Shock persistence and the choice of foreign exchange regime - an empirical note from Mexico

The academic and policy debate about optimal foreign exchange rate regimes for emerging economies, has focused more on the theoretical costs and benefits of possible regimes, than on their actual performance. The authors report on what can be called exchange-rate-regime-dependent differential shock persistence - that is, the time output takes to return to its trend after a negative shock - in a sample of countries representing various points on the spectrum of nominal foreign exchange flexibility. They find strong evidence that Mexico's stimulated output recovery after a negative external shock was faster (a third as long) when the country's policymakers let the nominal foreign exchange rate float, than when they fixed it, and much faster than in other developing countries that kept nominal foreign exchange rates constant, especially those that resorted to currency board arrangements to support that constancy. These results are insufficient to guide the choice of regime (they lack general equilibrium value, and are based on a limited sample of countries), but they highlight an important practical consideration in making that choice: How long it takes for output to adjust after negative shocks, is sensitive to the level of rigidity of the foreign exchange regime. This factor may be critical when the social costs of those adjustments are not negligible.Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Stabilization,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Theory&Research,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies

A new model for market-based regulation of subnational borrowing - the Mexican approach

Faced with weak sub-national finances that pose a risk to macroeconomic stability, Mexico's federal government in April 2000 established an innovative incentive framework to bring fiscal discipline to state and municipal governments. That framework is based on two pillars: an explicit renunciation of federal bail-outs, and a Basel-consistent link between the capital-risk weighting of bank loans to sub-national governments, and the borrower's credit rating. In theory, this new regulatory arrangement should reduce moral hazard among banks and their state, and municipal clients; differentiate interest rates on the basis of the borrower's creditworthiness; and, elicit a strong demand for institutional development at the sub-national level. But its access will depend on three factors critical to implementation: 1) Whether markets find thefederal commitment not to bail out defaulting sub-national governments credible. 2) Whether sub-national governments have access to financing other than bank loans. 3) How well bank capital rules are enforced.Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation,Insurance&Risk Mitigation