Risk assessment in a Markov switching framework.

Framework; Risk; Risk assessment;

Civil Society Participation in Poverty Reduction Processes: Who is getting a seat at the pro-poor table?

The paper starts from the observation that the PRSP logic uses input output logic, meaning that it supposes that the input of ‘civil society participation’ into the policy cycle will inevitably lead to the output of poverty reduction. We argue that ‘civil society participation’ is a very vague concept and can constitute very different things depending on who is actually participating, who they represent, what influence they can yield... Consequently the type of input will also determine the extent to which the expected output will in fact be delivered and thus how civil society participation will ultimately contribute to poverty reduction. We test empirically what factors explain CSO participation in PRSP participatory processes based on data gathered from Honduran civil society organizations.

The Participation Conditionality under Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: The Joint Staff Assessment -experience

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) framework introduced by the World Bank and the IMF at the turn of the century goes well beyond the mainly macroeconomic conditionalities of the structural adjustment era by requesting that civil society participates in the preparation and the implementation of the strategy. Although constituting a significant shift in the international financial institutions’ discourse, the difference in the way in which the traditional and the “participation” conditions are scrutinized for compliance, considerably reduces the compulsory nature of the latter conditionality. Whereas clear standards and criteria are developed to evaluate compliance with the economic conditionalities, such standards seem to be lacking in the case of participation. This paper reviews the evaluation of the civil society participation in PRSP documents by the Joint Staff of the World Bank and the IMF. This desk-based study of 35 Joint Staff Assessments (JSAs) finds these JSAs to lack both clarity and candour.

Macro factors and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

This paper presents an essentially affine model of the term structure of interest rates making use of macroeconomic factors and their long-run expectations. The model extends the approach pioneered by Kozicki and Tinsley (2001) by modeling consistently long-run inflation expectations simultaneously with the term structure. This model thus avoids the standard pre-filtering of long-run expectations, as proposed by Kozicki and Tinsley (2001). Application to the U.S. economy shows the importance of long-run inflation expectations in the modelling of long-term bonds. The paper also provides a macroeconomic interpretation for the factors found in a latent factor model of the term structure. More specifically, we find that the standard "level" factor is highly correlated to long-run inflation expectations, the "slope" factor captures temporary business cycle conditions, while the "curvature" factor represents a clear independent monetary policy factor.Essentially affine term structure model;long-run market expectations;macroeconomic factors;monetary policy rule

Fiscal activism and the cost of debt financing

In this paper, we estimate the impact of changes in fiscal policy regime on the yield curve. In particular, we differentiate between yield curve responses under active and passive fiscal policy regimes (according to the terminology of Leeper 1991). Analyzing US data in the period 1965-2010, we find a statistically significant impact of fiscal policy only for the active policy regime. A one-percentage-point shock in the primary deficit leads typically to a contemporaneous increase in long-term yields of about 10 basis points, and even stronger cumulative effects. No significant impact of deficits on yields is found in the passive fiscal policy regime.Fiscal activism, Markov switching and yield curve

Multiple Equilibria and the Credibility of the Brazilian "Crawling Peg", 1995-1998.

This paper studies the relationship between the probability of devaluation of the Brazilian real and the fundamentals of the economy for the period 1995-1998. We use a model of a fixed exchange rate system that allows for multiple equilibria and, therefore, makes possible the identification of self-fulfilling speculation. The devaluation probability is computed using the "drift adjustment method". The model performs satisfactorily in tracking monthly devaluation expectations and presents some important advantages over a simple linear regression of macroeconomic variables on the devaluation probability. We do not find evidence that self-fulfilling speculation was at work in the period preceding the Brazilian currency crisis of January 1999. This suggests that the breakdown of the Brazilian managed exchange rate system was due to the deterioration of the fundamentals of the economy.Currency crisis; self-fulfilling speculation; multiple equilibria; Brazilian exchange rate system.

Macro Factors and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

This paper presents an essentially affine model of the term structure of interest rates making use of macroeconomic factors and their long-run expectations. The model extends the approach pioneered by Kozicki and Tinsley (2001) by modelling consistently long-run inflation expectations simultaneously with the term structure. This model thus avoids the standard pre-filtering of long-run expectations, as proposed by Kozicki and Tinsley (2001). Application to the U.S. economy shows the importance of long-run inflation expectations in the modelling of long-term bonds. The paper also provides a macroeconomic interpretation for the factors found in a latent factor model of the term structure. More specifically, we find that the standard "level" factor is highly correlated to long-run inflation expectations, the "slope" factor captures temporary business cycle conditions, while the "curvature" factor represents a clear independent monetary policy factor.essentially affine term structure model, macroeconomic factors, long-run market expectations, monetary policy rule

An extended macro-finance model with financial factors

This paper extends the benchmark Macro-Finance model by introducing, next to the standard macroeconomic factors, additional liquidity-related and return forecasting factors. Liquidity factors are obtained from a decomposition of the TED spread while the return-forecasting (risk premium) factor is extracted by imposing a single factor structure on the one-period expected excess holding returns. The model is estimated on US data using MCMC techniques. Two findings stand out. First, the model outperforms significantly most structural and non-structural Macro-Finance yield curve models in terms of cross-sectional fit of the yield curve. Second, we find that financial shocks, either in the form of liquidity or risk premium shocks have a statistically and economically significant impact on the yield curve. The impact of financial shocks extends throughout the yield curve but is most pronounced at the high and intermediate frequencies.

Filtering Long-Run Inflation Expectations with a Structural Macro Model of the Yield Curve

This paper proposes a methodolgy to estimate structural macroeconomic models including non-stationary steady state dynamics. Using a transitory-permanent decomposition of the Euler equations, the method first solves for the transitory dynamics and subsequently provides the solution for the full model by substituting back in the steady state dynamics. The method is applied to models linking the macroeconomic dynamics to the term structure of interest rates. We find that non-stationary variables play a crucial role in this respect. More specifically, long-run inflation expectations, estimated on the macroeconomic variables, turn out to be extremely important in the determination of the term structureStructural model, New-Keynesian model, filtering procedure, essentially affine term structure model, time-varying inflation expectations