Economics: Research Guide

Early evidence on the pandemic’s effects pointed to women’s employment falling disproportionately, leading observers to call a “she-cession.” This paper documents the extent and persistence of this phenomenon in a quarterly sample of 38 advanced and emerging market economies. We show that there is a large degree of heterogeneity across countries, with over half to two-thirds exhibiting larger declines in women’s than men’s employment rates. These gender differences in COVID-19’s effects are typically short-lived, lasting only a quarter or two on average. We also show that she-cessions are strongly related to COVID-19’s impacts on gender shares in employment within sectors.

What are the constraints that have stalled EMs efforts to reuse their securities in international financial centers? We discuss the economics of collateral re-use and the present institutional structure in Asian and Latin American countries. Our empirical investigation suggests pledgeability enhances financial stability and dollar funding risk. We also explain the Eurozone collateral pool to incentivize EMs, and why many securities (e.g., BTPs, Italy) are acceptable in London but not EM securities. Looking forward, EMs liaison with International Central Securities Depositories (ICSDs), and global banks’ balance sheet capacity to intermediate cross-border collateral will be crucial for this..

Korea’s stars tell of an economy saddled with a real neutral rate (r-star) that has declined significantly in recent decades and is currently below zero. This reflects a significant decline in trend growth, and two large financial crises that triggered significant shifts in the saving-investment balance. Larger fiscal deficits and frothy financial conditions since 2012 have helped offset rising demand for safer assets, preventing the neutral rate from falling further. Nonetheless, the fall in the neutral rate, coupled with its effects on asset returns, has complicated the task of monetary policy stabilization. Korea’s neutral rate is likely to remain low over the medium-term and could fa..

Korea’s economy has leaped to high-income status thanks to several decades of sustained high growth. However, population aging and shifts in global demand provide headwinds for future growth and Korea now faces the effects of COVID-19 on economic activity. This paper asseses the expected drag on potential growth from these factors and discusses policies that could provide offsetting upward momentum by facilitating structural transformation. We find that potential output growth slowed to about 2½ percent before the COVID-19 pandemic and would have fallen to 2 percent by 2030, mainly due to demographic factors. Moreover, there is a possibility of scarring from the COVID-19 shock as adjustme..

This paper explores the role of public expenditure in fostering inclusive growth. It starts with a presentation of salient features of public expenditure. Then, it lays out an analytical framework that describes the channels through which public expenditure affects inequality and poverty in the short and long term. Based on a review of the empirical literature, it discusses the policy options. Finally, the paper assesses the role of key factors such as the initial conditions, and the institutions, in shaping the inclusive spending policies.

We survey the literature on the relationship between macroeconomic stability and inclusive growth and identify gaps in our knowledge. We examine the role of macroeconomic policies (fiscal, monetary, macroprudential, and exchange rate) and measures of inclusiveness (income inequality, consumption inequality, wealth inequality, poverty, and unemployment) across countries at different income levels. Avoiding procyclical macroeconomic policies and mitigating macroeconomic volatility should be on the agenda of all policymakers concerned with promoting inclusive growth. The emerging theory and evidence suggest a strong role for macroeconomic policies in shaping inclusive growth, both in the short-..

In this paper, we review the role of the political economy in inclusive growth. We find that political economy forces on the demand and supply side have weakened redistribution over time and contributed to a new wave of populism. We document growing support for a rethink of the social contract to make growth more inclusive and discuss some of its broad elements.

Does parental wealth inequality impact next generation labor income inequality? And does a tax on parental wealth affect the labor income distribution of the next generation? We tackle both questions empirically using detailed intergenerational data from Norway, focusing on effects on wages rather than capital income. Results suggest that a net wealth of NOK 1 million increases wages of the children by NOK 14,000. Children of wealthy parents also have a higher labor income mobility. The estimated hypothetical wage distribution without the wealth tax is more unequal. Moreover, suggestive evidence indicates parental wealth is associated with higher labor risk taking.

This paper proposes a novel explanation for why foreign currency denominated loans to households have become so popular in some emerging economies. Our argument is based on what we call the debt limit channel, which arises when multi-period contracts are offered to financially constrained borrowers against collateral that is established on newly acquired assets. Whenever the difference between domestic and foreign interest rates is positive, this effect biases borrowers’ choices towards foreign currency, even if the exchange rate is known to depreciate as implied by the interest parity condition. We demonstrate in a structural macroeconomic framework that the debt limit channel is quantita..

International migration is an important channel of material improvement for individuals and their offspring. The movement of people across country borders, especially from less developed to richer countries, has a substantial impact in several dimensions. First, it affects the migrants themselves by allowing them to achieve higher income as a result of their higher productivity in the destination country. It also increases the expected income for their offspring. Second, it affects the destination country through the impact on labor markets, productivity, innovation, demographic structure, fiscal balance, and criminality. Third, it can have a significant impact on the countries of origin. It..

This paper assesses whether corporate liquidity needs in the G7 economies were met during the containment phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (February-June 2020) using various approaches to identify credit supply shocks. The pandemic crisis adversely affected nonfinancial corporate sector cash flows, generating liquidity and solvency pressures. However, corporate borrowing surged in March and into the second quarter, thanks to credit line drawdowns and unprecedented policy support. In the United States, the bond market was buoyant from the end of March onward, but credit supply conditions for bank loans and the syndicated loan market tightened. In other G7 economies, credit supply conditions gen..

This paper estimates multipliers for spending in clean energy and biodiversity conservation to help inform stimulus measures for a post-COVID-19 sustainable recovery. Using a new international dataset, part of which was especially assembled for this analysis, we find that every dollar spent on key carbon-neutral or carbon-sink activities—from zero-emission power plants to the protection of wildlife and ecosystems—can generate more than a dollar’s worth of economic activity. The estimated multipliers associated with green spending are about 2 to 7 times larger than those associated with non-eco-friendly expenditure, depending on sectors, technologies and horizons. These findings survive..

The shutdown in economic activity due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis has resulted in a short-term decline in global carbon emissions, but the long-term impact of the pandemic on the transition to a low-carbon economy is uncertain. Looking at previous episodes of financial and economic stress to draw implications for the current crisis, we find that tighter financial constraints and adverse economic conditions are generally detrimental to firms’ environmental performance, reducing green investments. The COVID-19 crisis could thus potentially slow down the transition to a low-carbon economy. In light of the urgent need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, these findings u..

The South African Reserve Bank has continued to fulfill its constitutional mandate to protect the value of the local currency by keeping inflation low and steady. This paper provides evidence that monetary policy tightening aimed at maintaining low and stable inflation could at the same time reduce consumption inequality over a 12–18 month horizon, commonly understood as the transmission lag of monetary policy action to the real economy, and similar to the distance between survey waves used in the analysis. In response to “exogenous” monetary policy tightening, the real consumption of individuals at lower ends of the consumption distribution declines relatively modestly, or even increa..

Adoption of technology in the financial services industry (i.e. fintech) has been accelerating in recent years. To systematically and comprehensively assess the extent and progress over time in financial inclusion enabled by technology, we develop a novel digital financial inclusion index. This index is based on payments data covering 52 developing countries for 2014 and 2017, taking into account both access and usage dimentions of digital financial services (DFSs). This index is then combined with the traditional measures of financial inclusion in the literature and aggregated into an overall index of financial inlusion. There are two key findings: first, the adoption of fintech has been a ..

We provide an overview of the theories and empricial evidence on the complex relationship among innovation, competition, and inclusive growth. Competition and innovation-led growth are critical to drive productivity gains and support broad-based growth. However, new technologies and trends in market concentration are stifling future innovation while contributing to the marked increase in inequality. Beyond consumer welfare in a narrow market, competition policy should adapt to this new reality by considering the spillover and dynamic effects of market power, especially on firm entry, innovation, and inequality. Innovation policies should tackle not only government failures but also market fa..

I develop a model of firm-to-firm search and matching to show that the impact of falling trade costs on firm sourcing decisions and consumer welfare depends on the relative size of search externalities in domestic and international markets. These externalities can be positive if firms share information about potential matches, or negative if the market is congested. Using unique firm-to-firm transaction-level data from Uganda, I document empirical evidence consistent with positive externalities in international markets and negative externalities in domestic markets. I then build a dynamic quantitative version of the model and show that, in Uganda, a 25% reduction in trade costs led to a 3.7%..

The fiscal policy response to the COVID-19 shock in most LAC countries was much larger than during the GFC, suggesting fiscal space was not as tight as expected. We argue that it is feasible and desirable, though not without risks, to embark in a more gradual consolidation path than currently envisaged by several countries in the region. Avoiding an early withdrawal of support in 2021 and 2022 is important given that countries are still facing high rates of contagion and deaths, vaccination will take place very slowly, the economic recovery is partial, uncertain and not strong enough to help those most affected by the twin public health and economic crisis. At the center of this discussion i..

We document that publicly listed Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are less productive and profitable than publicly listed firms in which the state has no ownership stake. In particular, Chinese listed SOEs are more capital intensive and have a lower average product of capital than non-SOEs. These productivity differences increased between 2002 and 2009, and remain sizeable in 2019. Using a heterogeneous firm model of resource misallocation, we find that there are large potential productivity gains from reforms which could equalize the marginal products of listed SOEs and listed non-SOEs.

We analyze how concerns for model misspecification on the part of international lenders affect the desirability of issuing state-contingent debt instruments in a standard sovereign default model à la Eaton and Gersovitz (1981). We show that for the commonly used threshold state-contingent bond structure (e.g., the GDP-linked bond issued by Argentina in 2005), the model with robustness generates ambiguity premia in bond spreads that can explain most of what the literature has labeled as novelty premium. While the government would be better off with this bond when facing rational expectations lenders, this additional source of premia leads to welfare losses when facing robust lenders. Finally..

Sharing economic benefits equitably across all segments of society includes addressing the specific challenges of different generations. At present, youth and elderly are particularly vulnerable to poverty relative to adults in their middle years. Broad-based policies should aim to foster youth integration into the labor market and ensure adequate income and health care support for the elderly. Turning to the intergenerational dimension, everyone should have the same chances in life, regardless of their family background. Policies that promote social mobility include improving access to high-quality care and education starting from a very early age, supporting lifelong learning, effective so..

Is there a tradeoff between raising growth and reducing inequality and poverty? This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the complex links between growth, inequality, and poverty, with causation going in both directions. The evidence suggests that growth can be effective in reducing poverty, but its impact on inequality is ambiguous and depends on the underlying sources of growth. The impact of poverty and inequality on growth is likewise ambiguous, as several channels mediate the relationship. But most plausible mechanisms suggest that poverty and inequality reduce growth, at least in the long run. Policies play a role in shaping these relationships and those designed ..

Whereas most of the literature related to the so-called “resource curse” tends to emphasize on institutional factors and public policies, in this research we focus on the role of the financial sector, which has been surprisingly overlooked. We find that countries that have financial systems with more depth, as well as those that actively manage their central banks’ balance sheets experience less exchange-rate appreciation than countries that do not. We analyze the relationship between these two findings and suggest that they appear to follow separate mechanisms.

The era of quantum computing is about to begin, with profound implications for the global economy and the financial system. Rapid development of quantum computing brings both benefits and risks. Quantum computers can revolutionize industries and fields that require significant computing power, including modeling financial markets, designing new effective medicines and vaccines, and empowering artificial intelligence, as well as creating a new and secure way of communication (quantum Internet). But they would also crack many of the current encryption algorithms and threaten financial stability by compromising the security of mobile banking, e-commerce, fintech, digital currencies, and Interne..

This paper surveys the literature on the relationship between international trade and inclusive growth. It examines claims that the rise in inequality in many countries can be attributed to the concurrent rise in trade competition, especially from EMEs like China, spurring trade tensions and protectionist measures. The paper investigates the conflicting literature showing the aggregate benefits of trade versus the adverse and persistent impact of trade, especially import competition, on specific industries and local communities. The paper then reviews the evidence for using trade policies and other complementary policies for adjustment and compensation to those groups adversely affected by t..

In emerging Asia, banks constitute the dominant source of financing consumption and investment, and bank balance sheets comprise large gross FX assets and liabilities. This paper extends the DSGE model of Gertler and Karadi (2011) to incorporate these key features and estimates a panel vector autoregression on ten Asian economies to understand the role of the banking sector in transmitting spillovers from the global financial cycle to small open economies. It also evaluates the effectiveness of foreign exchange intervention (FXI) and other macroeconomic policies in responding to external financing shocks. External financial shocks affect net external liabilities of banks and the exchange rat..

This paper revisits the stabilization role of public banks and analyzes whether weak public finances may hinder this role. During the global financial crisis (GFC), public banks were widely used to counter the private credit crunch and prop up the economy. Using cross-country bank-level data for 125 advanced and developing economies for 1999–2018, the paper finds public bank lending to be less procyclical than private bank lending on average, particularly during busts. A key result, however, is that in developing economies with high public debt levels, public bank lending has been more procyclical, particularly outside of the GFC period. This finding suggests high public debt can limit the..

COVID-19 has exacerbated concerns about the rise of the robots and other automation technologies. This paper analyzes empirically the impact of past major pandemics on robot adoption and inequality. First, we find that pandemic events accelerate robot adoption, especially when the health impact is severe and is associated with a significant economic downturn. Second, while robots may raise productivity, they could also increase inequality by displacing low-skilled workers. We find that following a pandemic, the increase in inequality over the medium term is larger for economies with higher robot density and where new robot adoption has increased more. Our results suggest that the concerns ab..

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has helped accelerate the digitization of public services. The lockdown initiated by most governments to curb the spread of the coronavirus forced most public agencies to switch to online platforms to continue providing information and services to the public. It is widely recognized that information diffusion and communication technology play a large role in improving the quality of public services in terms of time, cost, and interface with the public, business, and other agencies. Potentially, e-government could enhance a country’s locational advantages and attract more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows. This hypothesis is tested empirically usi..

Profit shifting remains a key concern in international tax system debate, but discussions are largely based on aggregate estimates, with less attention paid to individual sectors. Drawing on a novel dataset, we quantify tax avoidance risks in the extractive industries, a sector which is revenue critical for many developing economies. We find that a one percentage point increase in the domestic corporate tax rate has historically reduced sectoral profits by slightly over 3 percent; and the response tends to be more pronounced among mining than among hydrocarbon firms. There is only weak evidence transfer pricing rules contain tax minimization efforts of MNEs in our sample, but interest limita..