Working Papers
2020
February 28, 2020
Transitory and Permanent Shocks in the Global Market for Crude Oil
Description: This paper documents the determinants of real oil price in the global market based on SVAR model embedding transitory and permanent shocks on oil demand and supply as well as speculative disturbances. We find evidence of significant differences in the propagation mechanisms of transitory versus permanent shocks, pointing to the importance of disentangling their distinct effects. Permanent supply disruptions turn out to be a bigger factor in historical oil price movements during the most recent decades, while speculative shocks became less influential.
February 28, 2020
International Capital Flows at the Security Level – Evidence from the ECB’s Asset Purchase Programme
Description: We analyse euro area investors' portfolio rebalancing during the ECB's Asset Purchase Programme at the security level. Our empirical analysis shows that euro area investors (in particular investment funds and households) actively rebalanced away from securities targeted under the Public Sector Purchase Programme and other euro-denominated debt securities, towards foreign debt instruments, including `closest substitutes', i.e. certain sovereign debt securities issued by non-euro area advanced countries. This rebalancing was particularly strong during the first six quarters of the programme. Our analysis also reveals marked differences across sectors as well as country groups within the euro area, suggesting that quantitative easing has induced heterogeneous portfolio shifts.
February 28, 2020
Foreign Demand and Local House Prices: Evidence from the US
Description: We test whether foreign demand matters for local house prices in the US using an identification strategy based on the existence of “home bias abroad” in international real estate markets. Following an extreme political crisis event abroad, a proxy for a strong and exogenous shift in foreign demand, we show that house prices rise disproportionately more in neighbourhoods with a high concentration of population originating from the crisis country. This effect is strong, persistent, and robust to the exclusion of major cities. We also show that areas that were already expensive in the late 1990s have experienced the strongest foreign demand shocks and the biggest drop in affordability between 2000 and 2017. Our findings suggest a non-trivial causal effect of foreign demand shocks on local house prices over the last 20 years, especially in neighbourhoods that were already rather unaffordable for the median household.
February 21, 2020
Lessons from Two Public Sector Reforms in Italy
Description: The reform of the Italian public administration has been a priority for at least two decades, with several major initiatives undertaken toward modernization and simplification. Notwithstanding laudable intentions, however, progress remains limited. This analysis is a case study of two reforms since 2016—on the rationalization of state-owned enterprises and of public procurement. It finds that original reform provisions were weakened or overturned, regulatory complexity and uncertainties in the application of the reforms blunted their impact, and enforcement mechanisms were inadequate. Addressing these gaps will be essential for successfully modernizing Italy’s public administration.
February 21, 2020
Identifying Service Market Reform Priorities in Italy
Description: Italy’s labor productivity in market services has declined since 2000, underperforming manufacturing and peer European countries, especially in strongly regulated sectors. A model of monopolistic competition is used to identify which service sectors would benefit more from removing entry and/or exit barriers. Using Italian firm-level data, the paper finds that sectors with high markups, such as professional services, would primarily benefit from removing entry barriers. Sectors with a large mass of unproductive firms, such as retail, would instead benefit from removing exit barriers. Policy recommendations to improve efficiency are outlined in relation to the sectoral priorities identified in the data.
February 21, 2020
Labor Costs and Corporate Investment in Italy
Description: The recovery of private investment in Italy has lagged its euro area peers over the past decade. This paper examines the role of elevated labor costs in hindering the recovery. Specifically, labor costs rose faster than labor productivity prior to the global financial crisis and have remained high since, weighing on firms’ profits, capital returns, and thus capacity to invest. Empirical analysis provides evidence for the impact of wages on investment at the sectoral and firm levels. Sectoral wage growth seems unrelated to sectoral productivity growth, but is negatively associated with investment. Firm-level data permit a better identification—by exploiting the interaction between sectoral wage growth (exogenous to the firm) and the lagged labor share of the firm. A 1 percent increase in real wages is estimated to cause a 1/3 percent fall in fixed capital. Profits absorb only ½ of the cost increase, pointing to the role of liquidity constraints. These results highlight the need for labor market reform to reinvigorate investment, and thus labor productivity and job creation.
February 21, 2020
Toward a Comprehensive Tax Reform for Italy
Description: This paper evaluates elements of a comprehensive reform of the Italian tax system. Reform options are guided by the principles of reducing complexity, broadening the tax base, and lowering marginal tax rates, especially the tax burden on labor income. The revenue and distributional implications of personal income and property tax reforms are assessed with EUROMOD, while a microsimulation model is developed to evaluate VAT reform options. Simulations suggest that a substantial reduction in the tax burden on labor income can be obtained with a revenue-neutral base-broadening reform that streamlines tax expenditures and updates the property valuation system. In addition, a comprehensive reform would benefit low- and middle-income households the most, by lowering significantly their overall current tax liability, which results in increased progressivity of the tax system.
February 21, 2020
Markups, Quality, and Trade Costs
Description: We investigate theoretically and empirically how exporters adjust their markups across destinations depending on bilateral distance, tariffs, and the quality of their exports. Under the assumption that trade costs are both ad valorem and per unit, our model predicts that markups rise with distance and fall with tariffs, but these effects are heterogeneous and are smaller in magnitude for higher quality exports. We find strong support for the predictions of the model using a unique data set of Argentinean firm-level wine exports combined with experts wine ratings as a measure of quality.
February 21, 2020
Monetary Policy Transmission in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies
Description: Central banks in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) have been modernizing their monetary policy frameworks, often moving toward inflation targeting (IT). However, questions regarding the strength of monetary policy transmission from interest rates to inflation and output have often stalled progress. We conduct a novel empirical analysis using Jordà’s (2005) approach for 40 EMDEs to shed a light on monetary transmission in these countries. We find that interest rate hikes reduce output growth and inflation, once we explicitly account for the behavior of the exchange rate. Having a modern monetary policy framework—adopting IT and independent and transparent central banks—matters more for monetary transmission than financial development.
February 21, 2020
Barbados’ 2018–19 Sovereign Debt Restructuring–A Sea Change?
Description: This paper examines the causes, processes, and outcomes of Barbados’ 2018–19 sovereign debt restructuring—its first ever. The restructuring was comprehensive, featuring several rarely used approaches, including the restructuring of treasury bills, and the use of a retrofitted collective action mechanism. The debt restructuring has helped to set Barbados’ public debt on a clear downward trajectory. A sustained reform effort, maintaining high primary surpluses and ambitious structural reforms, will be needed to gradually reduce public debt from about 160 percent of GDP before the restructuring to the country’s 60 percent debt-to-GDP target.