Causa, Orsetta, Hermansen, Mikkel, Ruiz, Nicolas, (2016), “The Distributional Impact of Structural Reforms”, OECD Economics Department Working Papers No. 1342, 17 November In a majority of OECD countries, GDP growth over the past three decades has been associated with growing income disparities. To shed some lights on the potential sources of trade-offs between growth and equity, this paper investigates the long-run impact of structural reforms on household incomes across the distribution, hence …Read More

Tovar Jalles, Joao, Mulas-Granados, Carlos, Tavares, José, (2016), “Fiscal Discipline and Exchange Rates : Does Politics Matter?”, IMF Working Paper 16/230, 18 November We look at the effect of exchange rate regimes on fiscal discipline, taking into account the effect of underlying political conditions. We present a model where strong politics (defined as policymakers facing longer political horizon and higher cohesion) are associated with better fiscal performance, but fixed exchange rates …Read More

Marques‐Ibanez , David, (2016), “Securitization and Credit Quality”, IMF Working Paper 16/221, 16 November Banks are usually better informed on the loans they originate than other financial intermediaries. As a result, securitized loans might be of lower credit quality than otherwise similar nonsecuritized loans. We assess the effect of securitization activity on loans’ relative credit quality employing a uniquely detailed dataset from the euro-denominated syndicated loan market. We find that, at …Read More

Caldera Sánchez, Aida, Röhn, Oliver, (2016), “How do policies influence GDP tail risks?”, OECD, 16 November This paper explores the relationship between policy settings and extreme positive and negative growth events, what we call GDP tail risks, using quantile regression methods. Conditioning on several country characteristics such as the size, stage of development and openness to trade as well as macroeconomic policies, the following findings for a panel of mostly …Read More

Cipriani, Gabriele, (2016), “Reforming the EU’s Budget Revenue: The case for a visible VAT-based resource”, CEPS, 14 November This paper finds that the long-awaited reform of the EU’s revenue arrangements can be pursued within the current legal framework, thus keeping member states’ fiscal sovereignty unaffected. In order to have a chance of approval by national parliaments, the author recommends that reform options should concentrate on known grounds and operational solutions. …Read More

A. Dias, Daniel, Robalo Marques, Carlos, Richmond, Christine, (2016), “A Tale of Two Sectors: Why is Misallocation Higher in Services than in Manufacturing?”, IMF Working Paper 16/220, 15 November Recent empirical studies document that the level of resource misallocation in the service sector is signicantly higher than in the manufacturing sector. We quantify the importance of this difference and study its sources. Conservative estimates for Portugal (2008) show that closing this …Read More

Asonuma, Tamon, Chamon, Marcos, Sasahara, Akira, (2016), “Trade Costs of Sovereign Debt Restructurings: Does a Market-Friendly Approach Improve the Outcome?”, IMF Working Paper 16/222, 16 November Sovereign debt restructurings have been shown to influence the dynamics of imports and exports. This paper shows that the impact can vary substantially depending on whether the restructuring takes place preemptively without missing payments to creditors, or whether it takes place after a default has …Read More

Belke, Ansgar, Domnick, Clemens, Gros, Daniel, (2016), “Business Cycle Synchronization in the EMU: Core vs. Periphery”, CEPS, 14 November This paper examines business cycle synchronization in the European Monetary Union with a special focus on the core-periphery pattern in the aftermath of the crisis.  Using  a  quarterly index for business cycle synchronization by Cerqueira (2013), our panel data estimates suggest that it is countries belonging to the core that  are …Read More

Caldera Sánchez, Aida, Gori, Filippo, (2016), “Can Reforms Promoting Growth Increase Financial Fragility? An Empirical Assessment”, OECD ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT WORKING PAPERS No. 1340, 16 November Certain growth-promoting policies can have negative side-effects by increasing the vulnerability of economies to financial crises. Typical examples are greater openness to financial flows or more liberalised financial markets. This paper investigates whether the growth benefits of policy reforms in these growthenhancing areas, and others such as trade …Read More

Darvas, Zsolt, (2016), “Some are more equal than others: new estimates of global and regional inequality”, Bruegel, 8 November Zsolt Darvas compares four methodologies to estimate the global distribution of income and find that many methods work well, but the method based on two-parameter distributions is more accurate than other methods. This method is simpler, easier to implement and relies on a more internationally-comparable dataset of national income distributions than …Read More