Kenza Benhima

Capital Controls with International Reserve Accumulation: Can This Be Optimal?

Motivated by the Chinese experience, we analyze a semi-open economy where the central bank has access to international capital markets, but the private sector has not. This enables the central bank to choose an interest rate different from the international rate. We examine the optimal policy of the central bank by modelling it as a Ramsey planner who can choose the level of domestic public debt and of international reserves. The central bank can improve savings opportunities of credit-constrained consumers modelled as in Woodford (1990). We find that in a steady state it is optimal for the central bank to replicate the open economy, i.e., to issue debt financed by the accumulation of reserves so that the domestic interest rate equals the foreign rate. When the economy is in transition, however, a rapidly growing economy has a higher welfare without capital mobility and the optimal interest rate differs from the international rate. We argue that the domestic interest rate should be temporarily above the international rate. We also find that capital controls can still help reach the first best when the planner has more fiscal instruments.

Corporate Cash and Employment

In the aftermath of the U.S. financial crisis, both a sharp drop in employment and a surge in corporate cash have been observed. In this paper, based on U.S. data, we document that the negative relationship between the corporate cash ratio and employment is systematic, both over time and across firms. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model where heterogenous firms need cash in their production process and where financial shocks are made of both credit and liquidity shocks. We show that external liquidity shocks generate a negative comovement between the cash ratio and employment. We analyze the dynamic impact of aggregate shocks and the cross-firm impact of idiosyncratic shocks. With a calibrated version of the model, the model yields a negative comovement that is close to the data.

When Do Long-Term Imbalances Lead to Current Account Reversals?

We extend the literature on sharp reductions in current account deficits by taking into account not only short-term determinants, but also the deviation of net foreign assets from their long-run equilibrium level. First, we analyse the long-term relationship between net foreign assets and a set of explanatory variables and construct a measure of imbalances. Next, we model current account reversals by incorporating this new measure and compare the predictive power of this model with the baseline specification that does not account for long-term imbalances. Our new model has a superior performance in and out-of-sample, especially when we control for the sign of imbalances. We also find that low net foreign assets do not necessarily lead to sharp reductions in current account deficits; it is rather the situation when they are below their equilibrium level that triggers reversals. Finally, we document that our new measure of net foreign asset imbalances is important only for developing countries, whereas standard models perform well for industrial economies.

Corporate Saving in Global Rebalancing

In this paper, we examine theoretically how corporate saving in emerging markets is contributing to global rebalancing. We consider a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model, based on Bacchetta and Benhima (2014), with a Developed and an Emerging country. Firms need to save in liquid assets to finance their production projects, especially in the Emerging country. In this context, we examine the impact of a credit crunch in the Developed country and of a growth slowdown in both countries. These three shocks imply smaller global imbalances and a positive output comovement, but have a different impact on interest rates. Contrary to common wisdom, a slowdown in the Emerging market implies a trade balance improvement in the Developed country.