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Business and Economics > Investments: Stocks

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 45 items for :

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Unveiling the Hidden Impact of Urban Land Rents on Total Factor Productivity
Mr. Bas B. Bakker
This paper addresses the puzzling decline of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) levels in rapidly growing economies, such as Singapore, despite advancements in technology and high GDP per capita growth. The paper proposes that TFP growth is not negative; instead, standard growth decompositions have underestimated TFP growth by overestimating the contribution of capital, failing to account for the substantial part of capital income directed to urban land rents. This leads to an overestimation of changes in capital stock's contribution to growth and thereby an underestimation of TFP growth. A revised decomposition suggests that TFP growth in economies with high land rents and rapid capital stock growth, such as Singapore, has been considerably underestimated: TFP levels have not declined but increased rapidly.
Keywords:
Total Factor Productivity; Economic Growth; Capital Stock; Land Rents; Growth Decomposition; Urban Economics; Population Density; Diminishing Returns to Scale; Technological Progress; Singapore; TFP level; re-estimating TFP; land rent; decline of total factor productivity; Capital income; Stocks; Land prices; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
Benchmarking Infrastructure Using Public Investment Efficiency Frontiers
Mr. Javier Kapsoli
,
Ms. Tewodaj Mogues
, and
Ms. Genevieve Verdier
With limited financing options, increasing investment efficiency will be a critical avenue to building infrastructure for many countries, particularly in the context of post-pandemic recovery and rising debt emanating from higher energy costs and other pressures. Estimating investment efficiency, however, presents many methodological pitfalls. Using various methods—–stochastic frontier analysis, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and bootstrapped DEA—this paper estimates efficiency scores for a wide range of countries employing metrics of infrastructure quantity and utilization. We find that efficiency scores are relatively robust across methodologies and data used. A considerable efficiency gap exists: Removing all inefficiencies could increase infrastructure output by 55 percent overall, when averaging across 12 estimation approaches—in particular, by 45 percent for advanced economies, 54 percent for emerging countries, and 65 percent for low income countries. Infrastructure output would increase by a still-sizeable 30 percent if instead of eliminating all efficiency, countries achieved the efficiency level of their income group’s 90th percentile.
Keywords:
public investment; efficiency; infrastructure; benchmarking; Benchmarking infrastructure; infrastructure output; output index; data envelopment analysis; income group; Public investment spending; Income; Stocks; Caribbean
Cover IMF Working Papers
Greece's Investment Gap
Shiqing Hua
,
Ms. Marina Mendes Tavares
, and
Ms. Xin C Xu
Greece’s investment rate plunged following the Sovereign Debt Crisis (SDC) and remained one of the lowest in the world in 2019. This paper explores recent investment dynamics and compares them against estimated benchmarks. Our results suggest that Greece has been under-investing since the SDC, with private investment notably lagging behind. The estimated investment gap ranges from 1.6–8 percent of GDP in 2019. Structural impediments have constrained corporate investment, while business cycle and balance sheet developments have held back household investment. Structural reforms are recommended to remove bottlenecks to corporate investment, improve efficiency of public investment, and boost household investment.
Keywords:
Investment gap; capital stock; structural reforms; investment gap; estimating benchmark investment; household investment; investment rate; investment dynamics; Private investment; Stocks; Public investment spending; Income; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Pricing Protest: The Response of Financial Markets to Social Unrest
Mr. Philip Barrett
,
Sophia Chen
,
Miss Mali Chivakul
, and
Ms. Deniz O Igan
Using a new daily index of social unrest, we provide systematic evidence on the negative impact of social unrest on stock market performance. An average social unrest episode in an typical country causes a 1.4 percentage point drop in cumulative abnormal returns over a two-week event window. This drop is more pronounced for events that last longer and for events that happen in emerging markets. Stronger institutions, particularly better governance and more democratic systems, mitigate the adverse impact of social unrest on stock market returns.
Keywords:
Social unrest; stock markets; abnormal returns; event study; institutions; cumulative abnormal returns; market model; stock index; income group; market liberalization reform; Stocks; Income; Global; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
Exploring Residual Profit Allocation
Sebastian Beer
,
Ruud A. de Mooij
,
Mr. Shafik Hebous
,
Mr. Michael Keen
, and
Ms. Li Liu
Schemes of residual profit allocation (RPA) tax multinationals by allocating their ‘routine’ profits to countries in which their activities take place and sharing their remaining ‘residual’ profit across countries on some formulaic basis. They have recently and rapidly come to prominence in policy discussions, yet almost nothing is known about their impact on revenue, investment and efficiency. This paper explores these issues, conceptually and empirically. It finds residual profits to be substantial, but concentrated in a relatively few MNEs, headquartered in few countries. The impact on tax revenue of reallocating excess profits under RPA, while adverse for investment hubs, appears beneficial for lower income countries even when the formula allocates by destination-based sales. The impact on investment incentives is ambiguous and specific both to countries and MNE groups; only if the rate of tax on routine profits is low does aggregate efficiency seem likely to increase.
Keywords:
WP; routine profits; capital stock; closed economy; cost function; earnings before interest and taxes; Residual Profit Allocation; International Corporate Taxation; Multinational Firms; profit shifting; residual profits; RPA scheme; purged profits; Marginal effective tax rate; Corporate income tax; Income; Stocks; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Technological Changes, Offshoring, and the Labor Share
Weicheng Lian
Existing studies on the downward trend in the labor share of income mostly focus on changes within individual countries. I document, however, that half of the global decline in the labor share of income can be traced to the relocation of activities between countries. I develop a two-country model to show that when the relative price of investment goods falls, production activities with a small elasticity of substitution between capital and labor tend to get offshored from high- to low-wage countries. The model provides an explanation as to why such relocation may drive the labor share down in both developed and developing economies, as well as globally.
Keywords:
WP; elasticity of substitution; cost of capital; Labor Share; Offshoring; Technological Changes; Relative Cost of Capital; investment goods; goods trade; capital-labor elasticity; labor cost share; Manufacturing; Wages; Stocks; Global; offshoring proxy; micro elasticity
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Measurement of External Accounts
Gustavo Adler
,
Mr. Daniel Garcia-Macia
, and
Signe Krogstrup
Growing international integration in trade and finance can challenge the measurement of external accounts. This paper presents a unified conceptual framework for identifying sources of mismeasurement of foreign investment income in current account balances. The framework allows to derive a precise definition of measurement distortions and an empirical strategy for estimating their importance. As an application, we empirically estimate two specific distortions related to inflation and retained earnings on portfolio equity for a broad set of countries. We find these may explain a non-trivial share of current account imbalances and that they are particularly relevant in countries with large external investment positions. We also discuss how merchanting and profit-shifting activities could lead to measurement distortions. We suggest areas for future research and underline the need to strengthen data collection efforts.
Keywords:
WP; Current Account; Measurement; External Imbalances; Global Imbalances.; portfolio equity; inflation distortion; liabilities position; retained earnings distortion; inflation income; equity instrument; distortion distortion; inflation income in country c; inflation expectation; current account flow; current account statistics; current account measure; Income; Wages; Stocks; Inflation; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
The Kingdom of the Netherlands—Netherlands: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues papers provide details of the sources and uses of the non-financial corporation saving and highlights the role of multinational corporations (MNCs). The paper also discusses the implications to the external sector assessment and policy recommendations. The large Dutch international investment position reflects its status as an international corporate center. The study shows that large trade surpluses and small primary income balances are consistent with the dominance of MNCs in the Netherlands’ external positions. Separating MNCs’ activities from the Dutch current account for the external sector assessment is expected to help identify underlying policy distortions. Separating MNCs’ activities would help identify imbalances of other economic sectors. The small and medium enterprises are stagnant and remain financially constrained. Small household net saving hides the fact that households are still highly leveraged, and their consumption constrained by a stagnating disposable income. Therefore, improving statistics and separating MNCs’ activities from both internal and external accounts would help identify domestic policy distortions and address imbalances effectively.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Netherlands; saving; firm; GDP; pension scheme; gross saving; investment-saving ratio; NFCS' saving-investment balance; dividend payout; pillar pension schemes; government net; Self-employment; Pension spending; Pensions; Pension reform; Income; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Household Wealth and Resilience to Financial Shocks in Italy
Mr. Daniel Garcia-Macia
High household wealth is often cited as a key strength of the Italian economy. Both in absolute terms and relative to income, the Italian household sector is wealthier than most euro area peers. A sizable fraction of this wealth is held by the rich and upper middle classes. This paper documents the changes in the Italian household sector’s financial wealth over the past two decades, by constructing the matrix of bilateral financial sectoral exposures. Households became increasingly exposed to the financial sector, which in turn was exposed to the highly indebted real and government sectors. The paper then simulates different financial shocks to gauge the ability of the household sector to absorb losses. Simple illustrative calculations are presented for a fall in the value of government bonds as well as for bank bail-ins versus bailouts.
Keywords:
WP; bailout; bail-in; government bond; bond; financial linkages; flow of funds; balance sheet analysis; financial asset holding; sectoral financial asset exposure; flow-of-funds datum; bail-in case; non-financial corporates; MFI assets; equity impact; Stocks; Sovereign bonds; Income distribution; Creditor bail-in; Financial sector; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth
Andreas Fagereng
,
Luigi Guiso
,
Mr. Davide Malacrino
, and
Luigi Pistaferri
We provide a systematic analysis of the properties of individual returns to wealth using twelve years of population data from Norway’s administrative tax records. We document a number of novel results. First, during our sample period individuals earn markedly different average returns on their financial assets (a standard deviation of 14%) and on their net worth (a standard deviation of 8%). Second, heterogeneity in returns does not arise merely from differences in the allocation of wealth between safe and risky assets: returns are heterogeneous even within asset classes. Third, returns are positively correlated with wealth: moving from the 10th to the 90th percentile of the financial wealth distribution increases the return by 3 percentage points - and by 17 percentage points when the same exercise is performed for the return to net worth. Fourth, wealth returns exhibit substantial persistence over time. We argue that while this persistence partly reflects stable differences in risk exposure and assets scale, it also reflects persistent heterogeneity in sophistication and financial information, as well as entrepreneurial talent. Finally, wealth returns are (mildly) correlated across generations. We discuss the implications of these findings for several strands of the wealth inequality debate.
Keywords:
WP; private equity; expected return; long-term debt; wealth distribution; Wealth inequality; returns to wealth; net worth; heterogeneity; intergenerational mobility; financial wealth; wealth return regression; return heterogeneity; book value; portfolio return; assets return; heterogeneity channel; market value; risk tolerance; wealth share; return on assets; Income distribution; Stocks; Housing; Capital income; Income