This paper summarizes the main findings of the literature on the relationship between financial and economic development (the known knowns), points to directions for future research (the knowns unknowns), and then speculates on the third Rumsfeldian category. The known knowns section organizes the empirical literature on finance and growth into three strands : (1) the traditional literature which established the link between finance and growth; (2)the new literature which qualified some of the results of the traditional literature; and (3)the new-new literature which focuses on alternative measures of financial development and on the dark side of finance. The known unknowns section focuses on causality, on the channels through which finance affects growth, and on the dark side of finance. The unknown unknowns section discusses a topic on which we may know less than what we think we know.
A guest-worker program can be a very flexible and convenient way of meeting labor shortages in a host country, assuming that the migrants obeythe rules. This paper investigates the conditions under which guest workers have sufficient incentives for voluntary return to their country of origin when their work permits expire. The analysis is conducted in the context of a lenient enforcement regime that avoids deportations of undocumented aliens. It relies instead on eligibility criteria and pricing instruments, such as partial withholding of salary and an exit tax for those who overstay, to provide adequate incentives for voluntary return at the end of the contract period.
This paper studies the relationship between sovereign spreads and the interaction between debt composition and debt levels in advanced and emerging market countries. It finds that in emerging market countries there is a significant correlation between spreads and debt levels. This correlation, however, is not statistically significant in countries where most public debt is denominated in local currency. In advanced economies, the magnitude of the correlation between debt levels and spreads is about one fifth of the corresponding correlation for emerging market economies. In Eurozone countries, however, the correlation between spreads and debt ratios is similar to that of emerging market countries. The paper also shows that the financial crisis amplified the relationship between spreads and debt levels within the Eurozone but had no effect on the relationship between spreads and debt in standalone countries. Finally, the paper shows that the relationship between debt levels and spreads is amplified by the presence of large net foreign liabilities. This amplifying effect of net foreign liabilities is larger in the Eurozone than in standalone advanced economies. The paper concludes that debt composition matters and corroborates the original sin hypothesis that, rather than being a mere reflection of institutional weaknesses, the presence of foreign currency debt increases financial fragility and leads to suboptimal macroeconomic policies.
In this paper, we estimate the impact on local household livelihoods of the Natural Forest Protection Programme (NFPP), the largest logging ban programme in the world that aims to protect watershed and conserve natural forests. In doing so we use a series of policy evaluation micro-econometric techniques to assess the impacts of the NFPP on two interrelated facets of household livelihoods, namely income and off farm labour supply. We find that the NFPP has had a negative impact on incomes from timber harvesting but has actually had a positive impact on total household incomes from all sources. Further, we find that off farm labour supply has increased more rapidly in NFPP areas than non-NFPP areas. This result is strongest for employment outside the village. On the basis of these results policy implications for household livelihoods are drawn.
While currency crises have been extensively studied, the opposite phenomenon, large appreciations, has been far less researched. We fill this gap by providing an empirical exploration of historical episodes of large real exchange rate appreciations, using a sample of 28 advanced and 25 emerging market economies, with annual data going back to 1970. We focus on the impact of large appreciations on output growth. Our first finding is that countries experiencing large real exchange rate appreciations display distinct patterns: large appreciations significantly lower export growth and boost import growth on impact. Strikingly, however, output growth is higher, on average, despite the adverse impact on exports. Our second finding is that these aggregate numbers hide substantial heterogeneity, which we link to the nature of the shocks that cause the appreciation. In particular, appreciations associated with so-called “capital flow bonanzas” have a marked downward effect on growth. This pattern is consistent with the insights from a simple model that contrasts the impact of productivity shocks with that of capital inflows shocks. Higher productivity in the traded sector leads to a boom in traded output and a current account surplus, while higher foreign lending leads to a boom in non-traded output and an external deficit as traded output falls and consumption increases.
In their celebrated contribution on credit rationing, Stiglitz and Weiss (1981) showed that the expected return to the borrower on a loan is increasing in the risk of the project it funds. In this paper, I show that their results do not necessarily carry over to the case where the agents’ preferences can be described by rank-dependent expected utility (RDEU). In particular, a pessimistic probability distortion function for borrowers can yield sufficient concavity in returns for the latter to be decreasing in risk, thus eliminating adverse selection. Whether credit rationing can obtain or not is then shown to depend upon the interaction between borrower pessimism and lender optimism.
