[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gla/glaewp/2005_15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exchange Rate Appreciations, Labor Market Rigidities, and Informality

Author

Listed:
  • Norbert Fiess
  • Marco fugazza
  • William Maloney
Abstract
This paper works at the interface of the literature exploring the raison d’etre of the informal labor market and that explaining the real exchange rate appreciations occurring in many Latin American countries during periods of reform. We first build a small country-Australian style model where the informal sector is seen as an unregulated non-tradables sector, augmented by heterogeneity in entrepreneurial ability and capital adjustment costs. We then examine the behavior of the model with and without a formal sector rigidity. We show that the co-movements of relative formal/informal incomes, formal/informal sector size, and the real exchange rate can offer insight into the level of distortion in the labor market and the source of ER fluctuations. We then explore time series data from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico using multivariate co-integration techniques to establish what “regime” each country is in at various periods of time. Mexico, for instance, appears to be relative undistorted and the 1987-92 appreciation appears to be largely a function of a boom in the non-tradables sector rather than wage inertia. In spite of a secular expansion of the informal sector and there is little evidence of dualism or of a rigidity driven appreciation of the Real, from 1993-1996. Post 1995 Colombia corresponds to a classic segmented labor market and an appreciation partly driven by labor market rigidities. Graphical analysis suggests that neither the Argentine appreciation (1988-1992) or the celebrated Chilean appreciation (1975-1982) were driven by inertial forces.

Suggested Citation

  • Norbert Fiess & Marco fugazza & William Maloney, 2002. "Exchange Rate Appreciations, Labor Market Rigidities, and Informality," Working Papers 2005_15, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    • Handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2005_15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_22206_en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, April.
    2. De Gregorio, Jose & Guidotti, Pablo E & Vegh, Carlos A, 1998. "Inflation Stabilisation and the Consumption of Durable Goods," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 105-131, January.
    3. Evans, David S & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1989. "An Estimated Model of Entrepreneurial Choice under Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 808-827, August.
    4. Enrique G. Mendoza & Martin Uribe, 1996. "The syndrome of exchange-rate-based stabilizations and the uncertain duration of currency pegs," International Finance Discussion Papers 548, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Hamilton, Jonathan & Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Zenou, Yves, 2000. "Wage Competition with Heterogeneous Workers and Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 453-472, July.
    6. Aizenman, Joshua & Frenkel, Jacob A., 1988. "Sectorial wages and the real exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 69-91, February.
    7. Sergio Rebelo & Carlos A. Végh, 1995. "Real Effects of Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilization: An Analysis of Competing Theories," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 125-188, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Conley, John P. & Maloney, William F., 1995. "Optimal sequencing of credible reforms with uncertain outcomes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 151-166, October.
    9. Sebastian Edwards & Alejandra Cox Edwards, 2000. "Economic reforms and labour markets: policy issues and lessons from Chile," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 15(30), pages 182-229.
    10. Agenor, Pierre-Richard & Aizenman, Joshua, 1999. "Macroeconomic adjustment with segmented labor markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 277-296, April.
    11. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1994. "Identification of the long-run and the short-run structure an application to the ISLM model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 7-36, July.
    12. Guillermo A. Calvo & Carlos A. Végh, 1993. "Exchange-Rate Based Stabilisation under Imperfect Credibility," International Economic Association Series, in: Helmut Frisch & Andreas Wörgötter (ed.), Open-Economy Macroeconomics, chapter 1, pages 3-28, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Uribe, Martin, 1997. "Exchange-rate-based inflation stabilization: The initial real effects of credible plans," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 197-221, July.
    14. Rodriguez, Carlos Alfredo, 1982. "The Argentine stabilization plan of December 20th," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 10(9), pages 801-811, September.
    15. Helpman, Elhanan & Razin, Assaf, 1987. "Exchange Rate Management: Intertemporal Tradeoffs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 107-123, March.
    16. Roldos, Jorge E, 1997. "On gradual disinflation, the real exchange rate, and the current account," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 37-54, February.
    17. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Lai, Kon S, 1993. "Finite-Sample Sizes of Johansen's Likelihood Ration Tests for Conintegration," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 55(3), pages 313-328, August.
    18. Sebastian Edwards, 1996. "A Tale of Two Crises: Chile and Mexico," NBER Working Papers 5794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Irving B. Kravis & Robert E. Lipsey, 1982. "Towards an Explanation of National Price Levels," NBER Working Papers 1034, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Calvo, Guillermo A. & Vegh, Carlos A., 1994. "Stabilization dynamics and backward-looking contracts," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 59-84, February.
    21. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1982. "Stabilization policies in developing countries: What have we learned?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 10(9), pages 701-708, September.
    22. Rudiger Dornbusch & Alejandro Werner, 1994. "Mexico: Stabilization, Reform, and No Growth," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1), pages 253-316.
    23. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    24. Johansen, Søren & Juselius, Katarina, 1992. "Testing structural hypotheses in a multivariate cointegration analysis of the PPP and the UIP for UK," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1-3), pages 211-244.
    25. Edwards, Sebastian, 1996. "Exchange-Rate Anchors, Credibility, and Inertia: A Tale of Two Crises, Chile and Mexico," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 176-180, May.
    26. Sebastian Edwards & Alejandra Cox Edwards, 2000. "Economic Reforms and Labor Markets: Policy Issues and Lessons from Chile," NBER Working Papers 7646, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Maloney, William F, 1999. "Does Informality Imply Segmentation in Urban Labor Markets? Evidence from Sectoral Transitions in Mexico," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 275-302, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:ilo:ilowps:413498 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leopoldo Tornarolli & Diego Battistón & Leonardo Gasparini & Pablo Gluzmann, 2014. "Exploring Trends in Labor Informality in Latin America, 1990-2010," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0159, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    3. N Fiess & M Fugazza & WF Maloney, 2006. "Informal Labor Markets and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," Working Papers 2006_17, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    4. Fiess, Norbert M. & Fugazza, Marco & Maloney, William F., 2008. "Informality and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," IZA Discussion Papers 3519, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Mai, Yinhua & Horridge, Mark & Perkins, Frances, 2003. "Estimating the Effects of China’s Accession to the World Trade Organisation," Conference papers 331081, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    6. Rei, Diego. & Bhattacharyya, Manas., 2008. "The impact of institutions and policy on informal economy in developing countries : an econometric exploration," ILO Working Papers 994134983402676, International Labour Organization.
    7. William Maloney & Jairo Mendez, 2004. "Measuring the Impact of Minimum Wages. Evidence from Latin America," NBER Chapters, in: Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, pages 109-130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Maloney, William F., 2004. "Informality Revisited," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1159-1178, July.
    9. Norbert Fiess & Marco Fugazza, 2008. "Trade Liberalisation and Informality: New stylized facts," Working Papers 2008_34, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    10. Gasparini Leonardo & Leonardo Tornaroli, 2009. "Labor Informality in Latin America and the Caribbean: Patterns and Trends from Household Survey Microdata," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, September.
    11. Arias, Omar & Blom, Andreas & Bosch, Mariano & Cunningham, Wendy & Fiszbein, Ariel & Lopez Acevedo, Gladys & Maloney, William & Saavedra, Jaime & Sanchez-Paramo, Carolina & Santamaria, Mauricio & Siga, 2005. "Pending issues in protection, productivity growth, and poverty reduction," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3799, The World Bank.
    12. Mark McGillivray & Farhad Noorbakhsh, "undated". "Aid, Conflict and Human Development," Working Papers 2007_03, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    13. Carneiro, Francisco Galrão, 2003. "A poverty profile and functional aspects of Brazilian labour markets," Oficina de la CEPAL en Brasilia (Estudios e Investigaciones) 28342, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    14. Mandal, Biswajit & Ghosh, Sujata, 2019. "Reformatory Policies and Factor Prices in a Developing Economy with Informal Sector," GLO Discussion Paper Series 367, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reinhart, Carmen & Vegh, Carlos, 1994. "Inflation stabilization in chronic inflation countries: The empirical evidence," MPRA Paper 13689, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Lahiri, Amartya, 2001. "Exchange rate based stabilizations under real frictions: The role of endogenous labor supply," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 1157-1177, August.
    3. Calvo, Guillermo A. & Vegh, Carlos A., 1999. "Inflation stabilization and bop crises in developing countries," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 24, pages 1531-1614, Elsevier.
    4. Venegas-Martinez, Francisco, 2001. "Temporary stabilization: A stochastic analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(9), pages 1429-1449, September.
    5. Sergio Rebelo & Carlos A. Végh, 1995. "Real Effects of Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilization: An Analysis of Competing Theories," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 125-188, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. N Fiess & M Fugazza & WF Maloney, 2006. "Informal Labor Markets and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," Working Papers 2006_17, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    7. Stanley Fischer & Ratna Sahay & Carlos A. Végh, 2002. "Modern Hyper- and High Inflations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 837-880, September.
    8. Lahiri, Amartya, 2000. "Disinflation programs under policy uncertainty," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 351-373, April.
    9. Francisco Venegas-Martinez, 2006. "Impacto de una Politica Fiscal incierta y del riesgo cambiario en estrategias de estabilizacion de precios," EconoQuantum, Revista de Economia y Negocios, Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas, Departamento de Metodos Cuantitativos y Maestria en Economia., vol. 2(2), pages 3-33, Enero-Jun.
    10. Venegas-Martinez, Francisco, 2006. "Stochastic temporary stabilization: Undiversifiable devaluation and income risks," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 157-173, January.
    11. Mr. Yuri V Sobolev, 2000. "Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilization: A Model of Financial Fragility," IMF Working Papers 2000/122, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126.
    13. Ozlem Aytac, 2008. "A Model of Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilization for Turkey," Caepr Working Papers 2008-001, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Economics Department, Indiana University Bloomington.
    14. Martin Uribe, 1996. "The Tequila effect: theory and evidence from Argentina," International Finance Discussion Papers 552, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. David M. Gould, 1996. "Does the choice of nominal anchor matter?," Working Papers 9611, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    16. Ahmet Faruk Aysan, 2006. "Distributional Effects of Boom-Bust Cycles in Developing Countries with FinancialFrictions," Working Papers 2006/10, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    17. Fender, John & Rankin, Neil, 2011. "A further contribution towards explaining why disinflation through currency pegging may cause a boom," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 516-536, April.
    18. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Uribe, Martin, 2000. "Devaluation risk and the business-cycle implications of exchange-rate management," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 239-296, December.
    19. De Gregorio, Jose & Guidotti, Pablo E & Vegh, Carlos A, 1998. "Inflation Stabilisation and the Consumption of Durable Goods," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 105-131, January.
    20. Steven B. Kamin, 1996. "Real exchange rates and inflation in exchange-rate based stabilizations: an empirical examination," International Finance Discussion Papers 554, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2005_15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Business School Research Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpglauk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.