Signals from housing and lending booms

The contribution of this paper is to revisit the Early Warning System (EWS) literature by analysing selected episodes of financial market crisis, i.e. those preceded by a spell of credit and real estate expansions. The aim is to disentangle instances when this constitutes a natural phenomenon associated with a process of financial development and innovation from those where it constitutes a worrisome signal. We identify economic variables that have leading indicator properties, thus helping to distinguish between “benign” episodes from those likely ending with downward pressures on the exchange rate or even a fully-fledged banking crisis. We find that a large current account deficit, a fall in price competitiveness, strong real growth and high public debt-to-GDP ratio increase the probability that a lending or housing boom would be accompanied by financial market tensions shortly after the peak. JEL Classification: E32, F31, F37credit booms, Early Warning System, Financial crises, House prices

Explaining and forecasting euro area exports: which competitiveness indicator performs best?

From a conceptual point of view there is little consensus of what should be the “ideal indicator” of international cost and price competitiveness as each of the standard measures typically employed has its own merits and drawbacks. This calls for addressing the question from an empirical angle, searching for the indicator that best explains and helps forecast export developments. This paper constitutes a first attempt to systematically compare the properties of the alternative cost and price competitiveness measures of the euro area. Although they diverge sometimes, we find little evidence that there is one indicator consistently outperforming the other in terms of explaining and forecasting euro area exports. This suggests that the measures based on consumer and producer prices, which offer some advantages in terms of quality and timeliness, are good approximations of euro area price and cost competitiveness. JEL Classification: F17, F31, F41euro area, exports, forecast, price competitiveness, real exchange rate, Trade

On the empirical evidence of the intertemporal current account model for the euro area countries

In this paper we present a novel approach to the empirical validation of the intertemporal approach to the current account. We develop a calibrated model highlighting the role of consumption smoothing and capital accumulation in the economic convergence process. After solving the model, we derive the theoretical values for the euro area countries’ current account, testing to what extent they match reality. The model explains most of the dispersion in the current account and saving ratio, though cannot equally well capture differences in the investment ratios. The conclusion that we draw is that consumption smoothing, based on expectations of economic convergence, is driving the current account of the euro area countries over medium-term horizons. Capital accumulation appears to play a less pronounced role. JEL Classification: D91, F36, F41current account, euro area, General equilibrium models, intertemporal optimisation

The admission of accession countries to an enlarged monetary union: a tentative assessment

The enlargement of the European monetary union to include the accession countries (ACs) will not lead to higher average inflation in the enlarged euro area, but only to inflation redistribution across countries if continuity of the monetary policy framework is preserved. In the short term, unanticipated shocks to the real exchange rate may instead affect aggregate inflation if member countries' economic structure differs. When comparing welfare, inflation and output stabilisation, we find that the size, differences in economic structure and the variance-covariance matrix of supply and real exchange rate shocks play a key role. The numerical results indicate that the implications for the euro area are significant only if we assume a strong real exchange rate appreciation and if ACs are weighted in terms of purchasing power parity standards. In the event of real exchange rate or country-specific supply shocks in ACs, the consequences would be limited for both the current and the enlarged euro area, but sizeable for ACs themselves. JEL Classification: E52, E58, F33, F40Accession Countries, Balassa-Samuelson Effect, European Monetary Union, Exchange Rate Regimes, monetary policy

Current account benchmarks for central and eastern Europe: a desperate search?

This paper examines two competing approaches for calculating current account benchmarks, i.e. the external sustainability approach á la Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (LM) versus the structural current accounts literature (SCA) based on panel econometric techniques. The aim is to gauge the medium term adjustment in current account positions that may be required in some central and eastern European countries. As regards the LM approach, we show how the outcome is especially sensitive to (i) the normative choice for external indebtedness and (ii) the decision to exclude the foreign direct investment subcomponent from the NFA aggregate. Turning our search to the SCA approach, we assess its sensitivity to model and parameter uncertainty by setting different selection criteria to choose amongst the over 8000 possible combinations of fundamentals. Furthermore, to test the robustness of our findings we combine all models, attaching to each a probability (Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates). We show both the LM and SCA methodologies are not immune from severe drawbacks and conceptual difficulties. Nevertheless pulling together the results of both approaches point to the countries that may need a current account adjustment over a medium term horizon. JEL Classification: C11, C33, F15, F32, F34, F41, O52Capital flows, central and eastern Europe, current account, financial integration, model combination, Model uncertainty, panel data

Thousands of models, one story: current account imbalances in the global economy

The global financial crisis has led to a revival of the empirical literature on current account imbalances. This paper contributes to that literature by investigating the importance of evaluating model and parameter uncertainty prior to reaching any firm conclusion. We explore three alternative econometric strategies: examining all models, selecting a few, and combining them all. Out of thousands (or indeed millions) of models a story emerges. The chance that current accounts were aligned with fundamentals prior to the financial crisis appears to be minimal.Macroeconomics - Econometric models

The Eastward Enlargement of the European Monetary Union

The enlargement of the European monetary union to include new EU Member States (NMs) will not lead to higher expected inflation in the enlarged euro area, but only to some redistribution of inflation at the country level, if the policy framework of the monetary authority remains invariant. Shocks to the real exchange rate may affect instead aggregate inflation, if member countries' economic structure differs. The numerical results indicate that the impact on steady state inflation of the current euro area is limited if participating countries are weighted on the basis of nominal GDP and if the upward pressure on the real exchange rate is postulated to be in line with most estimates of the Balassa-Samuelson effect. In the event of real exchange rate or country-specific supply shocks in NMs, the consequences are found to be limited for the current and the enlarged euro area, but sizeable for the NMs themselves.EMU; enlargement; East-Central Europe

Exchange rate pass-through in emerging markets

This paper examines the degree of Exchange Rate Pass-Through (ERPT) to prices in 12 emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. Our results, based on three alternative vector autoregressive models, partly overturn the conventional wisdom that ERPT into both import and consumer prices is always higher in “emerging” than in “developed” countries. For emerging markets with only one digit inflation (most notably the Asian countries), passthrough to import and consumer prices is found to be low and not very dissimilar from the levels of developed economies. The paper also finds robust evidence for a positive relationship between the degree of the ERPT and inflation, in line with Taylor’s hypothesis once two outlier countries (Argentina and Turkey) are excluded from the analysis. Finally, the presence of a positive link between import openness and ERPT, while plausible theoretically, finds only weak empirical support. JEL Classification: C32, E31emerging markets, Exchange Rate Pass-Through

Methodological advances in the assessment of equilibrium exchange rates

This paper reviews three different concepts of equilibrium exchange rates that are widely used in policy analysis and constitute the backbone of the IMF CGER assessment: the Macroeconomic Balance, the External Sustainability and the reduced form approaches. We raise a number of econometric issues that were previously neglected, proposing some methodological advances to address them. The first issue relates to the presence of model uncertainty in deriving benchmarks for the current account, introducing Bayesian averaging techniques as a solution. The second issue reveals that, if one considers all the sets of plausible identification schemes, the uncertainty surrounding export and import exchange rate elasticities is large even at longer horizons. The third issue discusses the uncertainty associated to the estimation of a reduced form relationship for the real exchange rate, concluding that inference can be improved by panel estimation. The fourth and final issue addresses the presence of strong and weak cross section dependence in panel estimation, suggesting which panel estimators one could use in this case. Overall, the analysis puts forward a number of innovative solutions in dealing with the large uncertainties surrounding equilibrium exchange rate estimates. JEL Classification: F31, F32, F41current account, Equilibrium exchange rates, global imbalances, IMF CGER methodologies, trade elasticities

Welfare implications of joining a common currency

This paper examines the welfare implications of a country joining a currency union as opposed to operating in a flexible exchange rate regime. At the country level, the suboptimal response to domestic and foreign shocks and the inability of setting inflation at the desired level may be offset by a positive impact on potential output. We show that for entry to be welfare enhancing, the potential output gain must be the larger, the smaller the country, the larger the difference between the standard deviation of supply shocks across the participating countries, the smaller the correlation of countries’ supply shocks and the larger the variance of real exchange rate shocks. JEL Classification: E52, E58, F33, F40Balassa-Samuelson Effect, Currency union, monetary policy, Welfare