Enrique G. Mendoza

The Terms of Trade, the Real Exchange Rate, and Economic Fluctuations

This paper examines the relationship between terms of trade and business cycles using a three-sector intertemporal equilibrium model and a large multicountry database. Results show that terms-of-trade shocks account for nearly one-half of actual GDP variability. The model explains weak correlations between net exports and terms of trade (the Harberger, Laursen, and Metzler effect), and produces large and weakly correlated deviations from purchasing power parity and real interest rate parity. Terms-of-trade shocks cause real appreciations and positive interest differentials, although productivity shocks have opposite effects. The puzzle that welfare gains of international asset trading are negligible is left unresolved. Copyright 1995 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

Mexico's balance-of-payments crisis: a chronicle of a death foretold☆☆☆

This paper claims that the roots of Mexicos balance-of-payments crisis are found in the prevailing high degree of capital mobility and financial globalization. Under these circumstances, shifts in foreign capital flows and anticipation of a banking-system bailout may produce large imbalances between stocks of financial assets and foreign reserves, threatening the sustainability of currency pegs. Econometric analysis suggests that 1/2 of Mexicos reserve losses could be accounted for by these phenomena. Large financial imbalances are also fertile ground for self-fulfilling-prophesy crises which lead devaluations to produce deep recessions. These difficulties can be partly remedied by appropriate policies.

On the ineffectiveness of tax policy in altering long-run growth: Harberger's superneutrality conjecture

Harberger’s superneutrality conjecture contends that, although in theory the mix of direct and indirect taxes affects investment and growth, in practice tax policy is ineffective as an instrument to promote growth. This paper provides evidence to support this view by examining the predictions of endogenous growth models driven by human capital accumulation. The empirical work is based on numerical simulations and cross-country regressions, using a new methodology for constructing aggregate effective tax rates. Results show significant investment effects from taxes that are consistent with negligible growth effects. The results are robust to the introduction of other growth determinants.

An Anatomy of Credit Booms: Evidence from Macro Aggregates and Micro Data

This paper proposes a methodology for measuring credit booms and uses it to identify credit booms in emerging and industrial economies over the past four decades. In addition, we use event study methods to identify the key empirical regularities of credit booms in macroeconomic aggregates and micro-level data. Macro data show a systematic relationship between credit booms and economic expansions, rising asset prices, real appreciations, widening external deficits and managed exchange rates. Micro data show a strong association between credit booms and firm-level measures of leverage, firm values, and external financing, and bank-level indicators of banking fragility. Credit booms in industrial and emerging economies show three major differences: (1) credit booms and the macro and micro fluctuations associated with them are larger in emerging economies, particularly in the nontradables sector; (2) not all credit booms end in financial crises, but most emerging markets crises were associated with credit booms; and (3) credit booms in emerging economies are often preceded by large capital inflows but not by financial reforms or productivity gains.

Rational contagion and the globalization of securities markets

Abstract This paper argues that globalization may promote contagion by weakening incentives for gathering costly information and by strengthening incentives for imitating arbitrary market portfolios. In the presence of short-selling constraints, the gain of gathering information at a fixed cost may diminish as markets grow. Moreover, if a portfolio managers marginal cost for yielding below-market returns exceeds the marginal gain for above-market returns, there is a range of optimal portfolios in which all investors imitate arbitrary market portfolios and this range widens as the market grows. Numerical simulations suggest that these frictions can have significant implications for capital flows in emerging markets.

Terms-of-trade uncertainty and economic growth

Abstract This paper examines a stochastic endogenous growth model in which terms-of-trade uncertainty affects savings and growth. The model explains the well-known positive link between growth and the mean rate of change of terms of trade, and predicts also that terms-of-trade variability affects growth. Increased terms-of-trade variability results in faster or slower growth depending on the degree of risk aversion, but in either case it reduces social welfare. These growth effects imply that welfare costs of macroeconomic uncertainty are much larger than first thought. Cross-country panel regressions provide strong support for the models key predictions.

Credit Frictions and 'Sudden Stops' in Small Open Economies: An Equilibrium Business Cycle Framework for Emerging Markets Crises

Financial frictions are a central element of most of the models that the literature on emerging markets crises has proposed for explaining the Sudden Stop phenomenon. To date, few studies have aimed to examine the quantitative implications of these models and to integrate them with an equilibrium business cycle framework for emerging economies. This paper surveys these studies, viewing them as ability-to-pay and willingness-to-pay variations of a framework that adds occasionally binding borrowing constraints to the small open economy real-business-cycle model. A common feature of the different models is that agents factor in the risk of future Sudden Stops in their optimal plans, so that equilibrium allocations and prices are distorted even when credit constraints do not bind. Sudden Stops are a property of the unique, flexible-price competitive equilibrium of these models that occurs in a particular region of the state space in which negative shocks make borrowing constraints binding. The resulting nonlinear effects imply that solving the models requires non-linear numerical methods, which are described in the survey. The results show that the models can yield relatively infrequent Sudden Stops with large current account reversals and deep recessions nested within smoother business cycles. Still, research in this area is at an early stage, and this survey aims to stimulate further work.

International Evidence on Fiscal Solvency: Is Fiscal Policy Responsible?

This paper looks at fiscal solvency and public debt sustainability in both emerging market and advanced countries. Evidence of fiscal solvency, in the form of a robust positive conditional relationship between public debt and the primary fiscal balance, is established in both groups of countries. Evidence of fiscal solvency is much weaker, however, at high debt levels. These findings suggest that many industrial and emerging market economies, including several where fiscal solvency has been the subject of recent debates, appear to conduct fiscal policy responsibly. Yet our results cannot reject the hypothesis of fiscal insolvency in groups of countries with high debt ratios.

Rational Herd Behavior and the Globalization of Securities Markets

This paper shows that globalization of securities markets exacerbates the volatility of capital flows by strengthening incentives for herding behavior. This is a prediction of a mean-variance portfolio optimization model with imperfect information, in which investors acquire country-specific expertise at a fixed cost and incur variable reputational costs. The model produces equilibria in which incentives to confirm rumors decrease with globalization. Simulations based on equity markets data and country credit ratings suggest that herd behavior can induce large capital outflows from emerging markets.

Devaluation risk and the business-cycle implications of exchange-rate management

Abstract What is the mechanism driving the business cycle associated with stabilization policies anchored on managed exchange rates? Perfect-foresight models used extensively to try to answer this question have been unable to explain key quantitative features of the data. To do so it is necessary to consider devaluation risk in an environment of incomplete insurance markets in which stochastic price and wealth distortions operate. Simulations applied to Mexican data show that these distortions are large and socially costly, and that they rationalize several stylized facts. These findings suggest focusing the debate on exchange-rate regimes on the credibility of policymakers and the stance of fiscal policy.