Quality of Bureaucracy and Open-economy Macro Policies

Quality of Bureaucracy and Open-economy Macro Policies
Author: Chong-En Bai
Publisher:
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2000
Genre: Administrative agencies
ISBN:

Bureaucratic quality in terms of the level of corruption varies widely across countries, and is in general slow to evolve relative to the speed with which many economic polices can be implemented such as the imposition of capital controls. In this paper, we study the possibility that quality of bureaucracy may be an important structural determinant of open-economy macro-policies, in particular, the imposition/removal of capital controls, and financial repression. We first derive a model that delivers such a result. Bureaucratic corruption translates into reduced ability by the government to collect tax revenue. Even if capital control/financial repression is otherwise inefficient, as long as the government needs the revenue for public goods provision, it would have to rely more on capital control/financial repression. For all countries for which we can obtain relevant data, we find that more corrupt countries are indeed more likely to impose capital controls, a pattern consistent with the model's prediction. The result of this paper suggests that a premature removal of capital controls mandated by outside institutions could reduce rather than enhance economic efficiency.

Quality of Bureaucracy and Open-economy Macro Policies

Quality of Bureaucracy and Open-economy Macro Policies
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release:
Genre:
ISBN:

The National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. (NBER) presents an abstract of the June 2000 working paper entitled "Quality of Bureaucracy and Open-economy Macro Policies," written by Chong-En Bai and Shang-Jin Wei. The full text of the paper may be purchased online. This paper develops a model that shows the importance of bureaucracy as a structural determinant of open-economy macroeconomic policies. The authors find that a premature removal of capital controls mandated by outside institutions could reduce economic efficiency.

Macroeconomic Policy in an Open Economy

Macroeconomic Policy in an Open Economy
Author: Oscar Bajo Rubio
Publisher:
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2003
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Although it is the chief tool for international policy analysis in an international context, the Mundell-Fleming model has come under some scrutiny as being obsolete and weak in microeconomics. The model is used to study monetary and fiscal policy of various exchange rate systems. New Open Economy Macroeconomics attempts to insert market imperfections and microfoundations into its framework, as an alternative to Mundell-Fleming. However, this new structure has raised its own doubts about its viability as an alternative to Mundell-Fleming. The empirical tests of New Open Macroeconomic models do not result in predictions that fit with available evidence. This testing, though, is still in its early stages and the new models continue to hold some promise. This book assembles a series of papers that take differing points of view in theoretical analyses of macroeconomic policies in open economies. These observations provide a solid framework for study, examine applications in two-country models and try and unite Mundell-Fleming with New Open Macroeconomics. With economics a constant in the forefront of the news, the studies here offer a glimpse at the cutting edge of fiscal researc

The Quality of Bureaucracy and Capital Account Policies

The Quality of Bureaucracy and Capital Account Policies
Author: Chong-En Bai
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2001
Genre: Administracion publica
ISBN:

The extent of bureaucracy varies extensively across countries, but the quality of bureaucracy within a country changes more slowly than economic policies. The authors propose that the quality of bureaucracy may be an important structural determinant of open economy macroeconomic policies - especially the imposition or removal of capital control. In their model, capital controls are an instrument of financial repression. They entail efficiency loss for the economy but also generate implicit revenue for the government. The results show that bureaucratic corruption translates into the government's reduced ability to collect tax revenues. Even if capital controls and financial repression are otherwise inefficient, the government still has to rely on them to raise revenues to provide public goods. Among the countries for which the authors could get relevant data, they find that the more corrupt ones are indeed more likely to impose capital controls, a pattern consistent with the model's prediction. To deal with possible reverse causality, they use the extent of corruption in a country's judicial system, and the degree of democracy, as the instrumental variables for bureaucratic corruption. The instrumental variable regressions show the same result: more corrupt countries are associated with more severe capital controls. The results suggest that as countries develop and improve their public institutions, reducing bureaucratic corruption over time, they will choose to gradually liberalize their capital accounts. Removing capital controls prematurely when forced by outside institutions to do so could reduce rather than improve their economic efficiency.

American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump

American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump
Author: Hal Brands
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2018-01-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815732791

Looking beyond the headlines to address the enduring grand strategic questions facing the United States today. American foreign policy is in a state of upheaval. The rise of Donald Trump and his "America First" platform have created more uncertainty about America's role in the world than at any time in recent decades. From the South China Sea, to the Middle East, to the Baltics and Eastern Europe, the geopolitical challenges to U.S. power and influence seem increasingly severe—and America's responses to those challenges seem increasingly unsure. Questions that once had widely accepted answers are now up for debate. What role should the United States play in the world? Can, and should, America continue to pursue an engaged an assertive strategy in global affairs? In this book, a leading scholar of grand strategy helps to make sense of the headlines and the upheaval by providing sharp yet nuanced assessments of the most critical issues in American grand strategy today. Hal Brands asks, and answers, such questions as: Has America really blundered aimlessly in the world since the end of the Cold War, or has its grand strategy actually been mostly sensible and effective? Is America in terminal decline, or can it maintain its edge in a harsher and more competitive environment? Did the Obama administration pursue a policy of disastrous retrenchment, or did it execute a shrewd grand strategy focused on maximizing U.S. power for the long term? Does Donald Trump's presidency mean that American internationalism is dead? What type of grand strategy might America pursue in the age of Trump and after? What would happen if the United States radically pulled back from the world, as many leading academics—and, at certain moments, the current president—have advocated? How much military power does America need in the current international environment? Grappling with these kinds of issues is essential to understanding the state of America's foreign relations today and what path the country might take in the years ahead. At a time when American grand strategy often seems consumed by crisis, this collection of essays provides an invaluable guide to thinking about both the recent past and the future of America's role in the world.

Patchwork Leviathan

Patchwork Leviathan
Author: Erin Metz McDonnell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691197369

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better.

Law and Macroeconomics

Law and Macroeconomics
Author: Yair Listokin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2019-03-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674976053

A distinguished Yale economist and legal scholar’s argument that law, of all things, has the potential to rescue us from the next economic crisis. After the economic crisis of 2008, private-sector spending took nearly a decade to recover. Yair Listokin thinks we can respond more quickly to the next meltdown by reviving and refashioning a policy approach whose proven success is too rarely acknowledged. Harking back to New Deal regulatory agencies, Listokin proposes that we take seriously law’s ability to function as a macroeconomic tool, capable of stimulating demand when needed and relieving demand when it threatens to overheat economies. Listokin makes his case by looking at both positive and cautionary examples, going back to the New Deal and including the Keystone Pipeline, the constitutionally fraught bond-buying program unveiled by the European Central Bank at the nadir of the Eurozone crisis, the ongoing Greek crisis, and the experience of U.S. price controls in the 1970s. History has taught us that law is an unwieldy instrument of macroeconomic policy, but Listokin argues that under certain conditions it offers a vital alternative to the monetary and fiscal policy tools that stretch the legitimacy of technocratic central banks near their breaking point while leaving the rest of us waiting and wallowing.

Militants, Criminals, and Warlords

Militants, Criminals, and Warlords
Author: Vanda Felbab-Brown
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2017-11-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815731906

" Conventional political theory holds that the sovereign state is the legitimate source of order and provider of public services in any society, whether democratic or not. But Hezbollah and ISIS in the Middle East, pirate clans in Africa, criminal gangs in South America, and militias in Southeast Asia are examples of nonstate actors that control local territory and render public services that the nation-state cannot or will not provide. This fascinating book takes the reader around the world to areas where national governance has broken down—or never really existed. In these places, the vacuum has been filled by local gangs, militias, and warlords, some with ideological or political agendas and others focused primarily on economic gain. Many of these actors have substantial popularity and support among local populations and have developed their own enduring institutions, often undermining the legitimacy of the national state. The authors show that the rest of the world has more than a passing interest in these situations, in part because transborder crime and terrorism often emerge but also because failed states threaten international interests from trade to security. This book also poses, and offers answers for, the question: How should the international community respond to local orders dominated by armed nonstate actors? In many cases outsiders have taken the short-term route—accepting unsavory local actors out of expediency—but at the price of long-term instability or damage to human rights and other considerations. From Africa and the Middle East to Asia and Latin America, the local situations highlighted in this book are, and will remain, high on today's international agenda. The book makes a unique contribution to global understanding of how those situations developed and what can be done about them. This title is part of the Geopolitics in the 21st Century series. "

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2000

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2000
Author: William C. Brainard
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2000-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780815705819

Published twice a year, BPEA offers authoritative, in-depth research on economic development for economists, government officials, and members of the financial and business communities. For nearly thirty years, BPEA has been an indispensable source for scholars and policymakers seeking objective analysis of major macroeconomic issues. " Social Security Reform and National Saving in an Era of Budget Surpluses" by Douglas W. Elmendorf and Jeffrey B. Liebman " E-Capital: The Link between the Stock Market and the Labor Market in the 1990s" by Robert E. Hall " Real Estate and the Macroeconomy" by Karl E. Case " The Economic Consequences of Disappearing Government Debt" by Vincent Reinhart and Brian Sack " Financial Market Implications of the Federal Debt Paydown" by Michael J. Fleming " Tax Smoothing Implications of the Federal Debt Paydown" by George J. Hall and Stefan Krieger