Debt, Investment, and Growth in Developing Countries with Segmented Labor Markets

Debt, Investment, and Growth in Developing Countries with Segmented Labor Markets PDF Author: Mr.Edward F Buffie
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513545639
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 95

Get Book Here

Book Description
We introduce a new suite of macroeconomic models that extend and complement the Debt, Investment, and Growth (DIG) model widely used at the IMF since 2012. The new DIG-Labor models feature segmented labor markets, efficiency wages and open unemployment, and an informal non-agricultural sector. These features allow for a deeper examination of macroeconomic and fiscal policy programs and their impact on labor market outcomes, inequality, and poverty. The paper illustrates the model's properties by analyzing the growth, debt, and distributional consequences of big-push public investment programs with different mixes of investment in human capital and infrastructure. We show that investment in human capital is much more effective than investment in infrastructure in promoting long-run economic development when investments earn their average estimated returns. The decision about how much to invest in human capital versus infrastructure involves, however, an acute intertemporal trade-off. Because investment in education affects labor productivity with a long lag, it takes 15+ years before net national income, the private capital stock, real wages for the poor, and formal sector employment surpass their counterparts in a program that invests mainly in infrastructure. The ranking of alternative investment programs depends on the policymakers' social discount rate and on the weight of distributional objectives in the social welfare function.

Debt, Investment, and Growth in Developing Countries with Segmented Labor Markets

Debt, Investment, and Growth in Developing Countries with Segmented Labor Markets PDF Author: Mr.Edward F Buffie
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513545639
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 95

Get Book Here

Book Description
We introduce a new suite of macroeconomic models that extend and complement the Debt, Investment, and Growth (DIG) model widely used at the IMF since 2012. The new DIG-Labor models feature segmented labor markets, efficiency wages and open unemployment, and an informal non-agricultural sector. These features allow for a deeper examination of macroeconomic and fiscal policy programs and their impact on labor market outcomes, inequality, and poverty. The paper illustrates the model's properties by analyzing the growth, debt, and distributional consequences of big-push public investment programs with different mixes of investment in human capital and infrastructure. We show that investment in human capital is much more effective than investment in infrastructure in promoting long-run economic development when investments earn their average estimated returns. The decision about how much to invest in human capital versus infrastructure involves, however, an acute intertemporal trade-off. Because investment in education affects labor productivity with a long lag, it takes 15+ years before net national income, the private capital stock, real wages for the poor, and formal sector employment surpass their counterparts in a program that invests mainly in infrastructure. The ranking of alternative investment programs depends on the policymakers' social discount rate and on the weight of distributional objectives in the social welfare function.

Debt Sustainability, Public Investment, and Natural Resources in Developing Countries

Debt Sustainability, Public Investment, and Natural Resources in Developing Countries PDF Author: Mr.Giovanni Melina
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475521073
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 77

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper presents the DIGNAR (Debt, Investment, Growth, and Natural Resources) model, which can be used to analyze the debt sustainability and macroeconomic effects of public investment plans in resource-abundant developing countries. DIGNAR is a dynamic, stochastic model of a small open economy. It has two types of households, including poor households with no access to financial markets, and features traded and nontraded sectors as well as a natural resource sector. Public capital enters production technologies, while public investment is subject to inefficiencies and absorptive capacity constraints. The government has access to different types of debt (concessional, domestic and external commercial) and a resource fund, which can be used to finance public investment plans. The resource fund can also serve as a buffer to absorb fiscal balances for given projections of resource revenues and public investment plans. When the fund is drawn down to its minimal value, a combination of external and domestic borrowing can be used to cover the fiscal gap in the short to medium run. Fiscal adjustments through tax rates and government non-capital expenditures—which may be constrained by ceilings and floors, respectively—are then triggered to maintain debt sustainability. The paper illustrates how the model can be particularly useful to assess debt sustainability in countries that borrow against future resource revenues to scale up public investment.

Public Debt in Developing Countries

Public Debt in Developing Countries PDF Author: Indermit Singh Gill
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Debts, Public
Languages : en
Pages : 43

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Over the past 25 years, significant levels of public debt and external finance are more likely to have enhanced macroeconomic vulnerability than economic growth in developing countries. This applies not just to countries with a history of high inflation and past default, but also to those in East Asia, with a long tradition of prudent macroeconomic policies and rapid growth. The authors examine why with the help of a conceptual framework drawn from the growth, capital flows, and crisis literature for developing countries with access to the international capital markets (market access countries or MACs). They find that, while the chances of another generalized debt crisis have receded since the turbulence of the late 1990s, sovereign debt is indeed constraining growth in MACs, especially those with debt sustainability problems ... " -- Cover verso.

Dealing with High Debt in an Era of Low Growth

Dealing with High Debt in an Era of Low Growth PDF Author: S. M. Ali Abbas
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484316134
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Get Book Here

Book Description
task has become particularly challenging in European advanced economies where expectations of low growth and limits to monetary policy support are shifting the burden of adjustment onto fiscal consolidation. The SDN will investigate the main drivers behind successful past debt reversals, focusing on macroeconomic and financial market conditions, the speed and form of fiscal adjustment, and the institutional policy setting, among other things. Its policy conclusions will depend on the emerging stylized facts but are likely to include considerations on the design and pace of fiscal consolidation, taking into account country-specific as well as regional economic, institutional, and political factors.

International Borrowing by Developing Countries

International Borrowing by Developing Countries PDF Author: Marilyn J. Seiber
Publisher: Pergamon
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
External capital and economic development; Official external debt of developing countries; Developing countries and commercial bank debt; Recycling and debt relief.

The Labor Market and Economic Adjustment

The Labor Market and Economic Adjustment PDF Author: Pierre-Richard Agénor
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451854781
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 98

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper examines the role of the labor market in the transmission process of adjustment policies in developing countries. It begins by reviewing the recent evidence regarding the functioning of these markets. It then studies the implications of wage inertia, nominal contracts, labor market segmentation, and impediments to labor mobility for stabilization policies. The effect of labor market reforms on economic flexibility and the channels through which labor market imperfections alter the effects of structural adjustment measures are discussed next. The last part of the paper identifies a variety of issues that may require further investigation, such as the link between changes in relative wages and the distributional effects of adjustment policies.

Making It Big

Making It Big PDF Author: Andrea Ciani
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464815585
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Get Book Here

Book Description
Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top†? of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.

India's and China's Recent Experience with Reform and Growth

India's and China's Recent Experience with Reform and Growth PDF Author: Steven Dunaway
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Get Book Here

Book Description
China and India already rank among the world's largest economies, and each is moving rapidly toward the center stage of the global economy. In this process, different priorities have been placed on economic reforms over the past two decades?China taking a more outward strategy and India, until recently, a more inward one. Can they continue to rank among the fastest-expanding economies? This volume addresses that issue, highlighting what has worked and what more needs to be done to ensure sustained rapid economic growth and poverty reduction. Addressing the two countries' recent experiences with growth and reform, this book provides important insights for other developing economies. For more information on how to purchase this title, please visit http://www.palgrave.com/economics/imf/index.asp.

External Debt, Public Investment, and Growth in Low-income Countries

External Debt, Public Investment, and Growth in Low-income Countries PDF Author: Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Debts, External
Languages : en
Pages : 30

Get Book Here

Book Description


Mining Revenues and Inclusive Development in Guinea

Mining Revenues and Inclusive Development in Guinea PDF Author: Alejandro Badel
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 51

Get Book Here

Book Description
What are the potential benefits of increasing the taxation of a foreign extractive sector? This paper applies this question to the case of Guinea by using a multi-sector macro-inequality model with heterogeneous agents. We quantify the long-run equilibrium impact of additional taxation when the proceeds are invested in human capital, inclusive infrastructure, and social transfers. Our analysis focuses on the response of GDP, labor formalization, poverty rates, Gini coefficients, rural/urban inequality and sectoral reallocation. The three forms of investment are complementary. Infrastructure investments favor formal production in the urban area while growth and government transfers boost the demand for food. These effects help support the rate of return to education, protecting job formalization through higher wages and prices of informal goods, as the education policy boosts labor supply in rural and urban areas.