International topics

• Cash Management and Payment Choices: A Simulation Model with International Comparisons

  Staff Working Paper 2013-53 Carlos Arango, Yassine Bouhdaoui, David Bounie, Martina Eschelbach, Lola Hernández

  Despite various payment innovations, today, cash is still heavily used to pay for low-value purchases. This paper develops a simulation model to test whether standard implications of the theory on cash management and payment choices can explain the use of payment instruments by transaction size.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C6, C61, E, E4, E41, E47

• Do Oil Price Increases Cause Higher Food Prices?

  Staff Working Paper 2013-52 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian

  U.S. retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in U.S. biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by U.S. farmers have been more substantial and can be linked in part to increases in the real price of oil.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, Q, Q1, Q11, Q4, Q42, Q43

• Sovereign Default and State-Contingent Debt

  Staff Discussion Paper 2013-3 Martin Brooke, Rhys R. Mendes, Alex Pienkowski, Eric Santor

  The Latin American debt crises in the 1980s and the Asian crisis in the late 1990s both provided impetus for reforming the framework for restructuring sovereign debt. In the late 1980s, the Brady plan established the importance of substantive debt relief in addressing some crises.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): International financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F34

• The Financialization of Food?

  Staff Working Paper 2013-39 Valentina G. Bruno, Bahattin Buyuksahin, Michel A. Robe

  Commodity-equity and cross-commodity return co-movements rose dramatically after the 2008 financial crisis. This development took place following what has been dubbed the “financialization” of commodity markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G13, Q, Q1, Q11, Q13

• Endogenous Trade Participation with Incomplete Exchange Rate Pass-Through

  Staff Working Paper 2013-30 Yuko Imura

  This paper investigates the implications of endogenous trade participation for international business cycles, trade flow dynamics and exchange rate pass-through when price adjustments are staggered across firms.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Exchange rates, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F1, F12, F4, F44

• Forecasting the Real Price of Oil in a Changing World: A Forecast Combination Approach

  Staff Working Paper 2013-28 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian

  The U.S. Energy Information Administration regularly publishes short-term forecasts of the price of crude oil.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E32, Q, Q4, Q43

• Are Product Spreads Useful for Forecasting? An Empirical Evaluation of the Verleger Hypothesis

  Staff Working Paper 2013-25 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian, Xiaoqing Zhou

  Notwithstanding a resurgence in research on out-of-sample forecasts of the price of oil in recent years, there is one important approach to forecasting the real price of oil which has not been studied systematically to date.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, G, G1, G15, Q, Q4, Q43

• A Blessing in Disguise: The Implications of High Global Oil Prices for the North American Market

  Staff Working Paper 2013-23 Ron Alquist, Justin-Damien Guénette

  We examine the implications of increased unconventional crude oil production in North America. This production increase has been made possible by the existence of alternative oil-recovery technologies and persistently elevated oil prices that make these technologies commercially viable.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): Q, Q4, Q41, Q43, Q47

• Why Do Emerging Markets Liberalize Capital Outflow Controls? Fiscal versus Net Capital Flow Concerns

  Staff Working Paper 2013-21 Joshua Aizenman, Gurnain Pasricha

  In this paper, we provide empirical evidence on the factors that motivated emerging economies to change their capital outflow controls in recent decades. Liberalization of capital outflow controls can allow emerging-market economies (EMEs) to reduce net capital inflow (NKI) pressures, but may cost their governments the fiscal revenues that external financial repression generates.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Financial system regulation and policies, International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): F, F3, F32, G, G1, G15

• Fire-Sale FDI or Business as Usual?

  Staff Working Paper 2013-17 Ron Alquist, Rahul Mukherjee, Linda Tesar

  Using a new data set, we examine the characteristics and dynamics of cross-border mergers and acquisitions during emerging-market financial crises, that is, so-called “fire-sale FDI.” Our findings shed fresh light on whether the transactions undertaken during crisis periods differ in fundamental ways from those undertaken during more tranquil periods.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F2, F21, G, G0, G01, G3, G34