DETERMINANTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF FOREIGN IN DEBTEDNESS IN COLOMBIAN FIRMS

During the nineties the performance of many emerging economies was linked to their access to foreign capital and its impact on the real exchange rate. Colombia was not an exception, as it experienced a sharp boom and bust cycle during the period. Although a number of studies have attempted to explain the recent underperformance of the Colombian economy, few attempts have been made at analyzing firm-level data. In this paper, we rely on information for a large sample of firms during 1995-2001 (nearly 8000 firms on average) and examine the determinants of foreign indebtedness as well as the effects on firm performance of holding dollar debt amid changes in the real exchange rate (i.e. the so called balance sheet effect"). While size is the most robust determinant of dollar indebtedness, matching seems to take place, to the extent that firms in more open sectors and exporting firms have higher shares of dollar debt. In spite of the limited amount of dollar indebtedness of Colombian firms in general, our estimations suggest there is a negative balance sheet effect on firms´ performance (i.e. on profitability). On the other hand, the interaction of dollar indebtedness with the real exchange rate is generally not significant in our investment regressions."Colombia

The Transmission Mechanism of Monetary Policy in Colombia Major Changes and Current Features

The Colombian economy experienced several shocks in the past ten years. The permanent fall of inflation, the adoption of inflation targeting (IT) and a financial crisis altered the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Low inflation and IT reduced inflation persistence and contributed to anchor inflation expectations. The evidence is less conclusive with respect to the changes of the responsiveness of inflation to domestic conditions (output or marginal cost gaps). Increased competition may have encouraged a higher degree of price flexibility, but a more stable inflation environment may have raised the sensitivity of aggregate supply to inflation surprises. The short-run money-inflation relationship was broken in the presence of low inflation, exogenous shocks to the demand for money and a policy regime that stabilized short-run interest rates. The sensitivity of aggregate demand to the interest rate varied with the indebtedness of private agents and the credit channel was severed after the financial crisis. The IT regime implied a stabilization of short-run interest rates, making the monetary policy stance and objectives clearer to the public. However, interest rate pass-through appears to be incomplete and seems to respond to the varying importance of the credit channel and the general state of the economy.Monetary Transmission Mechanisms, Inflation Targeting, Colombian Economy. Classification JEL:E42; E44; E52; E66.

The role of long term finance : theory and evidence

The authors review the literature on term finance to place the research in context and discuss its implications for World Bank operations. Their project investigated whether industrial firms in developing countries suffer from a shortage of long-term credit and whether that shortage affects the firm's investment, productivity, and growth. Both issues are important in designing the World Bank's industrial lending policy because the development community is reevaluating mechanisms to make more term finance available or to lessen the constraints imposed by its absence. Using both cross-country empirical analysis and country case studies, researchers found that developing country firms use significantly less long-term debt than their industrial country counterparts, even after controlling for firm characteristics. They explain the difference in debt composition of industrial and developing countries in terms of firm characteristics, macro factors, and -most important- government subsidies, the country's level of financial development, and legal and institutional factors. They conclude that more long-term finance tends to be associated with higher productivity. Cross-country analysis of firm-level data also indicates that when there is an active stock market and when creditors and debtors are better able to enter into long-term contracts, firms seem to be able to grow faster than they could by relying only on internal resources and short-term credit. Another important finding: Government subsidies around the world have increased firms'long-term indebtedness, but there is no evidence connecting these subsidies with the firms's ability to grow faster. Indeed, in some cases subsidies were asociated with lower productivity.Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Strategic Debt Management

Living with Dollarization and the Route to Dedollarization

Financial dollarization in Latin America has been growing over time in spite of a major reduction in inflation and a shift toward central bank independence. After discussing the key stylized facts of dollarization and dedollarization in the region, we discuss the risks this process poses to the region. In particular, we explore the validity of concerns about the effectiveness of monetary policy in a dollarized economy and about a loss of seigniorage revenue in such an economy. After concluding that to a large extent these concerns lack empirical support, we focus on the main reason for concern: increased vulnerability due to the dollarization of public and private debt. We emphasize the importance of precautionary/regulatory measures to limit the scope of mismatches originating from liability dollarization, and of developing financial instruments designed to hedge against currency risk. Moreover, we deal with the experience of policies directly aimed at deepening domestic financial markets in local currency assets and in gradually lengthening the maturity of these assets. We find that important lessons from the experience of dedollarization in Israel are of particular interest for Latin America.

Commonality without convergence: An analytical framework Accounting for variegated financialisation in emerging economies

© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Financialisation is not a homogenous but a variegated process. However, the question along which categories this variegation happens is currently unanswered. We identify four variegation categories: financial sector structure, productive structures, the role of the state, and the growth model. We apply these categories to two seemingly similar emerging-economy contexts which have produced different financialisation experiences: Colombia and South Africa. Financialisation in South Africa is much more market-based, meaning it is led by the financial sector unfolding through financial markets and banks’ activities visible in their much larger size, activity, and international interconnectedness, than in Colombia. Hence, South African credit extension, bond markets, domestic pension funds, and stock market capitalisation are substantially larger than Colombia’s, while the Rand has experienced strong internationalisation since 2000. Nevertheless, there is evidence financialisation processes have been unfolding dynamically in both countries over the past two decades, reinforcing the view of variegated financialisation as a common tendency with significant heterogeneities across countries.Peer reviewe

Corporate Sector Debt Composition and Exchange Rate Balance Sheet Effect in Turkey

This paper investigates the causes and balance sheet effect consequences of the liability dollarisation of non-financial sectors in Turkey using the Company Accounts database compiled by the Central Bank of Turkey. The results from the panel EGLS and GMM procedures suggest that both sector-specific (tangibility, leverage ratio, export share) and macroeconomic condition variables (inflation, real exchange rate change, budget deficits and confidence) are significant in explaining the corporate sector liability dollarisation. Firms are found to match only partially the currency composition of their debt with their income streams making them potentially vulnerable to negative balance sheet affects of real exchange rate depreciation shocks. Consistent with this argument, real exchange rate depreciations are found to be contractionary, in terms of investments and profits, for sectors with higher liability dollarisation. Macroeconomic instability, as proxied by budget deficits and inflation, appears to have a significant negative affect on the performance of the firms in the non-financial sectors, in terms of their investments, sales and profits. Our results also stress the importance of strong macroeconomic policy stance and price stability for an endogenous dedollarisation process along with regulatory measures to limit vulnerabilities caused by dollarisation.Balance sheet effects, Capital structure, Corporate sector, Debt composition, Liability dollarisation, Turkey

Corporate Sector Debt Composition and Exchange Rate Balance Sheet Effect in Turkey

This paper investigates the causes and balance sheet effect consequences of the liability dollarisation of non-financial sectors in Turkey using the Company Accounts database compiled by the Central Bank of Turkey. The results from the panel EGLS and GMM procedures suggest that both sector-specific (tangibility, leverage ratio, export share) and macroeconomic condition variables (inflation, real exchange rate change, budget deficits and confidence) are significant in explaining the corporate sector liability dollarisation. Firms are found to match only partially the currency composition of their debt with their income streams making them potentially vulnerable to negative balance sheet affects of real exchange rate depreciation shocks. Consistent with this argument, real exchange rate depreciations are found to be contractionary, in terms of investments and profits, for sectors with higher liability dollarisation. Macroeconomic instability, as proxied by budget deficits and inflation, appears to have a significant negative affect on the performance of the firms in the non-financial sectors, in terms of their investments, sales and profits. Our results also stress the importance of strong macroeconomic policy stance and price stability for an endogenous dedollarisation process along with regulatory measures to limit vulnerabilities caused by dollarisation.Balance sheet effects, Capital structure, Corporate sector, Debt composition, Liability dollarisation, Turkey