Vivek B. Arora

How Does U.S. Monetary Policy Influence Sovereign Spreads in Emerging Markets

This paper quantifies the impact of changes in U.S. monetary policy on sovereign bond spreads in emerging market countries. Specifically, the paper explores empirically how country risk, as proxied by sovereign bond spreads, is influenced by U.S. monetary policy, country-specific fundamentals, and conditions in global capital markets. While country-specific fundamentals are important in explaining fluctuations in country risk, the stance and predictability of U.S. monetary policy are also important for stabilizing capital flows and capital market conditions in emerging markets.

Potential Output and Total Factor Productivity Growth in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This paper provides estimates of potential output growth in post-apartheid South Africa using both time trend techniques and a production function approach which indicates a potential growth rate of around 3 percent. The implied output gap provides statistically significant information for predicting inflation and could thus provide valuable input for formulating macroeconomic policy. Growth accounting and regression analysis suggest that an increase in trend GDP growth after the end of apartheid in 1994 is attributable to higher TFP growth driven by trade liberalization and greater private sector participation.

The Impact of U.S. Economic Growth on the Rest of the World: How Much Does it Matter?

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the impact of economic growth in the United States on growth in other countries. Using panel data estimation, the paper finds a significant positive impact of U.S. growth on growth in the rest of the world, especially developing countries, during the past few decades. The evidence suggests that the impact of U.S. growth on other countries can be explained by the significance of the United States as a global trading partner. The paper provides estimates of the direct impact of trade with the United States on growth in several individual countries.

China’s Economic Growth: International Spillovers

Chinas economic development since 1978 is one of the most significant events in recent history. Many aspects of this development have been extensively analyzed in the published literature. However, the implications of Chinas growth for other countries have been relatively neglected. The present paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. The paper first presents some facts on Chinas role in the world economy, and then measures the impact of Chinas growth on growth in the rest of the world in both the short term and the long term. Short�?run estimates based on vector autoregression and error correction models suggest that spillover effects of Chinas growth have increased in recent decades. Long�?term spillover effects, estimated through growth regressions based on panel data, are also significant and have extended in recent decades beyond Asia. The estimates are robust to the effects of global and regional shocks, changes in model specification, and sample period.

How Does U.S Monetary Policy Influence Economic Conditions in Emerging Markets

This paper quantifies the economic impact of changes in U.S. monetary policy on emerging market countries. We explore empirically how country risk, as proxied by sovereign bond spreads, is influenced by U.S. monetary policy, country-specific fundamentals, and conditions in global capital markets. In addition, we simulate the direct effects of a tightening in U.S. monetary policy on economic conditions in developing countries. While country-specific fundamentals are important in explaining fluctuations in country risk, the stance and predictability of U.S. monetary policy are also important for stabilizing capital flows and capital market conditions and fostering economic growth in developing countries.

Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: The Chinese System in Perspective

This paper provides an overview of recent Chinese reforms to introduce a modern system of fiscal federalism that balances the need for central macroeconomic control with the economic advantages of decentralized government. Following a discussion of the rationale for decentralization, the paper describes the main structural and economic developments in China in this area, including their impact on economic stabilization. The key measures in the 1994 fiscal reforms as well as reform initiatives needed in the future are also discussed.

Monetary Policy Transparency and Financial Market Forecasts in South Africa

The transparency of monetary policy in South Africa has increased substantially since the end of the 1990s; but little empirical work has been done to examine the economic benefits of the increased transparency. This paper shows that, in recent years, South African private sector forecasters have become better able to forecast interest rates, are less surprised by reserve bank policy announcements, and are less diverse in the cross-sectional variety of their interest rate forecasts. In addition, there is some evidence that the accuracy of inflation forecasts has increased. The improvements in interest rate and inflation forecasts have exceeded those in real output forecasts, suggesting that increases in reserve bank transparency are likely to have played a role.

Sovereign Debt: A Survey of Some Theoretical and Policy Issues

This paper surveys the literature on sovereign debt that deals with the issues of a country`s ability-to-pay, its willingness-to-pay, and the policy responses to the debt crisis of the 1980s. The existence of an ability-to-pay problem suggests a need for debt reduction, but plans for debt relief face potential incentive problems, and sovereign debt repurchases are not always a welfare maximizing method of debt restructuring. The paper synthesizes the main conclusions on these issues. With a willingness-to-pay problem, the potential penalties for debt repudiation are important in the endogenous determination of the repayment outcome. Penalties that are intertemporal in nature have different implications for debt repudiation than do intratemporal penalties. In addition, the asymmetric distribution of the costs of default can lead to a recurrent cycle of debt accumulation and default.

South Africa in the African Economy

A key feature of the world economy in recent decades has been growing economic integration among groups of countries. This pattern is also evident in Africa, and, since 1994, in the integration between South Africa and the rest of the continent across many economic dimensions. A question that naturally arises as countries grow more closely integrated is what influence they might have on each other. In particular, does a country’s economic growth have “spillover effects” on its partner countries? Are these spillovers generally beneficial, and what is their size? And what might be some of the future implications of regional integration? This article updates what was, to our knowledge, one of the first empirical assessments of the spillover from South African growth to other African countries.1 It also discusses some implications of the updated results in the context of more recent research on African regional integration.

Trade reform and inflation stabilization

This paper examines two important issues for a small high-inflation open economy with trade controls where the government implements an exchange-rate based stabilization program: first, the extent to which the degree of openness of the economy influences the probability of success of the program; and second, the conditions under which a trade reform, implemented in conjunction with the stabilization program, will increase the probability that stabilization will be successful. The paper shows that in an economy with high export and import price elasticities, structural reforms to increase openness can be important in determining the success of the program.