Medium-term business cycles in developing countries

Empirical evidence - including the current global crisis - suggests that shocks from advanced countries often have a disproportionate effect on developing economies. Can this account for the fact that aggregate fluctuations are larger and more persistent in the latter than in the former economies? And what are the mechanisms at play? This paper addresses these questions using a model of an industrial and a developing economy trading goods and assets, with (i) a product cycle shaping the range of intermediate goods used to produce new capital in each country, and (ii) investment adjustment costs in the developing economy. Innovation by the advanced economy results in new intermediate goods, at first produced at home, and eventually transferred to the developing economy through direct investment. The pace of innovation and technology transfer is driven by profitability. This process of technology diffusion creates a medium-term connection between both economies, over and above the short-term link through trade. Calibration of the model to match Mexico-United States trade and foreign direct investment flows shows that this mechanism can explain why shocks to the United States economy have a larger effect on Mexico than on the United States itself, and hence why Mexico shows higher volatility than the United States; why business cycles in the United States lead to medium-term fluctuations in Mexico; and why consumption is not less volatile than output in Mexico.Economic Theory&Research,Political Economy,Emerging Markets,Debt Markets,Markets and Market Access

Medium Term Business Cycles in Developing Countries

We build a two country asymmetric DSGE model with two features: (i) endogenous and slow diffusion of technologies from the developed to the developing country, and (ii) adjustment costs to investment flows. We calibrate the model to match the Mexico-U.S. trade and FDI flows. The model is able to explain the following stylized facts: (i) U.S. and Mexican output co-move more than consumption; (ii) U.S. shocks have a larger effect on Mexico than in the U.S.; (iii) U.S. business cycles lead over medium term fluctuations in Mexico; (iv) Mexican consumption is more volatile than output.Business Cycles in Developing Countries, Co-movement between Developed and Developing economies, Volatility, Extensive Margin of Trade, Product Life Cycle, FDI.

Essays on Business Cycles in Developing Countries

Thesis advisor: Peter IrelandMy dissertation consists of three papers on business cycles in developing countries. All the papers are different from each other and emphasize different aspects of understanding economic fluctuations in developing countries. The first paper is titled `Medium Term Business Cycles in Developing Countries' (with Diego Comin, Norman Loayza and Luis Serven). This paper models the link between business cycle fluctuations in developed countries with fluctuations in developing countries. Business cycle fluctuations in developed economies tend to have large and persistent effects on developing countries. We study the transmission of business cycle fluctuations from developed to developing economies with a two-country asymmetric DSGE model with two important features: (i) endogenous and slow diffusion of technologies from the developed to the developing country, and (ii) adjustment costs to investment flows. Consistent with the model, we observe that the flow of technologies from developed to developing economies co-moves positively with output in both developed and developing countries. After calibrating the model to Mexico and the U.S., it can explain the following stylized facts: (i) U.S. and Mexican output co-move more than consumption; (ii) U.S. shocks have a larger effect on Mexico than in the U.S.; (iii) U.S. business cycles lead over medium term fluctuations in Mexico; (iv) Mexican consumption is more volatile than output. The second paper of my dissertation is based on a price setting survey conducted by the State Bank of Pakistan (Central Bank). The paper is titled `Price-Setting Discoveries: Results from a Developing Country' (with M. Ali Choudhary, Abdul Faheem, Nadeem Hanif, and Saima Naeem) present the results of 1189 structured face-to-face interviews about price-setting behavior of the formal firms in the manufacturing and services sector of Pakistan. The key findings of the survey are:the frequency of price change is high in Pakistan, lowering the real impact of monetary policy. Price rigidity is mainly explained by firms caring about relative prices and the persistence of shocks. The exchange-rate and cost shocks are more important than financial and demand shocks for both setting prices and also the readiness with which these shocks pass-through to the economy. Formal sector firms with connections to the informal sector, especially through demand, have a lower probability of price adjustment. The lack of taxes and compliance with tax regime, i.e. enforcement are held responsible for existence of the informal sector by formal sector firms. The results from this paper provided motivation for the last paper of my dissertation about understanding and modeling the business cycle fluctuations in a developing economy like Pakistan. The last paper of my dissertation is titled `Modeling Business Cycles in Pakistan: A First Step'. In this paper, I establish the nature of short-run fluctuations of the Pakistani economy over the period of 1960-2010. There have been significant changes in the nature of the Pakistani economy over the last few decades. Therefore, I focus my detailed analysis on the last few decades where it seems more appropriate to investigate the nature and causes of business cycles in Pakistan. Furthermore, I evaluate the performance of a typical RBC and an augmented RBC model with an exogenous FDI shock in explaining cyclical fluctuations experienced by the Pakistani economy. I find that a simple RBC model does badly in terms of matching relevant second order moments of short run fluctuations as depicted by the data. However, augmented RBC model performs better compared to the simple RBC model.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics

Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty in Pakistan

We develop an economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index for Pakistan in accordance with Baker, Bloom and Davis (2016) by extracting newspaper articles from Websites (i.e., Web-scraping) and we divided this into two indices. The main index, is based on four leading English-language Pakistan newspapers for the period of January 2015 to April 2020. To cover more historical ground, we also present a second index which uses two of the four newspapers and for which Web harvesting is plausible for a longer period of August 2010 to April 2020. The two indices are highly correlated thus they move in tandem and between them they capture events such as: the great floods of 2010; high terrorism activity; heightened exchange rate volatility; political turmoil; reshuffling of economic managers; the IMF program of 2019, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic

Medium Term Business Cycles in Developing Countries

Business cycle fluctuations in developed economies (N) tend to have large and persistent e§ects on developing countries (S). We study the transmission of business cycle fluctuations for developed to developing economies with a two-country asymmetric DSGE model with two features: (i) endogenous and slow diffusion of technologies from the developed to the developing country, and (ii) adjustment costs to investment flows. Consistent with the model we observe that the flow of technologies from N to S co-moves positively with output in both N and S. After calibrating the model to Mexico and the U.S., it can explain the following stylized facts: (i) shocks to N have a large effect on S; (ii) business cycles in N lead over medium term fluctuations in S; (iii) the outputs in S and N co-move more than their consumption; and (iv) interest rates in S are counter-cyclical

The Role of Money in Explaining Business Cycles for a Developing Economy: The Case of Pakistan

In this paper, we establish the empirical linkages between nominal and real variables of Pakistani economy using both annual and quarterly data. The focus of our empirical analysis has been limited to the post financial liberalization period starting in early 1990s. Furthermore, this paper theoretically evaluates the role of money and monetary policy in propagating business cycle fluctuations of Pakistani economy using different ways of introducing the role of money via money in utility (MIU) and cash in advance constraint (CIA) as well as with different formulation of monetary policy either through a money growth rule or Taylor type interest rate rule

Medium Term Business Cycles in Developing Countries

We build a two country asymmetric DSGE model with two features: (i) endogenous and slow diffusion of technologies from the developed to the developing country, and (ii) adjustment costs to investment flows. We calibrate the model to match the Mexico-U.S. trade and FDI flows. The model is able to explain the following stylized facts: (i) U.S. and Mexican output co-move more than consumption; (ii) U.S. shocks have a larger e¤ect on Mexico than in the U.S.; (iii) U.S. business cycles lead over medium term fluctuations in Mexico; (iv) Mexican consumption is more volatile than output.

The Role of Money in Explaining Business Cycles for a Developing Economy: The Case of Pakistan

In this paper, we establish the empirical linkages between nominal and real variables of Pakistani economy using both annual and quarterly data. The focus of our empirical analysis has been limited to the post financial liberalization period starting in early 1990s. Furthermore, this paper theoretically evaluates the role of money and monetary policy in propagating business cycle fluctuations of Pakistani economy using different ways of introducing the role of money via money in utility (MIU) and cash in advance constraint (CIA) as well as with different formulation of monetary policy either through a money growth rule or Taylor type interest rate rule

The Role of Money in Explaining Business Cycles for a Developing Economy: The Case of Pakistan

In this paper, we establish the empirical linkages between nominal and real variables of Pakistani economy using both annual and quarterly data. The focus of our empirical analysis has been limited to the post financial liberalization period starting in early 1990s. Furthermore, this paper theoretically evaluates the role of money and monetary policy in propagating business cycle fluctuations of Pakistani economy using different ways of introducing the role of money via money in utility (MIU) and cash in advance constraint (CIA) as well as with different formulation of monetary policy either through a money growth rule or Taylor type interest rate rule