The Quality of Bureaucracy and Capital Account Policies

The Quality of Bureaucracy and Capital Account Policies
Author: Chong-En Bai
Publisher:
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

The more corrupt a country, the more likely it is to impose capital controls. As a country improves its public institutions over time, it tends to gradually liberalize its capital accounts. Removing capital controls prematurely could reduce rather than improve the country's economic efficiency.The extent of bureaucracy varies extensively across countries, but the quality of bureaucracy within a country changes more slowly than economic policies. Bai and Wei propose that the quality of bureaucracy may be an important structural determinant of open economy macroeconomic policies - especially the imposition or removal of capital controls.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.This paper - a product of the Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the consequences of corruption and public governance.

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.

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.

International Capital Flows

International Capital Flows
Author: Martin Feldstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226241807

Recent changes in technology, along with the opening up of many regions previously closed to investment, have led to explosive growth in the international movement of capital. Flows from foreign direct investment and debt and equity financing can bring countries substantial gains by augmenting local savings and by improving technology and incentives. Investing companies acquire market access, lower cost inputs, and opportunities for profitable introductions of production methods in the countries where they invest. But, as was underscored recently by the economic and financial crises in several Asian countries, capital flows can also bring risks. Although there is no simple explanation of the currency crisis in Asia, it is clear that fixed exchange rates and chronic deficits increased the likelihood of a breakdown. Similarly, during the 1970s, the United States and other industrial countries loaned OPEC surpluses to borrowers in Latin America. But when the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to control soaring inflation, the result was a widespread debt moratorium in Latin America as many countries throughout the region struggled to pay the high interest on their foreign loans. International Capital Flows contains recent work by eminent scholars and practitioners on the experience of capital flows to Latin America, Asia, and eastern Europe. These papers discuss the role of banks, equity markets, and foreign direct investment in international capital flows, and the risks that investors and others face with these transactions. By focusing on capital flows' productivity and determinants, and the policy issues they raise, this collection is a valuable resource for economists, policymakers, and financial market participants.

The Oxford Handbook of the Quality of Government

The Oxford Handbook of the Quality of Government
Author: Andreas Bågenholm
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 881
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0191899003

Recent research demonstrates that the quality of public institutions is crucial for a number of important environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes, and thereby human well-being. The Quality of Government (QoG) approach directs attention to issues such as impartiality in the exercise of public power, professionalism in public service delivery, effective measures against corruption, and meritocracy instead of patronage and nepotism. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this rapidly expanding research field and also identifies viable avenues for future research. The initial chapters focus on theoretical approaches and debates, and the central question of how QoG can be measured. A second set of chapters examines the wealth of empirical research on how QoG relates to democratization, social trust and cohesion, ethnic diversity, happiness and human wellbeing, democratic accountability, economic growth and inequality, political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and the outbreak of civil conflicts. The remaining chapters turn to the perennial issue of which contextual factors and policy approaches—national, local, and international—have proven successful (and not so successful) for increasing QoG. The Quality of Government approach both challenges and complements important strands of inquiry in the social sciences. For research about democratization, QoG adds the importance of taking state capacity into account. For economics, the QoG approach shows that in order to produce economic prosperity, markets need to be embedded in institutions with a certain set of qualities. For development studies, QoG emphasizes that issues relating to corruption are integral to understanding development writ large.

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.

Review of The Institutional View on The Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows — Background Note on Capital Flows and Capital Flow Management Measures — Benefits and Costs

Review of The Institutional View on The Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows — Background Note on Capital Flows and Capital Flow Management Measures — Benefits and Costs
Author: Gurnain Kaur Pasricha
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 23
Release: 2022-03-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The Fund’s Institutional View (IV) recognizes the benefits of and risks associated with capital flows. Since the IV was adopted, a growing literature has provided additional insights into the benefits and risks from capital flows. This note summarizes the insights from the recent literature and the experiences of staff since the adoption of the IV that have informed this review.

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. "