income country. Other factors, most likely internal causes, are the main source of fluctuations. From a quantitative perspective, the output effect of external shocks is typically small in absolute terms, but significant relative to the historic performance of these countries.     

Did colonization matter for growth?: An empirical exploration into the historical causes of Africa's underdevelopment

We investigate the impact of 20th-century European colonization on growth. We find that colonial heritage, as measured by the identity of the metropolitan ruler and by the degree of economic penetration, matters for the heterogeneity of growth performances in Africa. Colonial indicators are correlated with economic and sociopolitical variables that are commonly employed to explain growth and there are growth gains from decolonization. Colonial indicators also add significant explanatory power to worldwide growth regressions and are correlated with the Sub-Saharan Africa and the Latin America dummies.     

A new measure of financial development: Theory leads measurement

This study presents a new measure of financial development that is directly derived from theory. Our measure, the Marginal Utilization of Debt (hereafter, MUD) comes from the seminal work of Myers (1984), Myers and Majluf (1984) and Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). Further, it is directly related to the development facts of Gurley and Shaw (1955). MUD is a global measure that reflects conditions in both debt and equity markets. It varies enormously across nations; from 0.23 in Australia at one extreme to 0.96 in Turkey at the other. Cross‐country variations in MUD are not random; they are related to special‐purpose measures of debt and equity market advancement from the financial development literature. Richer, more advanced nations have smaller average MUDs. We argue that the MUD may be useful for a variety of purposes and provide three example applications.     

Returns of Small Growth Stocks: An Empirical Analysis

I investigate the mean reversion tendency of small growth stocks. Using a carefully articulated research design employing established and empirically tested principles, my findings should support or refute the anecdotal evidence that small growth stocks make superior investments. The primary motivation for the study springs from the documented differential preference among investors for value and growth stocks. Despite evidence that value stocks tend to outperform growth stocks, investors retain strong interest in growth stocks. Yet in examining the performance of Business Week’s (BW), smaller capitalization companies (called “Hot Growth Companies”) with respect to the overall financial market, Bauman et al. [2002] found positive excess returns in the pre-publication period but negative excess returns in the post-publication period. A limitation of their study is that their analyses relied on only three criteria: sales, BW rank and return on capital, which do not represent completely a firm’s financial health. I replicate Bauman et al.’s study but use a more robust and representative variable set to test the mean reversal hypothesis — Forbes’ financial criteria — and I focus on six variables. In the current study, I look at 4,200 companies listed in Forbes from 1980 to 2000. The results of the expanded study substantiate Bauman et al.’s [2002] study showing that there are positive excess returns in the pre-publication period, but negative excess returns in the post-publication period. An expanded future study will look at five additional variables to see if they make a significant difference on the effects of the returns of small growth stocks.     

Franchise fee, competition and economic growth

This paper introduces the different kinds of franchise contract bargaining into a macroeconomic model and accordingly researches the relationship between competition and economic growth. In Nash bargaining model/vertical integration we find an inverted-U shaped or a monotonically increasing relationship between the competitive degree of the intermediate goods market and economic growth. In bargaining of the right to manage model/vertical non-integration our result shows an inverted-U shaped or a monotonically decreasing relationship between the competitive degree of the intermediate goods market and economic growth. In addition, there is an overall negative relationship between the competitive degree of the final goods market and economic growth. Especially, our interesting findings that the pricing rule for intermediate goods firm depends not only on market power but also bargaining power are more general. Therefore, we can further explain the firms' vertical control strategy.