nep-opm New Economics Papers
on Open Economy Macroeconomics
Issue of 2021‒08‒30
seven papers chosen by
Martin Berka
University of Auckland

  1. Default of Depreciate By Yasin Kürsat Önder; Enes Sunel
  2. Sharing Asymmetric Tail Risk: Smoothing, Asset Prices and Terms of Trade By Giancarlo Corsetti; Anna Lipinska; Giovanni Lombardo
  3. Redistribution of wealth through cross border financial transactions: A closer look By Nizam, Ahmed Mehedi
  4. Global lending conditions and international coordination of financial regulation policies By Enisse Kharroubi
  5. The Cross of Gold: Brazilian Treasure and the Decline of Portugal By Kedrosky, Davis; Palma, Nuno
  6. Fiscal Spillovers: The Case of US Corporate and Personal Income Taxes By Madeline Hanson; Daniela Hauser; Romanos Priftis
  7. Global Income Inequality, 1820-2020: The Persistence and Mutation of Extreme Inequality By Lucas Chancel; Thomas Piketty

  1. By: Yasin Kürsat Önder; Enes Sunel (-)
    Abstract: We propose a theory of domestic and foreign currency debt and limited commitment to exchange-rate and debt repayment policies. Exchange-rate depreciation is costly, but reduces the real value of domestic-currency debt and helps smooth consumption without the full punishment of default. However, during a global liquidity shock, government debt balances endogenously tilt towards hard-currency as in the data, although issuing local-currency debt to foreigners is needed the most to transfer the currency risk. This is because foreign lenders become more risk averse to holding nominal sovereign debt during stress episodes. We show that a modest depreciation of currency following adverse shocks precludes a sovereign default by inflating away outstanding local-currency debt burdens in contrast to a counterfactual economy with fully dollarized sovereign debt. The quantitative application of our theory accounts for the business cycle properties and the currency composition of sovereign debt in Mexico.
    Keywords: Sovereign default, inflationary bias, investor base, original sin
    JEL: E31 F34 F45
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:21/1023&r=
  2. By: Giancarlo Corsetti; Anna Lipinska; Giovanni Lombardo
    Abstract: Crises and tail events have asymmetric effects across borders, raising the value of arrangements improving insurance of macroeconomic risk. Using a two-country DSGE model, we provide an analytical and quantitative analysis of the channels through which countries gain from sharing (tail) risk. Riskier countries gain in smoother consumption but lose in relative wealth and average consumption. Safer countries benefit from higher wealth and better average terms of trade. Calibrated using the empirical distribution of moments of GDP-growth across countries, the model suggests non-negligible quantitative effects. We offer an algorithm for the correct solution of the equilibrium using DSGE models under complete markets, at higher order of approximation.
    Keywords: International risk sharing; Asymmetry; Fat tails; Welfare
    JEL: F15 F41 G15
    Date: 2021–08–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgif:1324&r=
  3. By: Nizam, Ahmed Mehedi
    Abstract: Contrary to existing literature, here we consider the foreign exchange reserve balance of a particular country as an indicator of how much goods, services and/or physical asset the country has transferred to the rest of the world in exchange of some fiat foreign currencies. On the other hand, the reserve balances of the rest of the world denominated in the currency of that particular country can be considered as the amount of goods, services and/or physical assets that the particular country has received from the rest of the world in exchange of its own fiat currencies. Hence, if we subtract the second quantity from the first one, we get an estimate of the extent of net non-monetary wealth that the particular country has transferred so far to the rest of the world in exchange of some fiat foreign money. We calculate the amount of net non-monetary wealth (thus defined) transferred to and from some major economies stemming from cross border financial transactions and analyze their long term and short term dynamics using VECM. The main objective of this study is to give a new perspective to what we conventionally mean by foreign exchange reserve of a country: Instead of assuming the reserve balance of a country as an asset we consider it as a measure of gross wealth (i.e., goods, services and physical asset) the country has transferred so far to other countries around the globe in exchange of some paper currencies with no intrinsic value.
    Keywords: Cross border trade, wealth redistribution, hard currencies
    JEL: E01 E21 F14 F41
    Date: 2021–08–25
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:109374&r=
  4. By: Enisse Kharroubi
    Abstract: Using a model of strategic interactions between two countries, I investigate the gains to international coordination of financial regulation policies, and how these gains depend on global lending conditions. When global lending conditions are determined non-cooperatively, I show that coordinating regulatory policies leads to a Pareto improvement relative to the case of no cooperation. In the non-cooperative equilibrium, one region - the core - determines global lending conditions, leaving the other region - the periphery - in a sub-optimal situation. The periphery then tightens regulatory policy to reduce the cost of sub-optimal lending conditions. Yet, in doing so, it fails to internalise a cross-border externality: tightening regulatory policy in one region limits ex ante borrowing in the other region, which increases the cost of sub-optimal lending conditions for the periphery. The equilibrium with cooperative regulatory policies can then improve on this outcome as both regions take into account the cross-border externality and allow for larger ex ante borrowing, ending in a lower cost of suboptimal lending conditions for the periphery.
    Keywords: regulatory policy, global financial conditions, international coordination
    JEL: D53 D62 F38 F42 G18
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:962&r=
  5. By: Kedrosky, Davis; Palma, Nuno
    Abstract: As late as 1750, Portugal had an output per head considerably higher than those of France or Spain. Yet just a century later, Portugal was Western Europe’s poorest country. In this paper we show that the discovery of massive quantities of gold in Brazil over the eighteenth century played a key role for the long-run development of Portugal’s economy. We focus on the economic resource curse: the loss of competitiveness of the tradables sector manifested in the rise of the price of non-traded goods relative to traded imports. Using original price data from archives for four Portuguese regions between 1650 and 1800, we show that a real exchange rate appreciation of about 30 percent occurred during the eighteenth century, which led to a loss of the competitiveness of national industry from which the country did not recover until considerably later.
    Keywords: Dutch Disease; resource curse; early modern Portugal; the Little Divergence JEL Classification: N10, N13, N50, N53, N73
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:574&r=
  6. By: Madeline Hanson; Daniela Hauser; Romanos Priftis
    Abstract: This paper extends the identification of unanticipated changes in average federal corporate and personal income tax rates in the United States, as proposed in Mertens and Ravn (2013), to the end of 2019, and assesses their propagation to economies with tight links to the US economy. While cuts in both taxes lead to significant short-run expansions in the US economy, their spillover effects on other countries differ markedly. A cut in corporate taxes can produce negative spillovers, indicating that the contractionary effects associated to the reallocation of investment and jobs by multinational firms outweigh the potential positive effects of increased demand for country-specific goods through trade with the US. The spillover effects of lower personal income taxes are more heterogeneous across countries but are, on average, expansionary, depending on the country-specific monetary policy stance.
    Keywords: Business fluctuations and cycles; Econometric and statistical methods; Exchange rate regimes; Fiscal policy; International topics
    JEL: H20 E62 F44
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:21-41&r=
  7. By: Lucas Chancel (WIL - World Inequality Lab , PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Thomas Piketty (WIL - World Inequality Lab , PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)
    Abstract: In this paper, we mobilize newly available historical series from the World Inequality Database to construct world income distribution estimates from 1820 to 2020. We find that the level of global income inequality has always been very large, reflecting the persistence of a highly hierarchical world economic system. Global inequality increased between 1820 and 1910, in the context of the rise of Western dominance and colonial empires, and then stabilized at a very high level between 1910 and 2020. Between 1820 and 1910, both between-country and within-country inequality were increasing. In contrast, these two components of global inequality have moved separately between 1910 and 2020: within-country inequality dropped in 1910- 1980 (while between-country inequality kept increasing) but rose in 1980-2020 (while between-country inequality started to decline). As a consequence of these contradictory and compensating evolutions, early 21st century neo-colonial capitalism involves similar levels of inequality as early 20th century colonial capitalism, though it is based upon a different set of rules and institutions. We also discuss how alternative rules such as fiscal revenue sharing could lead to a significant drop in global inequality.
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-03321887&r=

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