Western Hemisphere > Argentina

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Hany Abdel-Latif
and
Adina Popescu
This paper investigates the global economic spillovers emanating from G20 emerging markets (G20-EMs), with a particular emphasis on the comparative influence of China. Employing a Bayesian Global Vector Autoregression (GVAR) model, we assess the impacts of both demand-side and supply-side shocks across 63 countries, capturing the nuanced dynamics of global economic interactions. Our findings reveal that China's contribution to global economic spillovers significantly overshadows that of other G20-EMs. Specifically, China's domestic shocks have significantly larger and more pervasive spillover effects on global GDP, inflation and commodity prices compared to shocks from other G20-EMs. In contrast, spillovers from other G20-EMs are more regionally contained with modest global impacts. The study underscores China's outsized role in shaping global economic dynamics and the limited capacity of other G20-EMs to mitigate any potential negative implications from China's economic slowdown in the near term.
Matías Moretti
,
Lorenzo Pandolfi
,
German Villegas Bauer
,
Sergio L. Schmukler
, and
Tomás Williams
We present evidence of inelastic demand for risky sovereign bonds and explore its implications for optimal government debt policies. Using monthly changes in the composition of a major international bond index, we identify flow shocks unrelated to fundamentals that shift the available bond supply. From these shocks, we estimate an inverse demand elasticity of -0.30 and show that it increases with countries’ default risk. We formulate a sovereign debt model with endogenous default and inelastic investors, calibrated to our empirical estimates. By penalizing additional borrowing, an inelastic demand acts as a disciplining device that reduces default risk and bond spreads.
Natalie Chen
and
Luciana Juvenal
We investigate theoretically and empirically how exporters adjust their markups across destinations depending on bilateral distance, tariffs, and the quality of their exports. Under the assumption that trade costs are both ad valorem and per unit, our model predicts that markups rise with distance and fall with tariffs, but these effects are heterogeneous and are smaller in magnitude for higher quality exports. We find strong support for the predictions of the model using a unique data set of Argentinean firm-level wine exports combined with experts wine ratings as a measure of quality.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper investigates the reasons for the growth pickup in Paraguay and explores the potential for sustainable future growth. It shows that the growth acceleration over the past 15 years is the combined result of a few factors: a bounce back from the crisis in the late 1990s and the subpar growth of the two decades prior; a benevolent external environment, the commodity price boom in particular; and the improved macroeconomic stability. Also in terms of its composition, growth in the past has largely been extensive, mostly coming from capital deepening and increasing labor inputs, rather than productivity increase, though total factor productivity growth has played a bigger role in the most recent years. Despite strong growth in recent years, like most of the Latin America, seen over a longer period, Paraguay has not attained significant economic convergence with advanced economies. Empirical data shows a strong linkage between the GDP per capita of a country and its score in a composite structural indicator such as the World Competitiveness Index, which Paraguay ranked poorly on. Identifying and correcting Paraguay’s structural deficiencies that may be hampering productivity growth and capital accumulation will be crucial for sustainable growth.
Paolo Giordani
,
Nadia Rocha
, and
Michèle Ruta
This paper studies the relationship between trade policy and food prices. We show that, when individuals are loss averse, governments may use trade policy to shield the domestic economy from large food price shocks. This creates a complementarity between the price of food in international markets and trade policy. Specifically, unilateral actions give rise to a "multiplier effect": when a shock drives up the price of food, exporters respond by imposing restrictions while importers wind down protection, thus exacerbating the initial shock and soliciting further trade policy activism. We test the key prediction of the theory with a new dataset that comprises monthly information on trade measures across 77 countries and 33 food products for the period 2008-11, finding evidence of a multiplier effect in food trade policy. These findings contribute to inform the broader debate on the proper regulation of food trade policy within the multilateral trading system.

Abstract

This book edited by Chorng-Huey Wong and Naheed Kirmani, examines a wide range of trade policy issues relevant in the 1990s that were the subject of a seminar organized by the IMF in 1996. The topics include the design and implementation of trade reform, trade liberalization in industrial and transition economies, regional trading arrangements, the impact of the Uruguay Round, the role of the World Trade Organization, and post Uruguay Round issues.

Pierre-Richard Agénor
This paper examines whether price controls may enhance the credibility of a disinflation program, using a framework in which agents behave strategically. The analysis indicates that a partial price freeze is not fully credible, and may result in inflation inertia. The authorities may be able to determine optimally the intensity of price controls so as to minimize the policy loss associated with a discretionary monetary strategy. But the optimal intensity of controls is shown to be significantly different from zero only if the cost of enforcing price ceilings is not too high, or if the weight attached to price distortions in the policymaker’s loss function is small.
International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.
This paper surveys theoretical issues and empirical evidence on the effects of central bank intervention in foreign exchange markets on exchange rate movements. The focus is on the ability of fully sterilized intervention to influence exchange rates in a predictable manner. Theoretical considerations suggest that the exchange rate may be affected by intervention if assets denominated in different currencies are imperfect substitutes, thus creating opportunities for intervention (undertaken for portfolio balance reasons) to modify interest differentials and, hence, the exchange rate. The same conclusion emerges when one looks at the effects of intervention on risk premiums in the foreign exchange markets, on differences between offshore and domestic interest rates, and on covered international interest differentials. The lack of any firm evidence that portfolio balance effects resulting from intervention in foreign exchange markets affect exchange rates predictably suggests that intervention policy cannot be distinguished from general monetary policy for practical purposes. This, in turn, implies that attempts to use these two policy instruments independently may lead to lesser, rather than to greater, exchange rate stability.