Konstantin M. Wacker

The Role of Risk and Information for International Capital Flows: New Evidence from the SDDS

In this paper, we investigate whether better information about the macroeconomic environment of an economy has a positive impact on its capital inflows, namely portfolio and foreign direct investment (FDI). The purpose of our study is to explicitly quantify information asymmetries by compliance with the IMFs Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS). For FDI, we fi nd statistically signi cant and robust support for this hypothesis: SDDS subscription increased inflows by an economically relevant magnitude of about 60 percent. We also find evidence of aversion against political and macroeconomic risk as determinants of portfolio and FDI flows and use a non-parametric test for spatial correlation in the residuals of capital flows.

Globalization and Female Labor Force Participation in Developing Countries: An Empirical (Re-)Assessment

We investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade, as two measures of globalization, on female labor force participation rate in a sample of 80 developing countries over the time period 1980–2005. Contrary to the mainstream view in the literature, which is mainly based on country-case studies or simple cross-country variation, we find that both, FDI and trade have a generally negative impact on female labor force participation. While the impact is of negligible economic size, it is stronger for younger cohorts, possibly reflecting a higher return to education in open economies. We further find a large degree of cross-regional heterogeneity and that the effect of globalization on female labor force participation depends on the industrial structure, with more positive effects in economies with a higher share of industry in value added. We can thereby explain why country studies find other effects and question the generalization of their results into an overarching globalization tale concerning female labor force participation.

Do multinationals beat down developing countries' export prices? The impact of FDI on net barter terms of trade

This paper explores the economic relationship between foreign direct investment to developing countries and the export prices of the latter, measured by terms of trade. It is rst shown that economic theory suggests such a relationship for various reasons but is inconclusive about the direction of the e ect. To address this open issue empirically, I analyze data on more than 50 developing countries throughout the period 1980 - 2008 using dynamic panel data methods. The results show that multinational corporations, measured by data on foreign direct investment, had an economically relevant and statistically signi cant positive impact on developing countries net barter terms of trade. A higher level of education in the developing country fosters this e ect.

Why We Don't See Poverty Convergence: The Role of Macroeconomic Volatility

Martin Ravallion (Why Dont We See Poverty Convergence? American Economic Review, 102(1): 504-23; 2012) presents evidence against the existence of poverty convergence in aggregate data despite the conditional convergence of per capita income levels and the close linkage between growth and poverty reduction in standard neoclassic growth theory and associated empirics. In this contribution we address this puzzle. After showing some evidence of regional convergence, we demonstrate that macroeconomic volatility prevents countries with a higher incidence of poverty from converging in poverty levels to those with less poverty on a global scale. Once volatility is controlled for, the relevant convergence parameter shows the expected negative sign and is robust to various estimation techniques and model specifications. Only if a country’s volatility exceeds a relatively high threshold level, it no longer converges. Similarly, initial poverty only exercises a negative impact on mean (income) convergence in countries where macroeconomic volatility is high.

Poverty and Shared Prosperity: Let’s Move the Discussion Beyond Growth*

Abstract Some authors argue that it is enough to focus on growth to achieve lower poverty and greater shared prosperity. Policy-makers are warned that any effort to make growth more equal would be a distraction at best and could even be detrimental. Achieving the World Bank target of a 3% poverty rate by 2030 will require, however, more targeted policies favoring the poorest segments of the population. But what would be these policies? While studies investigating determinants of GDP growth have been numerous, less is known about factors influencing household incomes at the lowest segments of the income distribution. This paper estimates income drivers for the poorest two income quintiles drawing on a panel of 117 countries over the period 1967–2011. Its results suggest that maintaining macroeconomic stability as well as investing in human and physical capital would not only be associated with faster overall economic growth, but also with even faster income growth for the poorest segments of the population. This paper confirms the central role overall economic growth should play in any strategy to reduce poverty. Its results suggest, however, that in addition policy-makers may have instruments to tweak the distribution of the benefits of faster economic growth in favor of the households at the bottom of the income distribution. There thus need not be a trade-off between inequality and growth.

(When) Should We Use Foreign Direct Investment Data to Measure the Activities of Multinational Corporations? Theory and Evidence

This paper reviews the different concepts of measuring activities of multinational corporations. It aims at working out the economic relationships that theoretically exist between these measures under general economic assumptions and then empirically investigates to which extent such relationships exist in the data. As a main conclusion, foreign direct investment (FDI) stock data is indeed a good proxy for measuring most real economic activities of multinational firms. Discrepancies between FDI stock and other data can to a large extent be given a reasonable economic meaning, but observed asset‐to‐employment patterns in multinational production also call for more thorough future research.

The Role of Risk and Information for International Capital Flows

In this paper we investigate whether better information about the macroeconomic environment of an economy has a positive impact on its capital inflows, namely portfolio and foreign direct investment (FDI). The purpose of our study is to explicitly quantify information asymmetries by compliance with the IMFs Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS). For FDI, we find statistically significant and robust support for this hypothesis: SDDS subscription increased inflows by an economically relevant magnitude of about 60 percent. We also find evidence of aversion against political and macroeconomic risk as determinants of portfolio and FDI flows and use a non-parametric test for spatial correlation in the residual of capital flows. reviewers from the IMFs Research Department and seminar participants at the IMFs Statistics Departmental and at the University of Göttingen for helpful comments, inputs and ideas. All remaining errors are ours. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.

Understanding the income and efficiency gap in Latin America and the Caribbean

The countries of the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region like other emerging economies, have benefited from a decade of remarkable growth and some income per capita convergence toward the United States and other high-income countries. Yet, despite this recent progress, LAC still faces a significant per capita income gap with the developed world. To narrow this income gap, it is critical that the region reduce its efficiency gap. To that end, the studies in this volume seek to identify the main candidates to explain the differences in efficiency between LAC and the United States, as well as to look for factors that drive convergence at all levels of the economy. Theory suggests two main channels through which the efficiency gap can be affected: technology adoption or innovation and resource allocation. The analysis in this volume shows that technology adoption explains about one-fifth of the efficiency gap, leaving the rest to be explained by misallocation of resources. Drawing on the findings of the studies in this volume, several broad policy directions emerge: (i) increasing focus on closing the efficiency gap - beyond mere factor accumulation - is critical to reduce the income gap and improve LAC’s convergence prospects; (ii) eliminating distortions that cause misallocation of resources will also improve the incentives to innovate; and (iii) reducing macroeconomic volatility will alleviate the negative impact of the poverty gap on growth.

Beyond commodities : the growth challenge of Latin America and the Caribbean

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has seen a decade of remarkable growth and income convergence. Growth has been a key driver for reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. It has been debated how much of this decade of growth has been driven by policy reforms and how much was due to the favorable external conditions. While external factors were supportive and relevant, the effect of domestic policies was just as relevant for explaining LACs recent growth performance. The emphasis of domestic policy has shifted from stabilization policies to structural policies. In addition, a benchmarking exercise reveals which policy gaps will lead to the highest potential growth-payoffs for each country and helps identify potential trade-offs. The authors analyze growth in LAC using descriptive statistics and growth econometrics. The authors use these results for explaining the pattern of growth in LAC over the last decade, for looking ahead, and to identify potential policy gaps.

There is poverty convergence

Martin Ravallion (Why Dont We See Poverty Convergence? American Economic Review, 102(1): 504-23; 2012) presents evidence against the existence of convergence in global poverty rates despite convergence in household mean income levels and the close linkage between income growth and poverty reduction. We show that this finding is driven by a specification that demands more than simple convergence in poverty headcount rates and assumes a growth elasticity of poverty reduction, which is well-known to accelerate with low initial poverty levels. If we motivate the poverty convergence equation using an arguably superior growth semi-elasticity of poverty reduction, we find highly significant and robust evidence of convergence in absolute poverty headcount ratios and poverty gaps. Relatedly, we show that the results in Ravallion (2012) are driven by the special income growth and poverty dynamics in Central and Eastern European transition economies that started with low initial poverty rates and thus observed a high elasticity of poverty reduction. Once we control for their abnormal poverty dynamics, we again find robust evidence of global convergence in poverty, even in the original specification by Ravallion (2012).