Open Economies Review最新文献

In a small open economy framework that features properties of the informal sector, I examine the relationship between this sector and the size of the government spending multiplier. I show that countries with relatively larger shares of this sector in their production are more inclined to generating smaller multipliers. In the presence of the informal sector, the marginal cost, inflation and the real interest rate respond more strongly to the rise in government spending compared to that of an economy without this sector. This leads to a larger fall in private consumption. The resultant multiplier is therefore smaller. In a liquidity trap period however, the amplifying effects of the informal sector on inflation leads to a larger multiplier compared to that of the economy without this sector. These findings suggest that the informal sector could be one of the major driving forces behind the relatively smaller multipliers in low-income countries (most of which are characterized by significantly large shares of this sector in their output).

When faced with capital flow and credit growth waves in recent years, policymakers have relied upon macroprudential regulation. This paper sheds light on a relatively less-analyzed policy issue: how macroprudential regulatory measures mitigate extreme credit growth episodes. We use a dynamic panel data approach to estimate the impact of MaPPs on credit growth volatility and the likelihood of credit growth boom and bust episodes. We find that MaPPs reduce credit growth volatility in both advanced economies (AEs) and emerging market economies (EMEs). In addition, MaPPs help to prevent credit surges in EMEs and stops in AEs. Our results show that there is a strong link between net capital flows and credit growth stop episodes. Net capital flow surges trigger a credit surge for EMEs. This suggests that policymakers should consider both MaPPs and capital flow management measures when designing policies to mitigate the risks associated with these phenomena.

Economists and some economic historians dismiss the populationist hypothesis about responsibility of population growth for the European “Price Revolution”. They attribute the inflation instead to inflow of silver following discovery of the Americas. Based on English evidence in 1500–1700, we show that this dismissal of the populationist position flies in the face of the evidence. Further, whatever the weaknesses of past defenses of the populationist stand, it can be easily framed on a sound economic basis. We also examine critically the monetarist explanation of the Price Revolution. Both theses are jointly important and compatible.

This study uses a family of VAR models with time-varying parameters and stochastic volatility (TVP-VAR-SV) to analyze the impact of external shocks on output growth and inflation in Peru in 1992Q1-2017Q1. The statistical relevance of the models is assessed using the deviance information criterion (DIC) and the marginal log-likelihood calculated using the cross-entropy method. The results show that: (i) it is more relevant to introduce SV than TVP; i.e., the best fitting model admits only varying intercepts and SV; and TVP-VAR and CVAR are the least performing models; (ii) the models’ impulse response functions indicate that the impacts from external shocks are different under high inflation, economic crisis, and monetary policy change, with a greater impact in episodes of high uncertainty; (iii) the impact and importance of external shocks have increased over time; and (iv) the results are robust to changes in the priors, the lag structure, order of the variables, the choice of the external variable, and the selection of the variable for domestic economic activity.