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International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
The remote technical assistance (TA) mission provided guidance to the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus (BelStat) on the preliminary estimates of the Financial Accounts and Balance Sheets (FABS) for 2017. The TA mission assisted with compiling the revaluation and the other changes in volume accounts to give better consistency to the financial flows and stocks and improve the reconciliation process of the FABS. BelStat is in charge of compiling the current accounts for all the institutional sectors and is starting to compile the financial accounts for which important progress has been made. To regularly compile FABS, the mission recommended that BelStat addresses the discrepancies between the net lending/borrowing from the capital and the financial account by incorporating more data sources such as government’s financial stocks and business accounting data. The TA mission also provided guidance on compiling the Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured (FISIM) to get a more consistent estimate. The mission highlighted the progress made and encouraged BelStat to continue working on compiling FABS for 2017 and onwards.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
The remote technical assistance (TA) mission provided guidance to the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus (BelStat) on the preliminary estimates of the Financial Accounts and Balance Sheets (FABS) for 2017. The TA mission assisted with compiling the revaluation and the other changes in volume accounts to give better consistency to the financial flows and stocks and improve the reconciliation process of the FABS. BelStat is in charge of compiling the current accounts for all the institutional sectors and is starting to compile the financial accounts for which important progress has been made. To regularly compile FABS, the mission recommended that BelStat addresses the discrepancies between the net lending/borrowing from the capital and the financial account by incorporating more data sources such as government’s financial stocks and business accounting data. The TA mission also provided guidance on compiling the Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured (FISIM) to get a more consistent estimate. The mission highlighted the progress made and encouraged BelStat to continue working on compiling FABS for 2017 and onwards.
Mr. Robin Koepke
and
Simon Paetzold
This paper provides an analytical overview of the most widely used capital flow datasets. The paper is written as a guide for academics who embark on empirical research projects and for policymakers who need timely information on capital flow developments to inform their decisions. We address common misconceptions about capital flow data and discuss differences between high-frequency proxies for portfolio flows. In a nowcasting “horse race” we show that high-frequency proxies have significant predictive content for portfolio flows from the balance of payments (BoP). We also construct a new dataset for academic use, consisting of monthly portfolio flows broadly consistent with BoP data.
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.
Zsoka Koczan
The boom and bust in capital flows to the New Member States of the European Union have received a considerable amount of attention; foreign direct investment and bank flows to the region and countries’ participation in regional supply chains have been well-documented. Relatively little has, however, been written about capital flows to the Western Balkans economies, which are often perceived to be ‘late arrivals’ to large capital flows. This paper aims to examine how capital flows to the Western Balkans compare with flows to the New Member States, in terms of levels as well as dynamics. We find that while financial integration took off somewhat later in the Western Balkans than in the New Member States, it has increased rapidly, despite still much lower capital account openness. Capital inflows as a share of GDP are comparable to those observed in the New Member States, (perhaps surprisingly) diverse in terms of source countries and broadly similar in composition, though with equity shares higher than they were in the New Member States at comparable levels of GDP per capita.
Mr. Tamim Bayoumi
,
Mr. Joseph E. Gagnon
, and
Christian Saborowski
We use a cross-country panel framework to analyze the effect of net official flows (chiefly foreign exchange intervention) on current accounts. We find that net official flows have a large but plausible effect on current account balances. The estimated effects are larger with instrumental variables (42 cents to the dollar on average compared to 24 without instruments), reflecting a possible downward bias in regressions without instruments owing to an endogenous response of net official flows to private financial flows. We consistently find larger impacts of net official flows when international capital flows are restricted and smaller impacts when capital is highly mobile. A further result is that there is an important positive effect of lagged net official flows on current accounts that we believe operates through the portfolio balance channel.
Kenneth Egesa
and
Howard Murad
Private cross-border financial flows and stocks have grown to account for an increasingly significant part of overall transactions and positions in many African countries. Direct reporting through enterprise surveys has become a key data source to enable them to be measured accurately. The paper describes a multi-year technical assistance project in The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, and Nigeria, where annual enterprise surveys are now established. To varying degrees, the survey results have been incorporated into the balance of payments and International Investment Position statistics. The case studies may serve as a useful reference for other countries embarking on efforts to establish direct reporting of cross-border financial flows and stocks.
Mr. Tamim Bayoumi
and
Ms. Franziska L Ohnsorge
This paper assesses the implications of Chinese capital account liberalization for capital flows. Stylized facts from capital account liberalization in advanced and large emerging market economies illustrate that capital account liberalization has historically generated large gross capital in- and outflows, but the direction of net flows has depended on many factors. An econometric portfolio allocation model finds that capital controls significantly dampen cross-border portfolio asset holdings. The model also suggests that capital account liberalization in China may trigger net portfolio outflows as large domestic savings seek to diversify abroad.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
The report discusses the important role of the Flexible Credit Line (FCL) in helping Mexico to survive in the fragile global economic environment. The FCL’s contribution in maintaining an orderly financial market in Mexico is noteworthy. IMF staff reaffirms their commitment toward Mexico in taking the necessary actions to manage unforeseen risks. According to the IMF staff report, Mexico meets the qualification criteria for access to FCL resources, and staff recommends approval of a fund of SDR 47.292 billion for a period of 24 months.
Goohoon Kwon
and
Mr. Raphael A Espinoza
This paper assesses the extent of regional financial integration in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) by analyzing equity prices in the region and rigidity of external financing constraints. The results are presented in a cross-regional perspective. The Caribbean stock markets are not as well integrated as one would expect from the extent of cross-listing and importance of regional banking groups: price differentials of cross-listed stocks reach an average of 5 percent. Auto-Regressive models suggest that these price differentials are only slowly arbitraged away, with half-lives exceeding 7 worked days, even when looking only at large arbitrage opportunities (using a Threshold Auto-Regressive model). A speculative methodology using macroeconomic data seems to confirm these findings. A strong mean reversion of the current account (respectively regional trade imbalances) is interpreted, following Obstfeld and Taylor (2004), as a lack of ways to finance current account deficits, i.e. a lack of global (respectively regional) financial integration. The region appears to be much less integrated than the EU15 or the ASEAN+3 groups, although it fares well compared to other LDCs.