ICEF/LFE Research Seminar
Speaker: Gianluca Benigno (LSE)
March 21 at 4.40 pm, room 3211 International College of Economics and Finance and International Laboratory of Financial Economics held the Research Seminar in Finance Speaker: Gianluca Benigno (LSE)
Theme: «Reserve Accumulation, Growth and Financial Crisis»
Venue: Shabolovka str. 26, building 3, room 3211
Abstract: We present a model that reproduces two salient facts characterizing the international monetary system: i) Faster growing countries are associated with lower net capital inflows and ii) Countries that grow faster accumulate more international reserves and receive more net private inflows. We study a two-sector, tradable and non-tradable, small open economy. There is a growth externality in the tradable sector and agents have imperfect access to international financial markets. By accumulating foreign reserves, the government induces a real exchange rate depreciation and a real location of production towards the tradable sect or that boosts growth. Financial frictions generate imperfect substitutability between private and public debt flows so that private agents do not perfectly offset the government policy. The possibility of using reserves to provide liquidity during crises amplifies the positive impact of reserve accumulation on growth. We use the model to compare the laissez - faire equilibrium and the optimal reserve policy in an economy that is opening to international capital flows. We find that the optimal reserve management entails a fast rate of reserve accumulation, as well as higher growth and larger current account surpluses compared to the economy with no policy intervention. We also find that the welfare gains of reserve policy are large, in the order of 1 percent of permanent consumption equivalent.