Paolo Mauro

Corruption and Growth

This paper analyzes a newly assembled data set consisting of subjective indices of corruption, the amount of red tape, the efficiency of the judicial system, and various categories of political stability for a cross section of countries. Corruption is found to lower investment, thereby lowering economic growth. The results are robust to controlling for endogeneity by using an index of ethnolinguistic fractionalization as an instrument.

CORRUPTION AND THE COMPOSITION OF GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE

Abstract This paper asks whether predatory behavior by corrupt politicians distorts the composition of government expenditure. Corruption is found to reduce government spending on education in a cross section of countries.

Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy

The great moderation lulled macro-economists and policymakers alike in the belief that we knew how to conduct macroeconomic policy. The crisis clearly forces to question that assessment. This paper reviews the main elements of the pre-crisis consensus, identify where we were wrong and what tenets of the pre-crisis framework still hold, and take a tentative first pass at the contours of a new macroeconomic policy framework.

Exchange Rate Regimes in an Increasingly Integrated World Economy

This paper examines the consequences of heightened capital mobility and of the integration of developing economies in increasingly globalized markets for the exchange rate regimes of the industrial, developing, and transition economies. It builds upon previous studies by IMF staff on various aspects of the exchange rate arrangements of member countries, consistent with the IMFs role of surveillance over its members exchange rate policies.

The Effects of Corruptionon Growth, Investment, and Government Expenditure

This paper discusses the possible causes and consequences of corruption. It provides a synthetic review of recent studies that analyze this phenomenon empirically. In addition, it presents further results on the effects of corruption on growth and investment, and new cross-country evidence on the link between corruption and the composition of government expenditure.

Emerging Market Spreads: Then versus Now

This paper analyzes yield spreads on sovereign debt issued by emerging markets using modern data from the 1990s and newly-collected historical data on debt traded in London during 1870–1913, a previous “golden era†for international capital market integration. Applying several empirical approaches, we show that the co-movement of spreads across emerging markets is higher today than it was in the historical sample. We also show that sharp changes in spreads today tend to be mostly related to global events, whereas country-specific events played a bigger role in 1870–1913. Although we find some evidence that economic fundamentals, too, co-move more strongly today than at that time, our interpretation of the results is that today’s investors pay less attention to country-specific events than their predecessors did in 1870–1913.

The Suitability of ASEAN for a Regional Currency Arrangement

This paper examines the costs, benefits, preconditions, and implications of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional currency arrangement that is assumed to culminate in a regional currency. On economic criteria, ASEAN appears less suited for a regional currency arrangement than Europe before the Maastricht Treaty, although the difference is not large. The transition to European Monetary Union (EMU) indicates that the path toward a common currency is fraught with difficulty. A firm political commitment would seem to be vital to ensuring that an attempt to form a regional currency arrangement is not viewed as simply another fixed exchange rate regime, open to speculative crises.

Sovereign Debt Structure for Crisis Prevention

The debate on government debt in the context of possible reforms of the international financial architecture has thus far focused on crisis resolution. This paper seeks to broaden this debate. It asks how government debt could be structured to pursue other objectives, including crisis prevention, international risk-sharing, and facilitating the adjustment of fiscal variables to changes in domestic economic conditions. To that end, the paper considers recently developed analytical approaches to improving sovereign debt structure using existing instruments, and reviews a number of proposals--including the introduction of explicit seniority and GDP-linked instruments--in the sovereign context.

Stock returns and output growth in emerging and advanced economies

This paper studies the correlation between output growth and lagged stock returns in a panel of emerging market economies and advanced economies. It finds that the correlation is as strong in emerging market economies as in advanced economies. Asset prices therefore contain valuable information to forecast output also in emerging market economies. Moreover, the paper finds that the strength of the correlation between output growth and lagged stock returns is significantly related to a number of stock market characteristics, such as the number of listed domestic companies and initial public offerings and, especially, a high market capitalization to GDP ratio and English legal origin.

Reaping the Benefits of Financial Globalization

Financial globalization has increased dramatically over the past three decades, particularly for advanced economies, while emerging market and developing countries experienced more moderate increases. Divergences across countries stem from different capital control regimes, and factors such as institutional quality and domestic financial development. Although, in principle, financial globalization should enhance international risk sharing, reduce macroeconomic volatility, and foster economic growth, in practice its effects are less clear-cut. This paper envisages a gradual and orderly sequencing of external financial liberalization and complementary reforms in macroeconomic policy framework as essential components of a successful liberalization strategy.