Elena Rusticelli

MEDIUM-TERM DETERMINANTS OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT POSITIONS: THE ROLE OF STRUCTURAL POLICIES

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the medium-term determinants of international investment positions for a large sample of advanced and emerging economies. In addition to the usually considered drivers of foreign assets and liabilities, the analysis focuses on the role of structural policy indicators. Using cross-section and panel regression techniques the results suggest that structural policy settings are important medium-term drivers of capital flows, having a relatively large impact on gross and net foreign capital positions and on their composition. In particular, the results suggest that certain kinds of structural policy reform could help to narrow global imbalances, and to modify the composition of international capital flows towards more stable and productive sources.

A Model-Based Analysis of the Effect of Increased Public Investment

There is a strong case for boosting public investment in many countries based on identified country-specific structural weaknesses and the relatively low levels of such investment. This paper analyses the potential macroeconomic benefits of increased public investment using simulations on NiGEM. The results suggest that the supply-side benefits from raising potential output are likely to lead to more favourable macroeconomic outcomes than those from using many other standard fiscal instruments, although it takes many years for the full effect on potential output to accumulate. Variant model simulations also suggest that a fiscal stimulus will be more effective in the short term the less it is offset by monetary policy, making well-targeted policy initiatives especially effective when policy interest rates are at the zero lower bound. Globalisation implies that spillover effects from collective action are larger than in the past, boosting multipliers relative to the case where countries take individual action, particularly in the first two years after the policy change. Such spillovers are likely to be particularly important in small open European economies, especially those strongly integrated in European value chains.

Inflation Responses to Recent Shocks

This paper uses a variety of empirical methods to examine the apparent differences in monetary policy stances as between the United States and other G7 economies, notably those in the euro area, during the period of sharp increases in oil and other commodity prices in the first half of 2008. In particular it asks the question whether observed differences in policy stances could be attributed to differences in economic structures and the vulnerability of different regions to inflationary shocks coming from import prices as opposed to differences in monetary policy objectives. The main conclusion is that although there are a number of differences in the estimated impact and dynamics of commodities, import prices and exchange rates on domestic inflation, which may have contributed to differences in policy stances during the boom in commodity prices, they cannot explain them all.