Assaf Razin

Current Account Reversals and Currency Crises: Empirical Regularities

This paper studies large reductions in current account deficits and exchange rate depreciations in low- and middle-income countries. It examines which factors help predict the occurrence of a reversal or a currency crisis, and how these events affect macroeconomic performance. Both domestic factors, such as the low reserves, and external factors, such as unfavorable terms of trade, are found to trigger reversals and currency crises. The two types of events are, however, distinct; an exchange rate crash is associated with a fall in output growth and a recovery thereafter, while for reversals there is no systematic evidence of a growth slowdown.

The Terms of Trade and the Current Account: The Harberger-Laursen-Metzler Effect

The paper examines the effect of terms-of-trade changes on a small countrys spending and current account, assuming optimizing behavior in an intertemporal framework with perfect international capital mobility. A temporary (future) terms-of-trade deterioration implies a deterioration (improvement) of the trade balance, whereas a permanent terms-of-trade deterioration has an ambiguous effect, depending on the rate of time preference. Nominal and real variables are considered via exact price indexes. Two periods and an infinite horizon are examined.

International tax competition and gains from tax harmonization

In a world economy there are two types of distortions which can be caused by capital income taxation in addition to the standard closed-economy wedge between the consumer-saver marginal intertemporal rate of substitution and the producer-investor marginal productivity of capital: (i)international differences in intertemporal marginal rates of substitution, implying an inefficient allocation of world savings across countries; and (ii) international differences in the marginal productivity of capital, implying an inefficient allocation of world investment across countries. The paper focuses on the structure of taxation for countries which are engaged in tax competition and on potential gains from s tax harmonization. We show that if the competing countries are sufficiently coordinated with the rest of the world then tax competition leads each country to apply the residence principle of taxation and there are no gains from tax harmonization. If, however there is not sufficient coordination,tax competition leads to low capital income taxes and the tax burden falls on the internationally immobile factors. The outcome is nevertheless still efficient relative to the available constrained set of tax instruments.

Tax Burden and Migration: a Political Economy Theory and Evidence

The extent of taxation and redistribution policy is generally determined as a political-economy equilibrium by a balance between those who gain from higher taxes/transfers and those who lose. In a stylized model of migration and human capital formation, we show -- somewhat against the conventional wisdom -- that low-skill immigration may lead to a lower tax burden and less redistribution than would be the case with no immigration, even though migrants (naturally) join the pro-tax/transfer coalition. Data on 11 European countries over the period 1974 to 1992 are consistent with the implications of the theory: a higher share of immigrants in the population leads to a lower tax rate on labor income, even after controlling for the generosity and size of the welfare state, demographics, and the international exposure of the economy. As predicted by the theory, it is the increased share of low education immigrants that leads to the smaller tax burden.

Fiscal Policies in the World Economy

This paper uses a two-country general equilibrium model of the world economy in order to analyze the effects of budget deficits and government spending on world rates of interest, consumption, and international indebtedness. It demonstrates the difference between the effects of fiscal expenditures and tax cuts as well as between the effects of current policies and expected future policies. It is shown that the qualitative effects of fiscal policies depend on whether the country introducing the policies runs a surplus or a deficit in its current account. Following the positive analysis of the short-run and the steady-state effects, the paper concludes with a normative analysis of the welfare implications of budget deficits.

Migration and pension with international capital mobility

Abstract Being relatively low earners, migrants are net beneficiaries of the welfare state. Therefore, in a static set-up, migration may be resisted by the entire native-born population. However, it is shown that in a dynamic set-up, with a pension system (which is an important pillar of any welfare state) migration is beneficial to all income (high and low) and all age (old and young) groups.

Sharp Reductions in Current Account Deficits: An Empirical Analysis

The paper studies determinants and consequences of sharp reductions in current account imbalances (reversals) in low- and middle-income countries. It poses two questions: what triggers reversals, and what factors explain how costly reversals are? It finds that both domestic variables, such as the current account balance, openness to trade, and the level of reserves, and external variables, such as terms of trade shocks, U.S. real interest rates, and growth in industrial countries, seem to play important roles in explaining reversals in current account imbalances. It also finds some evidence that countries with a less appreciated real exchange rate, higher investment, and more openness before the reversal tend to grow faster after a reversal occurs.

Current Account Sustainability: Selected East Asian and Latin American Experiences

A number of developing countries have run large and persistent current account deficits in both the late seventies/early eighties and in the early nineties, raising the issue of whether these persistent imbalances are sustainable. This paper puts forward a notion of current account sustainability and compares the experience of three Latin American countries-Chile, Colombia Mexico-and three East Asian countries-Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. It identifies a number of potential sustainability indicators and discusses their usefulness in predicting external crises.

A pecking order of capital inflows and international tax principles

Abstract Even though financial markets today show a high degree of integration, the world capital market is still far from the textbook story of high capital mobility. The purpose of this paper is to highlight key sources of market failure in the context of international capital flows and to provide guidelines for efficient tax structure in the presence of capital market imperfections. The analysis distinguishes three types of international capital flows: foreign portfolio debt investment, foreign portfolio equity investment and foreign direct investment. The paper emphasizes the efficiency of a non-uniform tax treatment of the various vehicles of international capital flows.

Stochastic prices and tests of efficiency of foreign exchange markets

Abstract This paper shows that typical specifications of efficiency tests of foreign exchange markets are strictly valid only when individuals are risk neutral and prices are non-stochastic. Empirically, however, the neglect of these factors is shown to be of little significance.