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Find out more about the event at
Co-sponsored by HKUST IEMS and the Claremont Institute for
Economic Policy Studies (CIEPS) at Claremont Graduate University
(CGU), the Center for Emerging Market Policies (CEMP) at George
Mason University’s School of Policy, Government, and International
Affairs (GMU-SPGIA) hosted its 5th annual research forum held at
George Mason University’s Arlington, VA campus focusing on the
theme of capital flows and financial development in emerging
market economies (EMEs).
The forum covered contemporary macroeconomic and financial
policy issues of relevance to EMEs including the impact of quantitative
easing policies on EMEs, implications of financial openness on
financial development and volatility, exchange rate regimes and
transmission of business cycles, as well as the impact of capital flow
surges, reversals, and controls on EMEs.
A presentation by
Nicholas Coleman
, an economist at the
Federal Reserve Board, provided empirical evidence on how different
types of banks in Brazil managed liquidity internally among their
municipal branches following a negative liquidity shock associated
with the “taper tantrum” when the market began to anticipate the
Federal Reserve’s shift away from accommodative monetary policies.
Following the liquidity shock, net intrabank borrowing by branches
fell on average, but increased in government banks and in richer
cities. Since such internal bank borrowing finances loans to clients,
these patterns suggest that the operations of firms borrowing from
government banks and in richer cities are better protected from
external liquidity shocks.
Given the financial instability in emerging markets associated
with international capital flows, economists have argued that in
Research Forum on Capital Flows
and Financial Development in
Emerging Market Economies
(2015.04.24)
Video recordings, papers, and presentation
slides available at
Organized by the HKUST Department of Economics and co-
sponsored by HKUST IEMS, the 3rd Annual Conference in
International Economics was held over a 2-day period at the HKUST
Business School on the theme of research frontiers in international
economics, including a set of presentations focused on emerging
markets.
Detailing his study on the organizational barriers to technology
adoption using a case study of soccer ball producers in Pakistan,
Eric Verhoogen
, Associate Professor and Vice Dean of the School
of International and Public Affairs, and Co-Director of the Center
for Development Economics and Policy at Columbia University,
described his study of several dozen producers and exporters of
soccer balls in Pakistan which examined their the lack of adoption of
a lower-cost production technology that decreased unit production
costs by reducing wasted materials. The new technology was made
available by the research team to a random subset of firms for free.
However, only a small number of “treated” producers adopted the
new technology. The reason for their resistance was surprising:
skilled workers were paid by piece-rate — i.e. based on the number
of soccer balls they produced per day — and the technology led
to slower production albeit at lower cost. They thus told managers
that the new technology was ineffective. This outcome shows how
existing labor institutions (in this case piece-rate wages) can inhibit
accurate assessment and adoption of new technology.
In a presentation on trade liberalization, productivity, and export
prices,
Yao Amber Li
, Assistant Professor of Economics at HKUST
and HKUST IEMS Faculty Associate, examined the extent to which
high- and low-productivity firms respond to trade liberalization
(input tariff reductions) by upgrading product quality as captured by
increasing export unit prices. Analyzing Chinese import tariff data,
firm-level panel data, and product-level trade data from the World
Trade Organization and China Custom’s trade databases, she finds
that when the scope for quality differentiation is small, the differences
between low- and high-productivity firms diminish or even reverse.
In industries with larger scope for quality differentiation, incumbent
firms with lower initial productivity increase their export prices more
under trade liberalization.
Other presenters at the conference included
Arpita Chatterjee
(University of New South Wales),
David Cook
(HKUST),
Jonathan
Eaton
(Penn State University),
Charles Engel
(University of
Wisconsin-Madison),
Edwin Lai
(HKUST),
Thierry Mayer
(Sciences-Po),
Jin Xie
(Chinese University of Hong Kong),
Vivian
Zhanwei Yue
(Emory University), and
Jing Zhang
(Federal
Reserve Bank of Chicago).
HKUST CONFERENCE ON
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
(2015.06.12-13)
theory it may be welfare-enhancing to apply capital controls in
a countercyclical fashion.
Andres Fernandez
from the Inter-
American Development Bank presented new empirical evidence that
capital controls on both inflows and outflows have actually been
acylical, and have not responded in a systematic way to the business
cycle. This suggests either that policy makers have not learned the
lessons of theory, or that researchers are missing key considerations
that affect the optimal timing of imposing capital controls.
The research forum hosted economists both from multilateral
institutions like the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), The World Bank
and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as well as national and
global universities including George Washington University (GWU),
the College of William and Mary, Claremont Graduate University
(CGU), Claremont Mckenna College (CMC), HKUST, and George
Mason University (GMU).
George Mason University - Fairfax Drive Arlington (VA) Campus.
Photo credit: Ron Cogswell. CC BY 2.0
