Raphael Espinoza

Nonperforming Loans in the GCC Banking System and Their Macroeconomic Effects

According to a dynamic panel estimated over 1995 - 2008 on around 80 banks in the GCC region, the NPL ratio worsens as economic growth becomes lower and interest rates and risk aversion increase. Our model implies that the cumulative effect of macroeconomic shocks over a three year horizon is indeed large. Firm-specific factors related to risk-taking and efficiency are also related to future NPLs. The paper finally investigates the feedback effect of increasing NPLs on growth using a VAR model. According to the panel VAR, there could be a strong, albeit short-lived feedback effect from losses in banks’ balance sheets on economic activity, with a semi-elasticity of around 0.4.

Estimating the Inflation-Growth Nexus: A Smooth Transition Model

Motivated by the global inflation episode of 2007-08 and concern that high levels of inflation could undermine growth, this paper uses a panel of 165 countries and data for 1960-2007 to revisit the nexus between inflation and growth. We use a smooth transition model to investigate the speed at which inflation beyond a threshold becomes harmful to growth, an important consideration in the policy response to rising inflation as the world economy recovers. We estimate that for all country groups (except for advanced countries) inflation above a threshold of about 10 percent quickly becomes harmful to growth, suggesting the need for a prompt policy response to inflation at or above the relevant threshold. For the advanced economies, the threshold is much lower. For oil exporting countries, the estimates are less robust, possibly reflecting heterogeneity among oil producers, but the effect of higher inflation for oil producers is found to be stronger.

When Should Public Debt Be Reduced

What considerations should guide public debt policy going forward? Should debt be reduced to achieve normative anchors (such as 60 percent of GDP), should it be increased further to finance a big public investment push, or should the existing debt be serviced forever? We argue that, for countries with ample fiscal space (little risk of encountering a fiscal crisis), raising distortive taxes merely to bring the debt down is a treatment cure that is worse than the disease. High public debt of course is costly, but it is a sunk cost only made worse by efforts to pay down the debt through distortionary taxation. Living with the debt is the welfare-maximizing policy. In decisions vis-a-vis the big push for public investment, golden-rule considerations remain salient, with due account taken of the additional servicing costs (and associated distortive taxation) from the resulting buildup of public debt.

Monetary Policy Transmission in the GCC Countries

The GCC countries maintain a policy of open capital accounts and a pegged (or nearly-pegged) exchange rate, thereby reducing their freedom to run an independent monetary policy. This paper shows, however, that the pass-through of policy rates to retail rates is on the low side, reflecting the shallowness of money markets and the manner in which GCC central banks operate. In addition to policy rates, the GCC monetary authorities use reserve requirements, loan-to-deposit ratios, and other macroprudential tools to affect liquidity and credit. Nonetheless, a panel vector auto regression model suggests that U.S. monetary policy has a strong and statistically significant impact on broad money, non-oil activity, and inflation in the GCC region. Unanticipated shocks to broad money also affect prices but do not stimulate growth. Continued efforts to develop the domestic financial markets will increase interest rate pass-through and strengthen monetary policy transmission.

Probabilities of Default and the Market Price of Risk in a Distressed Economy

We propose an original method to estimate the market price of risk under stress, which is needed to correct for risk aversion the CDS-implied probabilities of distress. The method is based, for simplicity, on a one-factor asset pricing model. The market price of risk under stress (the expectation of the market price of risk, conditional on it exceeding a certain threshold) is computed from the price of risk (which is the variance of the market price of risk) and the discount factor (which is the inverse of the expected market price of risk). The threshold is endogenously determined so that the probability of the price of risk exceeding it is also the probability of distress of the asset. The price of risk can be estimated via different methods, for instance derived from the VIX or from the factors in a Fama-MacBeth regression.

Recent Credit Stagnation in the Mena Region; What to Expect? What Can Be Done?

This paper examines the recent credit slowdown among Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries from three analytical angles. First, it finds that, similar to other regions and to its past history, a credit boom preceded the current slowdown, and that a protracted period of sluggish growth is likely going forward. Second, it uncovers a key role played by bank funding (deposit growth and external borrowing slowed considerably) but whose effect was frequently dampened by expansionary monetary policy. Third, bank-level fundamentals - capitalization and loan quality - helped to explain differences in credit growth across banks and countries.

As You Sow so Shall You Reap: Public Investment Surges, Growth, and Debt Sustainability in Togo

This paper presents an analysis of the public investment scaling-up strategy for Togo using a dynamic macroeconomic model that explicitly analyzes the links between public investment, economic growth, and debt sustainability. In the model, public capital is productive and complementary to private capital, generating positive medium and long-run effects to increases in public investment. The model application indicates that a very large increase in public investment would have positive macroeconomic effects in the long-run, but would require unrealistic increases in the tax burden to cover recurrent costs and ensure debt sustainability. More modest increases in public investment would require more feasible increases in the tax burden, particularly if the efficiency of tax collection is improved. The model simulations also emphasize the importance of improvements in the efficiency of public investment to reap welfare gains. However, even if the macroeconomic implications of public investment scaling-up can be favorable in the long-run under certain assumptions on rates of return and efficiency of investment, the transition period is challenging and exposes the country to increased risk of unsustainable debt dynamics. The model was also used to assess the growth projections underlying the standard Excel-based debt sustainability analysis for Togo.

How Strong are Fiscal Multipliers in the GCC

The effectiveness of fiscal policy in smoothing the impact of shocks depends critically on the size of fiscal multipliers. This is particularly relevant for the GCC countries given the need for fiscal policy to cushion the economy from large terms of trade shocks in the absence of an independent monetary policy and where fiscal multipliers could be weak dues to substantial leakages through remittances and imports. The paper provides estimates of the size of fiscal multipliers using a variety of models. The focus is on government spending since tax revenues are small. The long-run multiplier estimates vary in the 0.3-0.7 range for current expenditure and 0.6-1.1 for capital spending, depending on the particular specification and estimation method chosen. These estimates fall within the range of fiscal multiplier estimates in the literature for non-oil emerging markets.

Regional Financial Integration in the Caribbean: Evidence from Financial and Macroeconomic Data

This paper assesses the extent of regional financial integration in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) by analyzing equity prices in the region and rigidity of external financing constraints. The results are presented in a cross-regional perspective. The Caribbean stock markets are not as well integrated as one would expect from the extent of cross-listing and importance of regional banking groups: price differentials of cross-listed stocks reach an average of 5 percent. Auto-Regressive models suggest that these price differentials are only slowly arbitraged away, with half-lives exceeding 7 worked days, even when looking only at large arbitrage opportunities (using a Threshold Auto-Regressive model). A speculative methodology using macroeconomic data seems to confirm these findings. A strong mean reversion of the current account (respectively regional trade imbalances) is interpreted, following Obstfeld and Taylor (2004), as a lack of ways to finance current account deficits, i.e. a lack of global (respectively regional) financial integration. The region appears to be much less integrated than the EU15 or the ASEAN+3 groups, although it fares well compared to other LDCs.

Unconventional Policy Instruments in the New Keynesian Model

This paper analyzes the use of unconventional policy instruments in New Keynesian setups in which the ‘divine coincidence’ breaks down. The paper discusses the role of a second instrument and its coordination with conventional interest rate policy, and presents theoretical results on equilibrium determinacy, the inflation bias, the stabilization bias, and the optimal central banker’s preferences when both instruments are available. We show that the use of an unconventional instrument can help reduce the zone of equilibrium indeterminacy and the volatility of the economy. However, in some circumstances, committing not to use the second instrument may be welfare improving (a result akin to Rogoff (1985a) example of counterproductive coordination). We further show that the optimal central banker should be both aggressive against inflation, and interventionist in using the unconventional policy instrument. As long as price setting depends on expectations about the future, there are gains from establishing credibility by using any instrument that affects these expectations.