Read more about the article Sluggish Postcrisis Growth: Policies, Secular Stagnation, and Outlook

Sluggish Postcrisis Growth: Policies, Secular Stagnation, and Outlook

In the aftermath of the recent global financial crisis, advanced economies have continued to experience sluggish growth. Is this slow postcrisis growth the result of a policy response that was overly reliant on monetary policy, which ran into the zero interest rate lower bound before growth was restored? Looking deeper, is secular stagnation, which is related to the zero lower bound and was recently brought to the fore by Larry Summers, another potential cause for advanced economies’ failure to return to precrisis growth levels? This note seeks to answer these questions as well as identify what alternative policies might be pursued by advanced economies to escape secular stagnation, should stagnation proponents be proven correct. After a brief review of secular stagnation, Summers’ hypothesis is tested through a review of academic literature and opinion pieces. However, the secular stagnation theory is not without its critics; moreover, there is a debate between “Keynesian versus Schumpeterian” economists, which could help to shed light on the medium-term postcrisis outlook.

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Read more about the article Secular Stagnation: A Working Pair of Scissors Needs Two Blades

Secular Stagnation: A Working Pair of Scissors Needs Two Blades

There is a core divergence among some “Keynesian” and “Schumpeterian” economists who have proposed such stagnation hypotheses; each camp points to different underlying factors for continued anemic levels of growth. “Keynesians” argue from the demand side, and believe that proactive fiscal policies are needed for a strong recovery, while “Schumpeterians” believe that the necessary force of creative destruction has continually been stymied by such policies.

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Read more about the article Crisis Recovery: Flying on a Single Engine

Crisis Recovery: Flying on a Single Engine

Countercyclical moves by policy makers might have reduced the length and size of the observed output gap had fiscal policy operated as a countercyclical tool complementary to monetary policy. Regardless of whether restrictive fiscal policies have been a necessity or an option, the fact is that they have constituted a major factor leading to a subpar recovery performance.

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Read more about the article Walking on the Wild Side – Monetary Policy and Prudential Regulation

Walking on the Wild Side – Monetary Policy and Prudential Regulation

Global financial integration and the linkages between the financial and the real sides of economies are sources of huge policy challenges. This is now beyond doubt, after what we saw in the run-up to and the unfolding of the 2008 global financial crisis. As a consequence, the established wisdom regarding monetary policies and prudential regulation has been subject to a deep critical review, including a demise of the belief that they should be maintained as fully independent functions.

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Read more about the article Elephants and Macro-Financial Linkages

Elephants and Macro-Financial Linkages

Emerging Markets (EMs) are more likely to suffer shocks, such as commodity-price and terms-of-trade shocks, as well as surges and sudden stops in capital flows.. Furthermore, structural and institutional features typical of most EMs tend to amplify and propagate shocks. Even when asset price-led cycles are not generated within EMs, they tend to be affected the most due to capital flows.

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Read more about the article Dealing with the Challenges of Macro Financial Linkages in Emerging Markets

Dealing with the Challenges of Macro Financial Linkages in Emerging Markets

The 2008 financial crisis has emphasized the importance of macro financial linkages. In the financial sector, attention is now focusing on macro prudential regulations that are geared toward the stability of the financial system as a whole. In the macro arena, the recognition that price stability was not sufficient to guarantee macroeconomic stability and that financial imbalances developed despite low inflation and small output gaps has highlighted the need for additional tools (macro prudential policies) to complement monetary policy in countercyclical management. Emerging markets (EMs) face different conditions and have key structural features that can have a bearing on the relevance and efficacy of policy measures. Drawing on Canuto, Otaviano, and Swati R. Ghosh, eds. 2013. Dealing with the Challenges of Macro Financial Linkages in Emerging Markets. Washington, DC: World Bank), this note discusses the challenges of dealing with macro financial linkages and explores the policy toolkit available for dealing with systemic risks, particularly in the context of EMs.

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Read more about the article Currency War and Peace

Currency War and Peace

The discussions at last month’s G-20 meeting of finance ministers were dominated by anxiety over so-called “currency wars.” But, to escape the crisis, global leaders must shift their focus to channeling the massive liquidity that advanced countries' controversial monetary policies have generated toward long-term investment financing.

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Read more about the article The New Financial Landscape: What It Means for Emerging Market Economies

The New Financial Landscape: What It Means for Emerging Market Economies

As the year 2012 unfolds, its main legacy will be its game changing impact on global financial markets. Waning global growth along with central banks’ bold monetary easing policies in advanced economies (AEs) to try to reverse it are changing market dynamics in unexpected ways, across both AEs and emerging market economies (EMEs). The combination of monetary stimulus, fiscal austerity and hesitant structural economic policy reforms in AEs, particularly in Europe, is taking the global financial system into increasingly uncharted territory. How the European Union will address the future of the eurozone, including uncertainties over its banking sector, as well as how the United States handles its Fiscal Cliff, will weigh heavily on economic balances across all economies worldwide. This seems to be a significant point of inflection on the speed of the rebalancing of economic relevance of AEs in favor of EMEs taking place over the last 12 years. Under this scenario, the ability of EMEs to handle their own fiscal, financial, and real economy weaknesses is critically tied to their ability to weather external shocks and take advantage of growing global savings while searching for yield and growth opportunities

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Read more about the article Ascent After Decline: Regrowing Global Economies After the Great Recession

Ascent After Decline: Regrowing Global Economies After the Great Recession

The great recession of 2007-09 has left permanent scars in the world economy, and the global recovery has lost steam. Advanced economies are still struggling with high unemployment and debt, and the remarkable role that emerging markets have played as engines of the recovery is no longer certain. In this new book, co-edited by Otaviano Canuto and Danny M. Leipziger, more than a dozen distinguished contributors scan the economic horizon, spell out the new fiscal reality, and highlight the policy choices on which economic regrowth will depend.

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