Productivity Growth and Disinflation in Chile

This paper analyzes the role productivity growth had on disinflation in Chile during the 1990s. It argues that productivity growth was key in avoiding the output costs of stabilization in a highly indexed economy. Disinflation from the early 1990s through 1998 was costless. Among the many external and domestic factors that contributed to good macroeconomic performance, which combined simultaneously very high rates of growth and declining inflation, productivity stands high. The paper’s simulation results illustrate the latter point.

Macroeconomic Management in Emerging Economies and the International Financial Architecture

In the last few years, and most recently with the crisis in Argentina, views about emerging markets and the international financial institutions have changed significantly. This paper reviews macroeconomic management in emerging economies and the role of the international financial institutions in helping to secure their stability. It discusses the role of macroeconomic policies, in particular exchange rate policies, arguing that a very strong case can be made for exchange rate flexibility. However, as recent evidence confirms, this choice requires an institutional framework that credibly commits the economy to low inflation, preventing price instability even in the presence of strong fluctuations in the exchange rate. Also discussed is the role of the international financial institutions in a world of recurrent currency crises and contagion. Despite the need for increased transparency, accountability, and greater independence for the International Monetary Fund, to avoid its being seen as an institution that primarily serves the political goals of its main shareholders, and despite the need for improved procedures to handle crises, the best recipe for stability is at the domestic level. Good macroeconomic policies are those that bring about low inflation, fiscal prudence, and a strong financial system: these are necessary and almost sufficient conditions to avoid the type of crisis experienced repeatedly in the last decade. However, strong institutions must support this set of policies. The ultimate goal of macroeconomic policy is to serve as the basis for prosperity and for improving the well-being of the entire population, and here there is no substitute for macroeconomic stability.

Rapid Growth Of Monetary Aggregates And Inflation: The International Evidence

This paper presents empirical evidence for low inflation countries in which M1 has grown persistently for at least one year at rates much higher than the inflation rate. In none of these episodes has there been a similar increase in inflation, as a straightforward application of the simplest version of the quantity theory of money would suggest. This evidence confirms the idea that even in a world of long-run neutrality of money, the use of monetary aggregates to conduct monetary policy could be highly misleading.

Productivity Growth and Disinflation in Chile

This paper analyzes the role productivity growth had on disinflation in Chile during the 1990s. It argues that productivity growth was key in avoiding the output costs of stabilization in a highly indexed economy. Disinflation from the early 1990s through 1998 was costless. Among the many external and domestic factors that contributed to good macroeconomic performance, which combined simultaneously very high rates of growth and declining inflation, productivity stands high. The simulations presented in this paper illustrate this point.

The Role of Foreign Direct Investment and Natural Resources in Economic Development

This paper analyzes the role of FDI on economic growth, and discusses whether, based on these results, there is some rationale for special policies that discriminate in favor of particular sectors to attract FDI and to promote growth. At a sectoral level, this paper also discusses the role of natural resources on economic growth. The view that having natural resources is bad for growth and welfare is questioned.

Economic Growth in Latin America: From the Disappointment of the Twentieth Century to the Challenges of the Twenty-First

Latin America has been dominated by growth expansions that, more often than not, have ended in crises and protracted periods of stagnation. This has led to poor growth performance during most of the past century. This paper reviews Latin American growth experiences and discusses some particular areas that help to explain why sustainable growth has been so elusive in the region. In particular, it discusses the role of openness and intraregional trade, the role of institutions, macroeconomic stability and inequality, all factors that are central to resume and maintain growth. The paper also discusses more general issues related to growth, such as the importance of protecting property rights and having an adequate structure of rewards to effort, which includes equal opportunities. Finally, a brief overview on current macroeconomic developments is presented.

Economic Growth in Chile: Evidence, Sources and Prospects

This paper reviews the Chilean experience of growth, with particular focus on the rapid growth that began in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from the crisis of 1982. This process slowed down in the late nineties. This paper also reviews the evidence on growth and decomposes the rate of growth and the level of output into its components. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses that explain Chile’s growth take-off and that support future growth. Finally, the paper reviews estimates of the potential rate of long-run growth for the Chilean economy

International Borrowing, Capital Controls and the Exchange Rate: Lessons from Chile

This paper analyzes the Chilean experience with capital flows. We discuss the role played by capital controls, financial regulations and the exchange rate regime. The focus is on the period after 1990, the period when Chile returned to international capital markets. We also discuss the early 80s, where a currency collapse triggered a financial crisis in Chile, despite stricter capital controls on inflows than the 90s and tighter currency matching requirements on the banking sector. We conclude that financial regulation and the exchange rate regime are at the center of capital inflows experiences and financial vulnerabilities. Rigid exchange rates induce vulnerabilities, which may lead to sharp capital account reversals. We also discuss three important characteristics of the Chilean experience since the 90s. The first is the fact that most international borrowing is done directly by corporations and it is not intermediated by the banking system. The second is the implication of the free trade agreement of Chilean and the US regarding capital controls. Finally, we examine the Chilean experience following the Asian-Russia crisis, showing that Chile did not suffer a sudden-stop, but a current account reversal due to policy reactions and a sudden-start in capital outflows.

Financial innovation and money demand : theory and empirical implementation

Empirically, traditional money demand equations are frequently characterized by periods of"missing money", unstable parameters, and autocorrelated errors. The common practice to solve these problems consists of changing the specification of the regressions once the shifts (which are usually associated to financial innovation) are identified. This paper provides an alternative approach to dealing with the unobservable process of financial innovation. It consists of modelling financial innovation as shocks that have permanent effects on the money demand, analogous to productivity shocks in production functions. This paper describes the theoretical model used and shows the failure of traditional money demand equations using cointegration techiques. It describes a simple GLS-iterative econometric model which allows the authors to recover the path of financial innnovation and obtain sensible estimates of the relevant elasticities. It also shows Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the behavior of the estimation procedure for particular samples and data generating processes, and to study how robust the procedure to some deviations from the basic assumptions is.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Inequality,Financial Intermediation

Overshooting Meets Inflation Targeting

This paper revisits Dornbusch’s overshooting model; first, to discuss the conditions of overshooting and undershooting, extending the model to consider monetary policy rules and imperfect capital mobility. And second, to outline Dornbusch’s representation in the context of a simple dynamic neo-Keynesian model that can be used to analyze the impact of persistent changes in monetary policy, among other shocks. The model considers inflation targeting in a small open economy setup, which is characterized by imperfect competition and short-run price rigidity. The main findings of the paper are consistent with the original contribution where the exchange rate overshoots its long run equilibrium. We also show that flexible exchange rates dominate managed exchange rates in terms of output and inflation volatility in the presence of real shocks, while for nominal shocks the reverse is true.