Rudolfs Bems

The External Balance Assessment (EBA) Methodology

The External Balance Assessment (EBA) methodology has been developed by the IMF’s Research Department as a successor to the CGER methodology for assessing current accounts and exchange rates in a multilaterally consistent manner. Compared to other approaches, EBA emphasizes distinguishing between the positive empirical analysis and the normative assessment of current accounts and exchange rates, and highlights the roles of policies and policy distortions. This paper provides a comprehensive description and discussion of the 2013 version (“2.0”) of the EBA methodology, including areas for its further development.

Macroeconomics of Migration in New Member States

This paper examines the macroeconomic impact of migration on income convergence in the EUs New Member States (NMS). The paper focuses on cross-border mobility of labor and examines the implications for policymakers with the help of a general equilibrium model. It finds that cross-border labor mobility provides ample benefits in terms of faster and smoother convergence. Challenges, however, include containing wage pressures and better mobilizing and utilizing resident labor that does not cross borders.

Trading on Their Terms? Commodity Exporters in the Aftermath of the Commodity Boom

Commodity prices have declined sharply over the past three years, and output growth has slowed considerably among countries that are net exporters of commodities. A critical question for policy makers in these economies is whether commodity windfalls influence potential output. Our analysis suggests that both actual and potential output move together with commodity terms of trade, but that actual output comoves twice as strongly as potential output. The weak commodity price outlook is estimated to subtract 1 to 2¼ percentage points from actual output growth annually on average during 2015-17. The forecast drag on potential output is about one-third of that for actual output.

Demand for Value Added and Value-Added Exchange Rates

We examine the role of cross-border input linkages in governing how international relative price changes influence demand for domestic value added. We define a novel value-added real effective exchange rate (REER), which aggregates bilateral value-added price changes, and link this REER to demand for value added. Input linkages enable countries to gain competitiveness following depreciations by supply chain partners, and hence counterbalance beggar-thy-neighbor effects. Cross-country differences in input linkages also imply that the elasticity of demand for value added is country specific. Using global input-output data, we demonstrate these conceptual insights are quantitatively important and compute historical value-added REERs.