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The East African Community (EAC) countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda) have been affected by the global financial crisis and global recession. The fall in global demand and inflows and tighter liquidity conditions abroad affected the countries in this region as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. But how hard have countries in the EAC been hit? Have the spillovers from the global crisis affected countries in the region as much as other countries in the sub-Saharan region? Have the transmission channels or magnitudes of the spillovers been different across EAC countries? How can these countries return quickly to a path of sustained high growth? What is the role for policy? Would acceleration of regional integration and policy coordination help achieve this goal? Would it make the region less susceptible to shocks? This paper focus on the EAC countries and attempts to address these questions.
Exports and Imports --- Macroeconomics --- Fiscal Policy --- Trade: General --- Energy: Demand and Supply --- Prices --- Externalities --- International economics --- Exports --- Fiscal stimulus --- Oil prices --- Fiscal stance --- Spillovers --- International trade --- Fiscal policy --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- International finance --- Kenya
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Anecdotal evidence suggests that the economies of South Africa and its neighbors (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe) are tightly integrated with each other. There are important institutional linkages. Across the region there are also large flows of goods and capital, significant financial sector interconnections, as well as sizeable labor movements and associated remittance flows. These interconnections suggest that South Africa’s GDP growth rate should affect positively its neighbors’, a point we illustrate formally with the help of numerical simulations of the IMF’s GIMF model. However, our review and update of the available econometric evidence suggest that there is no strong evidence of real spillovers in the region after 1994, once global shocks are controlled for. More generally, we find no evidence of real spillovers from South Africa to the rest of the continent post-1994. We investigate the possible reasons for this lack of spillovers. Most importantly, the economies of South Africa and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa might have de-coupled in the mid-1990s. That is when international sanctions on South Africa ended and the country re-integrated with the global economy, while growth in the rest of the continent accelerated due to a combination of domestic and external factors.
Exports and Imports --- Macroeconomics --- Externalities --- Trade: General --- Education: General --- Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles: General (includes Measurement and Data) --- International economics --- Education --- Economic growth --- Spillovers --- Exports --- Imports --- Business cycles --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- International trade --- International finance --- South Africa
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GCC policymakers have managed to quickly mitigate the economic impact of the twin COVID-19 and oil price shock. Commodity prices have surged, and the outlook is more positive for GCC countries, with new challenges linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tighter global financial conditions expected to have a limited impact on GCC economies. While GCC countries have overall benefited from higher, albeit volatile hydrocarbon prices, numerous risks still cloud the outlook—notably a slowdown in the global economy. In this context, the reform momentum established during the low oil price years should be maintained—irrespective of the level of hydrocarbon prices.
Money and Monetary Policy --- Political Economy --- Macroeconomics --- Monetary Policy --- Energy: Demand and Supply --- Prices --- Business Fluctuations --- Cycles --- Monetary economics --- Political economy --- Monetary policy --- Oil prices --- Financial conditions index --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- Economics --- Business cycles --- Ukraine
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Among other common forms of government financial control, caps on interest rates have been declining over the past several decades as most industrialized countries and a rising number of developing countries continue liberalizing their financial policies. However, in several countries the last financial crisis reopened the debate on interest rate controls as a tool for consumer protection. This paper undertakes a stock-taking exercise to determine the number of countries currently capping interest rates on loans. The paper looks at the main characteristics of the regimes countries have used, including the source of rate-setting authority, the methodology, and the criteria for establishing the capitolo The paper finds at least 76 countries around the world currently use some form of interest rate caps on loans - all with varying degrees of effects, including the withdrawal of financial institutions from the poor or from specific segments of the market, an increase in the total cost of the loan through additional fees and commissions, among others. The paper concludes that there are more effective ways of reducing interest rates on loans over the long run and of improving access to finance: measures that enhance competition and product innovation, improve financial consumer protection frameworks, increase financial literacy, promote credit bureaus, enforce disclosure of interest rates, and promote microcredit products. Such measures should be implemented in an integrated manner. However, if caps are still considered a useful policy tool for reducing interest rates on loans and increasing access to finance, they should be implemented in accord with the caveats described in the paper.
Access to Finance --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Debt Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Financial Sector Development --- Financial Sector Policy Formulation --- Investment & Investment Climate --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Non-Bank Financial Institutions --- Policy Implementation --- Policy Objectives
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GCC policymakers have managed to quickly mitigate the economic impact of the twin COVID-19 and oil price shock. Commodity prices have surged, and the outlook is more positive for GCC countries, with new challenges linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tighter global financial conditions expected to have a limited impact on GCC economies. While GCC countries have overall benefited from higher, albeit volatile hydrocarbon prices, numerous risks still cloud the outlook—notably a slowdown in the global economy. In this context, the reform momentum established during the low oil price years should be maintained—irrespective of the level of hydrocarbon prices.
Ukraine --- Money and Monetary Policy --- Political Economy --- Macroeconomics --- Monetary Policy --- Energy: Demand and Supply --- Prices --- Business Fluctuations --- Cycles --- Monetary economics --- Political economy --- Monetary policy --- Oil prices --- Financial conditions index --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- Economics --- Business cycles
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Shocks stemming from Brazil - the large neighbor in South America - have historically been a source of concern for policy-makers in other countries of the region. This paper studies the importance of Brazil’s influence on its neighboring economies, documenting trade linkages over the last two decades and quantifying spillover effects in a Vector Auto Regression setting. While trade linkages with Brazil are significant for the Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay), they are very weak for others. Consistent with this evidence, econometric results show that, while the Southern Cone economies (especially Mercosur’s members) are vulnerable to output shocks from Brazil, the rest of South America is not. Spillovers can take two different forms: the transmission of Brazil-specific shocks and the amplification of global shocks—through their impact on Brazil’s output. Finally, we also find suggestive evidence that depreciations of Brazil’s currency may not have significant impact on output of its key trading partners.
Finance --- Business & Economics --- Investment & Speculation --- Investments, Foreign --- Brazil --- Foreign economic relations. --- Exports and Imports --- Foreign Exchange --- Investments: General --- Macroeconomics --- Externalities --- Trade: General --- Investment --- Capital --- Intangible Capital --- Capacity --- International economics --- Currency --- Foreign exchange --- Spillovers --- Exports --- Depreciation --- Real exchange rates --- Real effective exchange rates --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- International trade --- National accounts --- International finance --- Saving and investment
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This paper looks at fiscal solvency and public debt sustainability in both emerging market and advanced countries. Evidence of fiscal solvency, in the form of a robust positive conditional relationship between public debt and the primary fiscal balance, is established in both groups of countries. Evidence of fiscal solvency is much weaker, however, at high debt levels. These findings suggest that many industrial and emerging market economies, including several where fiscal solvency has been the subject of recent debates, appear to conduct fiscal policy responsibly. Yet our results cannot reject the hypothesis of fiscal insolvency in groups of countries with high debt ratios.
Finance: General --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Fiscal Policy --- Debt --- Debt Management --- Sovereign Debt --- Bankruptcy --- Liquidation --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Finance --- Fiscal stance --- Public debt --- Solvency --- Fiscal policy --- Expenditure --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- Debts, Public --- Expenditures, Public --- United States --- Finance, Public --- Econometric models.
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Many official groups have endorsed the wider use by emerging market borrowers of contract clauses which allow for a qualified majority of bondholders to restructure repayment terms in the event of financial distress. Some have argued that such clauses will be associated with moral hazard and increased borrowing costs. This paper addresses this question empirically using primary and secondary market yields and finds no evidence that the presence of collective action clauses increases yields for either higher- or lower-rated issuers. By implication, the perceived benefits from easier restructuring are at least as large as any costs from increased moral hazard.
Finance: General --- Investments: Bonds --- International Lending and Debt Problems --- International Financial Markets --- General Financial Markets: General (includes Measurement and Data) --- General Financial Markets: Government Policy and Regulation --- Investment & securities --- Finance --- Bonds --- Emerging and frontier financial markets --- International bonds --- Moral hazard --- Bond yields --- Financial institutions --- Financial markets --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- Financial services industry --- Financial risk management --- United States
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We argue that firm interdependencies, as measured by correlations of stock returns, provide an indicator of systemic risk potential. We find a positive trend in stock return correlations net of diversification effects for a sample of U.S. Large and Complex Banking Organizations over 1988-99. This finding suggests that the systemic risk potential in the financial sector may have increased. In addition, we find a positive consolidation elasticity of correlations. However, such elasticity exhibits substantial time variation and likely declined in the latter part of the decade. Thus, factors other than consolidation have also been responsible for the upward trend in return correlations.
Banks and Banking --- Finance: General --- Investments: Stocks --- Industries: Financial Services --- General Financial Markets: Government Policy and Regulation --- Pension Funds --- Non-bank Financial Institutions --- Financial Instruments --- Institutional Investors --- Banks --- Depository Institutions --- Micro Finance Institutions --- Mortgages --- Finance --- Investment & securities --- Banking --- Systemic risk --- Stocks --- Financial sector risk --- Loans --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- Financial institutions --- Commercial banks --- Financial risk management --- Banks and banking --- United States
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This paper provides new empirical evidence on the impact of financial liberalization on the performance of Indian commercial banks. The analysis focuses on examining the behavior and determinants of bank intermediation costs and profitability during the liberalization period. The empirical results suggest that ownership type has a significant effect on some performance indicators and that the observed increase in competition during financial liberalization has been associated with lower intermediation costs and profitability of the Indian banks.
Banks and Banking --- Finance: General --- Industries: Financial Services --- Banks --- Depository Institutions --- Micro Finance Institutions --- Mortgages --- General Financial Markets: Government Policy and Regulation --- Banking --- Finance --- Commercial banks --- Bank soundness --- Foreign banks --- State-owned banks --- Financial institutions --- Financial sector policy and analysis --- Loans --- Banks and banking --- Banks and banking, Foreign --- India
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