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The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a sudden funding squeeze manifested in major disruptions in international capital flows, the most dramatic of the wave of extreme capital flow episodes since the global financial crisis (GFC). This paper contributes to efforts to better understand this extreme episode in the context of post-GFC structural financial changes. To do so, it presents a new monthly dataset of gross capital flows for 41 countries, better suited to the identification of sudden shocks than quarterly Balance of Payments data. Leveraging on this dataset, the paper first develops a more precise identification of extreme capital flow episodes since the GFC and revisit their drivers, asking whether COVID-19 episode significantly changed recent findings of the weaker role of global factors. The answer is no. Rather, the role of global factors may have further lost explanatory power in the post-GFC period including COVID. On the other hand, pull factors such as pre-COVID vulnerabilities and country-specific and pandemic-specific factors appear key to explaining the identified cross-country heterogeneity.
The extraction of a common signal from a group of time series is generally obtained using variables recorded with the same frequency or transformed to have the same frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.). The econometric literature has not paid a great deal of attention to this topic. In this paper we extend an approach based on the use of dummy variables to the well known trend plus cycle model, in a multivariate context, using both quarterly and monthly data. This procedure is applied to the Italian economy, using the variables suggested by an Italian Institution (ISAE) to provide a national dating, and compared with the equivalent multivariate and univariate approaches with monthly data. We note that the contemporaneous use of quarterly and monthly data provides results more consistent with the official ones with respect to the other approaches.
Real-time data are analysed for information on the Chilean monthly economic activity indicator IMACEC and what it indicates of the final GDP, defined as the growth rate that has been subject to at least two annual revisions. Data are presented and revisions analysed briefly. Mincer-Zarnowitz tests suggest that forecast rationality is rejected with respect to the three-month IMACEC growth rate as a nowcast of the first released quarterly GDP, as well as the first published GDP as a nowcast of the final GDP.
An out-of-sample nowcasting analysis was conducted using only data which were available in real-time. The results show that small models nowcast better than less parsimonious ones. The evidence from the empirical study suggests no improvement in the nowcasting performance when historical data are supplemented with the first monthly IMACEC of the quarter. On the other hand, when two monthly observations IMACEC are available, the root mean squared nowcast error (RMSNE) decreases by 24%, and a further decline of 33% is obtained when the third monthly observation of the quarter is published. Both of these advances are statistically significant. No further improvement is obtained with the publication of the first release of the quarterly GDP.
JEL classifications: C89, E17
Keywords: Real-time data, data revisions, nowcasting
Due to the substantial rise in the share of Emerging Markets (EM) in foreigncurrency debt markets during the nineties, country risk in EM has become an issue of increasing concern for both new bond issues and rescheduled non-performing loans. However, as recent episodes show, financial volatility has tended to leave those countries more prone to contagion effects and balance-of-payments crises. Consequently, international bond investors have required higher risk premia to balance the risk-return equation. In order to make Emerging Markets less vulnerable to external shocks, exchange-rate corner solutions such as dollarisation have been proposed. One of the main arguments put forth by the dollarisation supporters is the expected decrease in sovereign spreads, as currency risk will no longer hold. According to this “optimistic” view, which also relies on a credibility spillover effect, such a decrease could begin improving solvency weaknesses while boosting economic growth ...
This paper exploits the information available in the OECD Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Household (KIIBIH) to shed light on several elements that could help inform national strategies for the extension of social protection to workers in the informal economy. It provides an assessment of current social protection coverage of informal workers throughout a large sample of developing and emerging economies and proposes a statistical framework to examine country-specific data, upon which a strategy for extending social protection to informal workers could be articulated. While the paper does not intend to provide detailed country-level recommendations, it highlights a number of important findings and policy directions as regards the way to extend non-contributory and contributory schemes to informal workers.
This paper studies the development of indigenous insurance institutions set up to help cover the high costs of funerals, using evidence from rural areas in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Many of these institutions tend to co-exist within the same community and are based on well-defined rules and regulations, often offering premium-based insurance for funeral expenses, as well as, in many cases, other forms of insurance and credit to help address hardship. The paper argues that the characteristics and inclusiveness of these institutions make them well placed as models to broaden insurance provision and other development activities in these communities. In Ethiopia, there is some encouraging experience with using these institutions, as reviewed in this paper. However, the paper argues that their fragility as institutions is well illustrated by current pressures related to HIV/AIDS, as well as by their apparent resistance to engage more broadly with NGOs and government agencies. As a ...
Extended producer responsibility or product stewardship is a policy approach that aims to increase waste recovery and recycling. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems aim to make producers responsible for the environmental impacts of their products throughout the product chain, from design to the end-of-life phase. This report focuses on free-riding of producers or retailers, which the fast expansion of online sales in recent years has been exacerbating. Online sales are creating new free-riding opportunities as consumers are able to buy more easily from sellers in other countries. These sellers often have no physical, legal entity in the country where the consumer resides, and are not registered with national or local EPR schemes.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy approach that makes producers responsible for their products along the entire lifecycle, including at the post-consumer stage. This policy paper summarises the current consensus on the EPR policy approach.
By taking stock of what's known and well established in the literature, it aims to foster a common understanding of the EPR approach and to provide guiding principles for its successful implementation. This paper makes a valuable contribution to an increasing number of policy debates and processes that are ongoing, both at national and international levels, in areas such as plastics, electric and electronic waste and textiles.
This paper presents fatality rates for walking and cycling in European Countries used in the World Health Organization’s Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT). It evaluates and ranks the quality of data sources and gives fatality rates adjusted by exposure (i.e. distance travelled). It also discusses the different methodologies applied for national exposure data, as well as the proposed solutions to make these figures comparable across countries.
Governments may decide to control the export of unprocessed raw materials hoping that this will promote local downstream industries. There is scant empirical examination of the actual outcomes of such policies put in place. This paper describes use of export control measures by four minerals-rich African countries and looks for effects on activities downstream from the extractive sector that may be attributed to these measures. The measures studied are export taxes, non-automatic export licensing requirements and outright export bans. The industries are manganese in Gabon, lead in South Africa, copper in Zambia and chromite in Zimbabwe.
For the empirical analysis the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index is calculated tracking over 20 years the relative global performance of the local mining and processing industries, for the specific minerals studied. The effect of the restrictive measures is investigated by way of identifying structural breaks in the level of the RCA index, for both the raw mineral and related processed products.
The results suggest that use of export restrictions as a tool for stimulating local mineral processing does not pay off. There was no improvement in the revealed comparative advantage of processed products presumed to benefit from export controls on the raw material. Moreover, the measures may have undermined the overall performance of the industries in some of the cases studied because the relative export performance of the mined minerals deteriorated.
This paper investigates the effect of export entry on productivity, employment and wages of Latvian and Estonian firms in the context of global value chain (GVC). Like in many countries, exporting firms in Latvia and Estonia are more productive, larger, pay higher wages and are more capital intensive than non-exporting firms. While this is partly because firms that are originally more productive and have better performances are more likely to enter export, Latvian and Estonian firms also realise more than 23% and 14% higher labour productivity level as the result of export entry. Export entry also increases employment and average wages. Gains in productivity and employment are particularly large when firms enter exports that are related to participation in knowledge-intensive activities found in the upstream of GVC. For instance, Latvian firms that start exporting intermediate goods or non-transport services (which include knowledge intensive services) enjoy significantly higher productivity gains than those starting to export final goods or transport services. These findings underscore the importance of innovation policies that strengthen firms’ capabilities to supply highly differentiated knowledge-intensive goods and services to GVC.
Some countries have successfully regulated their mining sectors without resorting to highly distortive policies such as export restrictions. One such country is Botswana. This paper examines some of the policies in place in Botswana that have contributed to the governance and management of its substantial minerals sector. Lessons are drawn for minerals-rich countries keen to manage their raw materials sectors for increased economy-wide growth.