Andrew J. Swiston

A U.S. Financial Conditions Index: Putting Credit Where Credit is Due

This paper uses vector autoregressions and impulse-response functions to construct a U.S. financial conditions index (FCI). Credit availability - proxied by survey results on lending standards - is an important driver of the business cycle, accounting for over 20 percent of the typical contribution of financial factors to growth. A net tightening in lending standards of 20 percentage points reduces economic activity by ¾ percent after one year and 1¼ percent after two years. Much of the impact of monetary policy on the economy also works through its effects on credit supply, which is evidence supporting the existence of a credit channel of monetary policy. Shocks to corporate bond yields, equity prices, and real exchange rates also contribute to fluctuations in the FCI. This FCI is an accurate predictor of real GDP growth, anticipating turning points in activity with a lead time of six to nine months.

What Explains Private Saving in Mexico

This paper examines the factors influencing Mexicos private saving rate. Cross-country analysis finds that Mexicos private saving is somewhat higher than could be explained by its fundamentals, but lower than in the average country in the sample. This analysis suggests that Mexicos greater reliance on external saving, its relatively high population dependency ratio, and its less developed financial system have been the main factors holding back private saving. Time-series analysis finds that movements in private saving have not been associated with similar shifts in investment, as changes in public saving and external saving have tended to offset movements in private saving. This is consistent with the direction of causality being from investment to saving and suggests that policy measures should focus on creating conditions favorable to increased investment.

Spillovers to Central America in Light of the Crisis: What a Difference a Year Makes

This paper investigates Central Americas external linkages over the last fifteen years of increased integration in light of the 2008-09 global recession. Using structural VAR models, it is found that a one percent shock to U.S. growth shifts economic activity in Central America by 0.7 to 1 percent, on average. Spillovers from global shocks and the rest of the region also affect activity in some countries. Spillovers are mostly transmitted through advanced country financial conditions and fluctuations in external demand for Central American exports. Shocks to advanced economies associated with the 2008-09 financial crisis lowered economic activity in the region by 4 to 5 percent, on average, accounting for a majority of the observed slowdown. The impact was almost twice as large as elasticities estimated on pre-crisis data would have predicted. These results underscore the importance of operating credible policy frameworks that enable a countercyclical policy response to external shocks.

Output Gap Uncertainty and Real-Time Monetary Policy

Output gap estimates are subject to a wide range of uncertainty owing to data revisions and the difficulty in distinguishing between cycle and trend in real time. This is important given the central role in monetary policy of assessments of economic activity relative to capacity. We show that country desks tend to overestimate economic slack, especially during recessions, and that uncertainty in initial output gap estimates persists several years. Only a small share of output gap revisions is predictable ex ante based on characteristics like output dynamics, data quality, and policy frameworks. We also show that for a group of Latin American inflation targeters the prescriptions from typical monetary policy rules are subject to large changes due to output gap revisions. These revisions explain a sizable proportion of the deviation of inflation from target, suggesting this information is not accounted for in real-time policy decisions.

Where Have the Monetary Surprises Gone? The Effects of FOMC Statements

This paper examines the impact of central bank communication on market expectations of monetary policy and long-term interest rates by comparing Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) action dates when a policy statement was made to dates before statements were issued. Increased communication has been associated with a reduction in the magnitude of short-term monetary surprises; a greater flow of information about the long-term path of policy that is distinct from the short-term surprise; and a larger role for these long-term surprises in the determination of long-term interest rates.

Shocking Aspects of Canadian Labor Markets

We analyze the flexibility of the Canadian labor market across provinces in both an interand intra-national context using macroeconomic data on employment, unemployment, participation, and (for Canada) migration and real wages. We find that Canadian labor markets respond in a similar manner to their U.S. counterparts and are more flexible than those in major euro area countries. Within Canada, the results indicate that labor markets in Ontario and provinces further west are more flexible, particularly with regard to migration, while those further east are less so.

U.S. Revenue Surprises: Are Happy Days Here to Stay?

A key question for U.S. policymakers is whether the recent strength in federal revenue is likely to continue. This question is addressed through an econometric analysis of the determinants of tax revenue, using time series that are adjusted for tax policy changes. The results suggest that growth in corporate profits and capital gains each contributed forty percent of the increase in the revenue-to-GDP ratio from 2004-2006, and rising income inequality explains much of the rest. While part of the revenue rise is the result of structural changes taking place in the U.S. economy, some of the recent buoyancy is likely to prove temporary, reflecting the highly cyclical nature of these variables.

The Role of Structural Reforms in Raising Economic Growth in Central America

Central America experienced moderate growth during the last decade, including in the years leading up to the global financial crisis, but the rate of convergence toward advanced country income levels has still been slow. Moreover, forecasts imply that these trends will continue. What can be done to spur higher growth in Central America? We bring new data to bear on this question-version 7.0 of the Penn World Table and a new IMF database on structural reforms. Our cross-country panel regression of economic growth using System GMM captures the importance to growth of conditional convergence, factor accumulation, and macro policies. In addition, structural efficiency is a significant factor in explaining growth performance. We construct a broad index of efficiency and find that increasing the degree of structural efficiency by one standard deviation raises growth by ½ percent. This implies that Central American countries could significantly increase their long-run growth rates by increasing the flexibility of markets and improving the quality of regulation.

Official Dollarization As a Monetary Regime : Its Effectson El Salvador

This paper examines El Salvador’s transition to official dollarization by comparing aspects of this regime to the fixed exchange rate regime prevailing in the 1990s. Commercial bank interest rates are analyzed under an uncovered interest parity framework, and it is found that dollarization lowered rates by 4 to 5 percent by reducing currency risk. This has generated net annual savings averaging ½ percent of GDP for the private sector and ¼ percent of GDP for the public sector (net of the losses from foregone seigniorage). Estimated Taylor rules show a strong positive association between Salvadoran output and U.S. Federal Reserve policy since dollarization, implying that this policy has served to stabilize economic activity more than it did under the peg and more than policy rates in Central American countries with independent monetary policy have done. Dollarization does not appear to have affected the transmission mechanism, as pass-through of monetary policy to commercial interest rates has been similar to pass-through under the peg and in the rest of Central America.

A Global View of the U.S. Investment Position

This paper analyzes various indicators of the U.S. international investment position from a portfolio perspective. The 1990s saw a decline in home bias, which, coupled with rapid financial deepening, led to a large increase in gross international investment holdings. The home bias of non-U.S. investors declined more rapidly than that of U.S. investors, allowing the United States to finance a rising stock of net liabilities, even as foreign portfolios remained marketweight or underweight U.S. assets in each investment category. However, a comparison to other countries reveals that the U.S. net international investment position (NIIP) is large given the size of the economy and is deteriorating, especially through a growing negative net debt securities position.