Income Distribution and the Size of the Informal Sector

This paper studies the role of income distribution as a determinant of the size of the informal sector in an economy by relying on a channel whereby inequality affects the behaviour of aggregate demand and thus influences the incentives a firm has to become informal. It is further postulated that income distribution affects the response of the informal sector to different fiscal policies, either demand or supply-orientated. The main findings are that high inequality leads to a large informal sector, and that redistribution towards the middle class decreases the size of the informal sector and increases the capacity of fiscal instruments to reduce informality. Empirical evidence for Mexican cities is provided.Income distribution, market size, informal sector.

Dollarization Persistence and Individual Heterogeneity

The most salient feature of financial dollarization, and the one that causes more concern to policymakers, is its persistence: even after successful macroeconomic stabilizations, dollarization ratios often remain high. In this paper we claim that this persistence is connected to the fact that the participants in the dollar deposit market are fairly heterogenous, and so is the way they form their optimal currency portfolio. We develop a simple model when agents differ in their ability to process information, which turns out to be enough to generate persistence upon aggregation. We find empirical support for this claim with data from three Latin American countries and Poland.Dollarization, individual heterogeneity, persistence, aggregation

Inflation Targeting and Inflation Behavior: A Successful Story?

This paper estimates the effects of inflation targeting (IT) adoption over inflation dynamics using a wide control group. We contribute to the current IT evaluation literature by considering the adoption of IT by a country as a treatment, just as in the program evaluation literature. Hence, we perform propensity score matching to determine suitable counterfactuals to the actual inflation targeters. With this approach we find that IT has helped in reducing the level and volatility of inflation in the countries that adopted it. This result is robust to alternative definitions of treatment and control groups. We also find that the e ect of IT in the persistence of inflation is rather weak and not as categorical as the one associated with the mean and volatility of inflation.Inflation Targeting, matching methods

Dollarization Persistence and Individual Heterogeneity

The most salient feature of financial dollarization, and the one that causes more concern to policy makers, is its persistence: even after successful macroeconomic stabilizations, dollarization ratios often remain high. In this paper we claim that this persistence is connected to the fact that the participants in the dollar deposit market are fairly heterogenous, and so is the way they form their optimal currency portfolio.We develop as simple model when agents differ in their ability to process information, which turns out to be enough to generate persistence up on aggregation. We find empirical support for this claim with data from three Latin American countries and Poland.Dollarization, individual heterogeneity, persistence, aggregation

How Does Global Disinflation Drag Inflation in Small Open Economies?

This paper shows the way how persistent world inflation shocks hitting a small open economy can re-weight the importance of domestic and foreign factors in the determination of prices. In this sense, we study why the recently observed global disinflation environment may imply a weakening of the standard interest rate channel of monetary policy to affect inflation. We derive a state-dependent Phillips curve based on translog preferences that make the elasticity of substitution of domestic goods sensitive to foreign prices. With this approach we are able to replicate the dragging effect of global disinflation on domestic inflation, as experienced in small open economies such as New Zealand, Chile and PeruPolicy, Phillips Curve, Translog Preferences.

How Does Global Disinflation Drag Inflation in Small Open Economies?

This paper shows the way how persistent world inflation shocks hitting a small open economy can re-weight the importance of domestic and foreign factors in the determination of prices. In this sense, we study why the recently observed global disinflation environment may imply a weakening of the standard interest rate channel of monetary policy to affect inflation. We derive a state-dependent Phillips curve based on translog preferences that make the elasticity of substitution of domestic goods sensitive to foreign prices. With this approach we are able to replicate the dragging effect of global disinflation on domestic inflation, as experienced in small open economies such as New Zealand, Chile and Peru.Monetary Policy, Phillips Curve, Translog Preferences, Inflation.

Monetary Policy Rules for Financially Vulnerable EconomieEd

One distinguishable characteristic of emerging economies is that they are not financially robust. These economies are incapable to smooth out large external shocks as sudden capital outflows imply large and abrupt swings in the real exchange rate. Using a small open economy model this paper examines alternative monetary policy rules for economies with different degrees of liability dollarization. The paper answers the question of how efficient is to use inflation targeting under high liability dollarization. Our findings suggest that it might be optimal to follow a non-linear policy rule that defends the real exchange rate in a financially vulnerable economy.

Inflation Targeting and Inflation Behavior: A Successful Story?

This paper estimates the effects of inflation targeting (IT) adoption over inflation dynamics using a wide control group. We contribute to the current IT evaluation literature by considering the adoption of IT by a country as a treatment, just as in the program evaluation literature. Hence, we perform propensity score matching to find suitable counterfactuals to the actual inflation targeters. We find out that IT has helped in reducing the level and volatility of inflation in the countries that adopted it. This result is robust to alternative definitions of treatment and control groups

Sobre los determinantes de la Inflación

Presenta un repaso de la evolución reciente de la inflación y reflexiona sobre los determinantes de ésta.

Exchange rate pass-through and inflation targeting in Peru

It has been widely documented that the exchange rate pass-through to domestic inflation has decreased significantly in most of the industralised world. As microeconomic factors cannot completely explain such a widespread phenomenon, a macroeconomic explanation linked to the inflationary environment - that a low and more stable inflation rate leads to a decrease in the pass-through - have gained popularity. Using a structural VAR framework, this paper presents evidence of a similar decline in the pass-through in Peru, a small open economy that gradually reduced inflation to international levels in order to adopt a fully-fledged inflation targeting scheme in 2002. It is argued that the establishment of a credible regime of low inflation has been instrumental in driving the exchange rate pass-through down.Exchange rate pass-through, inflation targeting,structural VAR.