Working Papers

• Foreign Reserves, Fiscal Capacity, and Lender of Last Resort
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  Why do emerging markets accumulate foreign reserves for precautionary purposes while advanced economies do not? In this paper, I develop a three-period model of an economy subject to aggregate liquidity shocks. My results show that, in contrast to advanced economies, developing countries accumulate reserves for precautionary purposes because they lack the sufficient fiscal capacity - the ability to extract resources from their economy - to provide liquidity during crises successfully. Moreover, I present empirical evidence consistent with this argument. This paper provides a novel rationale for reserves accumulation which, in contrast to the predominant view in the literature, explains endogenously why reserves accumulation, as a self-insurance mechanism, is mainly observed in developing countries. In terms of policy, it shows that overcoming original sin, avoiding sudden stop episodes, and being fiscally credible, without improving fiscal capacity, may not be sufficient to eliminate the need for foreign reserves.

  Scheduled/Previous Presentations: Banco Central de Chile; 2021 Money, Macro and Finance Society (Annual Conference); 2021 LACEA/LAMES (Annual Meeting); 2021 Southern Economic Association (Annual Meeting); 2021 Bolivian Conference on Development Economics; 2022 AEA/ASSA Poster Session.

• Pandemics, Incentives, and Economic Policy: A Dynamic Model
  with Roberto Chang (Rutgers University, NBER) and Andrés Velasco (LSE).
  NBER WP No. 28636. CEPR DP. 15977.
  Download paper here while codes are available here.

  The advent of a pandemic is an exogenous shock, but the dynamics of contagion are very much endogenous --and depend on choices that individuals make in response to incentives. In such an episode, economic policy can make a difference not just by alleviating economic losses but also via incentives that affect the trajectory of the pandemic itself. We develop this idea in a dynamic equilibrium model of an economy subject to a pandemic. Just as in conventional SIR models, infection rates depend on how much time people spend at home versus working outside the home. But in our model, whether to go out to work is a decision made by individuals who trade-off higher pay from working outside the home today versus a higher risk of infection and expected future economic and health-related losses. As a result, pandemic dynamics depend on factors that have no relevance in conventional models. In particular, expectations and forward-looking behavior are crucial and can result in multiplicity of equilibria with different levels of economic activity, infection, and deaths. The analysis yields novel policy lessons. For example, incentives embedded in a fiscal package resembling the U.S. CARES Act can result in two waves of infection.

Work in Progress

• Stock versus Flow? Foreign reserves and the Global Financial Crisis

  Central banks in emerging markets argue that they accumulate foreign reserves, in part, to meet balance of payments financing needs. However, this explanation is at odds with several countries' reluctance to deplete their foreign reserves stock during acute liquidity episodes. I argue that reserves not only provide a country with liquidity services, but they also increase a country's solvency. Thus, facing a liquidity shock, a monetary authority will only sell foreign reserves if by doing so, it doesn't jeopardize its’ solvency. I provide empirical evidence for 38 countries that solvency concerns, measured by external balance sheet exposure, drove the depletion of foreign reserves during the Global Financial Crisis.

• Liquidity Regulation: The last taxi at the station?
  with Rhiannon Sowerbutts (Bank of England)

  Usability of liquidity requirements, such as the Liquidity Coverage Ratio, during periods of stress is yet to be tested. Using a unique UK bank level dataset between 2011 and 2014, we take advantage of increased uncertainty caused by the European sovereign debt crisis and a back then active liquidity regulation in the UK, to provide empirical evidence to Goodhart's last taxi at the station puzzle. Five different empirical results suggest that banks during this stress period in the UK didn't consider their liquidity buffer to be completely usable. This evidence strengthens concerns on whether liquidity requirements make banks more resilient.

• Rules versus Discretion: A Textual Analysis of FOMC Transcripts
  with Michael D. Bordo (Rutgers University) and Klodiana Istrefi (Banque de France)

• Foreign Reserves Accumulation
  with Julián Fernández (Copenhagen Business School)