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The '100% money' proposal aims at divorcing the creation of money from banking, by requiring 100% reserves on transaction accounts. The public monetary authority would then be the sole issuer of means of payment, while the banks would function as true intermediaries, financing loans with pre‐existing money. This article, building on the works of 1930s economists such as Irving Fisher, presents ten arguments in favour of this reform proposal — arguing that it would, in particular, prevent cumulative variations in the money stock, facilitate monetary control, reduce government intervention in banking, improve public finances, and make money creation more neutral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detailed information about individual claims are completely ignored when insurance claims data are aggregated and structured in development triangles for loss reserving. In the hope of extracting predictive power from the individual claims characteristics, researchers have recently proposed to use micro‐level loss reserving approaches. We introduce a discrete‐time individual reserving framework incorporating granular information in a deep learning approach named Long Short‐Term Memory (LSTM) neural network. At each time period, the network has two tasks: first, classifying whether there is a payment or a recovery, and second, predicting the corresponding non‐zero amount, if any. Based on a generalized Pareto model for excess payments over a threshold, we adjust the LSTM reserve prediction to account for extreme payments. We illustrate the estimation procedure on a simulated and a real general insurance dataset. We compare our approach with the chain‐ladder aggregate method using the predictive outstanding loss estimates and their actual values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a new, simple‐to‐compute test of independence of valuations and the number of bidders for ascending button auctions with symmetric, conditionally independent private values. The test involves estimating the expected revenue drop from excluding a bidder at random, which can be computed as a scaled sample average of a difference of order statistics. This object also provides a bound on counterfactual revenue changes from optimal reserve pricing or bidder mergers. We illustrate the approach using data from timber auctions, where we find some evidence that bidder valuations and the number of participants are not independent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purpose of this paper is to reconcile the previous findings of discount rate endogeneity with the presence of discount rate announcement effects in securities markets. The crux of this reconciliation is the distinction between "technical" discount rate changes that are endogenous and "nontechnical" changes which contain some informative policy implications. In essence, we attempt to separate expected discount rate changes from unexpected changes, or equivalently, the expected component of discount rate changes from the unexpected component. If markets are efficient, the former should have no announcement effects while the latter may be associated with an announcement effect. Accordingly, the focus of the empirical analysis is on the interaction between discount rate exogeneity, the specific monetary policy regime, and announcement effects. In addition, we examine whether the behavior of these markets in the postannouncement period is consistent with the rapid price adjustment implied by market efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A microeconomic model of bank demand for borrowed reserves from the Federal Reserve is developed based upon constrained cost minimization. The derived demand function was found to correspond to behavior appropriate to the unknown switchpoint switching regression problem. When estimated, parameters generally conformed to theoretical expectations. The model was also tested for existence of switching regression behavior against a model similar to Goldfeld and Kane. Significance exceeded 99% in all cases. With the advent of reserve intermediate targeting, it appears especially necessary to reinvestigate the behavior determining this important source of reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that current discount window policy, coupled with non-borrowed reserve targeting of the Federal Reserve, makes the quantity of high-powered money endogenous. Examination of the advisability of this procedure in a stochastic environment is conducted using a general equilibrium financial model. It is concluded that the current policy reduces the destabilizing effects of shifts between various depository financial assets, but increases the effect of other asset portfolio shifts and aggregate supply disturbances. These results are consistent with the work of Poole inasmuch as the current debate over discount policy is a repackaging of the debate over interest rate or aggregates control for monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1968 amendment to Regulation D of the Federal Reserve Code permits banks to carry forward one sequential reserve excess or deficiency into the next reserve accounting period. This was intended to reduce the weekly pressure on individual banks to adjust their reserve position. We find, instead, that the carry-forward provision gives individual banks an incentive to alternate weekly between reserve excesses and reserve deficiencies. Thus, the carry-forward provision tends to induce reserve position adjustments even in the absence of changes in the level of deposits. In addition, the carry-forward provision reduces the impact of interest-rate changes on the desired level of excess reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this comment (reply) is to point out that Kopecky's argument is based upon a very restrictive interpretation of what it means to impose FRS reserve requirements on nonmember banks and to defend the validity of my test method. Section I presents the most important elements of Kopecky's model (slightly modified by me)—the model which he employs in arguing against my test method. Section II points out the critical assumption upon which Kopecky's argument rests and explains why my test method is valid. Section III contains some final remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of most recent econometric studies of the banking sector which employ quarterly data suggest that commercial banks close less than half the gap between their actual and "desired" levels of excess and/or borrowed reserves per quarter. At this rate, the banking system would take a full year to close nine-tenths of the gap. The length of this lag has been regarded as implausible by many researchers. Among the skeptics, many have expressed suspicion of the statistical techniques underlying the estimates. This paper investigates two commonly-proposed statistical sources of bias. The investigation reveals that one of them, temporal data aggregation (averaging over time), does exaggerate the lag. Nonetheless, even after correction for this bias, the estimates indicate a full adjustment period of a quarter or more. The primary purpose this paper is to explain the remaining lag. The major hypothesis of this study is that the lag in the aggregate is caused by lagged interactions among banks in different regions. As this paper demonstrates, when Federal Reserve Member Banks are disaggregated by region, estimated adjustment speeds rise dramatically. Moreover, the lag in the aggregate is well explained statistically by the impact of some regions' reserve adjustments on other regions. The more important of these interregional effects are identifiable and statistically significant, and they are shown to be useful in analyzing the timing of the regional impacts of monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning September 12, 1968, a set of changes in Regulation D went into effect, including two major ones which are referred to as the lagged accounting system. One of these sets required reserves in the current period (week) according to deposits two weeks ago, while the other specifies that a bank's "current" reserves consist of current reserve balances on deposit at the Fed and vault cash two weeks ago. It is the object of this paper to examine some implications of these two regulations for the control of the money supply via reserve aggregates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we examine the accuracy and, bias in the accounting estimate of claim, loss reserves of 197 property-casualty insurers (985 insurer-years) during 1979-83. We also test for differences in accuracy and bias as a function of the size of the insurer's auditing firm. Claim loss reserves of property-casualty insurers are used because insurers subsequently disclose estimation error in the originally reported reserves, based on the actual claim losses paid. The accuracy of a reported reserve is defined as the absolute magnitude of the difference between the reported reserve and its ex-post realized value, while bias is defined as the signed difference between the reported reserve and its ex post realized value. Both accuracy and bias are evaluated relative to total assets and in materiality units (a materiality unit is 1.6 × [the, greater of assets or net premiums] ⅔ land errors that exceed one materiality unit are considered material). We demonstrate that claim loss reserve estimation errors in audited accounting information exceed materiality in over 90% of our sample. For errors that exceed, materiality, the average absolute error, determined with the benefit of hindsight, is over 17 times materiality and over 8% of assets. The magnitude of the error reflects both audit judgment and the high level of uncertainty inherent in the estimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the information content of two accrual variables which have been central to this debate: these are the current accruals variable, CA, and the noncurrent accruals variable, NA. Each is the aggregate of several accrual items listed separately in financial statements. The current accruals variable is defined here as cash from operations less working capital from operations, while the noncurrent accruals variable is working capital from operations less earnings. The sum of the current and noncurrent accruals variables is referred to as the total accruals variable, TA. This study investigates the relative information content of total accruals and cash from operations. It also considers separately the relative information content of noncurrent accruals and working capital from operations and of current accruals and cash from operations. None of the tests here considers jointly the relative information content of cash from operations, current accruals, and noncurrent accruals. This study differs from previous work by considering the implications of various hypotheses about information content of accruals on the joint behavior of stock returns at two information releases—the Wall Street Journal earnings announcement and the date the annual report arrives at the SEC. A model is introduced which structures the way information about the accrual and cash components of earnings is extracted from earnings when they are published in the Wall Street Journal and links the association between this component information and stock returns at the earnings announcement to the association between stock returns and component information released at a later date when the annual report arrives at the SEC. By restricting the parameters in this model, it is possible to test for the incremental information content of accruals over funds and for the incremental information content of funds over earnings. This study finds that the cash and total accruals... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relations between components of accounting earnings and stock returns by testing two hypotheses. The first is whether six commonly reported components of earnings provide additional information that is not contained in the earnings figure. The second is whether the additional information is associated with the time-series properties of the components. In addition, other results regarding the components' relations with returns and the components' time-series properties are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conducts a capital market analysis of the oil and gas accounting method, "Reserve Recognition Accounting" (RRA). The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) first proposed RRA in Accounting Series Release No. 253 (ASR 253), issued in August 1978. In ASR 253, the Commission noted that "development of an accounting method based on a valuation of proved oil and gas reserves would provide significant useful information." To this end, the Commission required oil and gas firms to disclose RRA data as a supplementary item to their financial statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the spread between the 3-month Treasury bill and the federal funds rate has significant predictive power for the future change in the federal funds rate during the volatile nonborrowed reserves operating regime, but it has less and no predictive power during the borrowed reserves regime and the federal funds targeting regime, respectively. These findings suggest that Treasury bill rates forecast future federal funds rates most accurately when the Federal Reserve follows a well-defined rule that does not smooth the impact of shocks on the federal funds rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not-for-profit (NFP) organisations experience a tension between societal perceptions about maximising mission expenditure on one hand, and their need to accumulate reserves to ensure longer term financial sustainability on the other. While studies have examined the level of reserves in UK and US contexts, there is little Australian research or guidance about what constitutes an appropriate level of NFP reserves. This paper examines the levels and implications of the reserves of 52 Australian NFP non-governmental organisations (NGOs) over eight years, identifying two groups. Spenders, with less than three months of expenditure in reserve, were more financially vulnerable, had higher levels of debt, yet spent a relatively greater proportion of their revenue on mission-related activities than savers. Savers, with more than three months' reserves, demonstrated a greater proportion of revenue from fundraising, proportionately greater equity levels, and higher returns on assets. Providing unique insights into the financial reserves of Australian NGOs, this empirical study contributes to existing NFP literature on reserves, which to date has focused primarily on US and UK contexts. Further, we propose that by developing, monitoring and communicating their reserves' strategies, NFP boards and managers will be able to improve their organisations' financial sustainability and manage societal perceptions about reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on two papers published within the issue; "The New Exchange Rate Regime and the Developing Companies," by Alexandre Kafka, and "The Balance of Payments Adjusted Process Revisited," by Helen B. Junz. The author discusses Kafka's view of exchange rate fluctuations and less developed countries (LDC). He also looks at Kafka's table of percentage changes in real effective exchange rates. The author also discusses several of Helen Junz' theories regarding the functioning of the balance of payments adjustment process under floating rates.

The paper "Capital Market Analysis of Reserve Recognition Accounting" investigates the association between firm values and asset values for a set of oil and gas firms. This association is tested by regressing the value of the firm (and the annual change in firm value) on the value of the firm's oil and gas reserves (and the annual change of its reserve values, respectively). Using the Hotelling principle, the paper derives the theoretical value of the regression coefficients. The value of the firm is defined as the market value of its equity plus the book value of its debt. For each company, reserve values are collected from two sources. First, data are collected from SEC disclosures following the requirements set forth in ASR No. 253. Second, reserve data are also collected from J. S. Herold. The results indicate that the estimated coefficients are significantly different from zero but deviate considerably from their theoretical values. The comments made by conference participants are organized into three sections. First, questions regarding measurement of the variables are presented, Second, comments regarding specification of the empirical tests are discussed. Finally, concluding comments are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study has three objectives: (1) to understand the various ways academics, consultants, and practitioners conceptualize operating reserves; (2) to explore differences among academic findings, consultant recommendations, and nonprofit leader perceptions of operating reserves; and (3) to identify how practitioners operationalize operating reserves within their organizations. Using intensive interviews with nonprofit executives, we find that the operating reserve ratio (ORR) commonly used in the nonprofit literature does not accurately indicate whether an organization holds an operating reserve according to nonprofit leaders. In addition, results indicate that experienced nonprofit leaders perceive a variety of other fund types including endowment and investment savings as well as ability to borrow, other assets, sister foundations, and donor networks as legitimate substitutes for a reserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present evidence from 260,000 online auctions of second-hand cars to identify the impact of public reserve prices on auction outcomes. We exploit multiple discontinuities in the relationship between reserve prices and vehicle characteristics to present causal regression-discontinuity estimates of reserve price impacts. We find an increase in reserve price decreases the number of bidders, increases the likelihood the object remains unsold, and increases expected revenue conditional on sale. We then combine these estimates to calibrate the reserve price effect on the auctioneer's ex ante expected revenue. This reveals the auctioneer's reserve price policy to be locally optimal. ( JEL D44, L11, L62) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the optimal currency composition for a country's foreign reserves. In the context of China, we examine the asymmetric, fat‐tail and complex dependence structure in distributions of currency returns. A skewed, fat‐tailed and pair‐copula construction is then built to capture features of higher moments. In a D‐vine copula approach, we show that under the disappointment aversion effect, the central bank in our model can achieve sizeable gains in expected economic value from switching from the mean‐variance to copula modelling. We find that this approach will lead to an optimal currency composition that allows China to have more space for international currency diversification while maintaining the leading position of the US dollar in the currency shares of China's reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of a formal reserve policy to the water distribution facility in the U.S. It states that formal reserve policies provide several potential benefits such as ensuring adequate cash, appropriate level of capital investments, and adequate resources. It mentions that it provides guidelines for sound financial management by promoting long-term emphasis on maintaining financial sufficiency and mitigating financial risks.

A global game framework of bank runs is used to analyse a bank's choice of its reserve level and short-term interest rate. Higher level of reserves and a lower short-term interest rate would decrease the probability of bank runs. When the bank's reserve policy is transparent, it will hold excess reserves to discourage withdrawals by patient depositors. This inefficiency of excess reserves increases with the proportion of impatient depositors. When the bank has private information about its reserve level, it will follow a more risky strategy of choosing lower reserves and higher early return than what maximizes depositor welfare and increases the probability of bank runs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays foreign exchange interventions occur in emerging market economies, whereas empirical studies on interventions mainly refer to advanced economies. However, interventions in emerging markets are different from those in advanced economies: they occur 'regularly' and central banks have considerable leverage, derived from relatively high reserves, some non-sterilisation, the central bank's information advantage and capital controls. Consequently, these interventions often successfully impact the level and volatility of exchange rates. Nevertheless, more research on interventions in emerging markets is needed analysing the influence of heterogeneous institutional circumstances, examining the role of central bank communication and using high-frequency data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We analyze disagreements over de facto exchange-rate-regime classifications using three popular de facto regime data series. While there is a moderate degree of concurrence across classifications, disagreements are not uncommon, and they are not random. They are most prevalent in middle-income countries (emerging markets) and low-income (developing) countries as opposed to advanced economies. They are most prevalent for countries with well-developed financial markets, low reserves and open capital accounts. This suggests caution when attempting to relate the exchange rate regime to financial development, the openness of the financial account, and reserve management and accumulation decisions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operating reserves allow nonprofit organizations to smooth out imbalances between revenues and expenses, helping to maintain program output in the presence of fiscal shocks. We know surprisingly little about why nonprofits might save operating reserves and what factors explain variation between organizations' savings behavior. Findings suggest that operating reserves are reduced in the presence of concentrated public funds, access to debt, fixed assets, and endowment. However, size is not an important predictor, indicating that the lack of reserves is not limited to small nonprofit organizations but is instead a sectorwide issue. Significant numbers of nonprofits maintain no operating reserves at all. One potential explanation is that organizations discount the benefits of reserves because they are evaluated on spending, focusing instead on the 'benefits of costs.' This preference for spending over reserving may also help explain the general lack of liquidity in the sector beyond operating reserves alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive formulas for calculating the premiums that should be charged on policies in a discounted cash flow model with tax reserves and required assets that are determined by regulation. We also determine the unique division of required assets into 'reserves' and 'capital' that allows the product profitability to be correctly evaluated. That is, the profit after capital charges is zero if the product achieves the return assumed in pricing. We illustrate the concepts using whole life insurance and guaranteed minimum death benefit examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use two reserve error definitions found in the literature to investigate the joint impact of previously studied incentives on the magnitude of reserve error. We find many prior conclusions are dependent upon the restricted setting in which the hypotheses are tested and on the definition of the reserve error. We find strong evidence that financially weak insurers underreserve to a greater extent than other insurers. However, our evidence casts doubt on the conclusion that insurers manipulate reserves to avoid solvency monitoring. We also find insurers increase reserves for tax purposes and to reduce the impact of regulatory rate suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor earnings quality exacerbates information asymmetry between internal and external stakeholders of a firm. Agency considerations then persuade investors to discount the value of corporate cash holdings out of concern about the inappropriate use of funds. In this study, we show that poor earnings quality has a negative impact on the value of corporate cash holdings and a positive impact on the level of cash reserves. We find that the negative effect of poor earnings quality either neutralizes or more than offsets the positive effect of excess cash on firm value. Our results are robust to several measures of earnings quality and model specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the empirical consequences of introducing endogenous capital depreciation in the standard neoclassical model with quadratic adjustment costs. To this end, we formulate an empirical specification that accommodates capital maintenance and utilization in the Euler equations for aggregate investment. The empirical estimates with data from the Canadian Survey on Capital and Repair Expenditures show that, in contrast to the existing literature, the performance of the Euler equations is improved when we account for the impact of variable capital depreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional models have encountered problems in explaining the accumulation of international reserves, particularly in Asia, in the period since the late 1990s. One suggestion has been that countries have sought to self-insure against future crises, either because of a perceived increase in the cost of crises or because of the perceived conditionality costs of using IMF credits. This paper offers an empirical investigation of these ideas, disaggregating across regions and across IMF facilities. We find that IMF programs have had a significant positive effect on subsequent reserve accumulation, allowing for other determinants, and that this effect endures over time. We also find that the effect differs between Latin America and Asia, and that it is not simply a phenomenon that is associated with the Asian crisis of 1997/98. The paper goes on to discuss the implications for the design of policy and for the reform of the IMF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent contribution to the literature argues that the present international monetary system operates like the Bretton-Woods system. Asia is the new periphery of the system and pursues an export-led development strategy based on undervalued exchange rates and accumulated foreign reserves. The USA remains the centre country, pursuing a monetary-policy strategy that does not take external factors into account in conducting monetary policy. We test this hypothesis and also present a new method for decomposition of a time series using a time-varying business coefficient technique that allows us to test the relationship between the cycle and macroeconomic policies under both regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The somewhat idiosyncratic accounting procedure of maintaining reserves to fund furniture, fittings and equipment (FF&E) capital expenditure in hotels mediated by a management contract is examined. Five research objectives have been pursued: (i) ascertaining contrasting motives of owners and operators with respect to FF&E reserve accounting; (ii) determining FF&E reserve accounting approaches adopted in hotels; (iii) determining the amount assigned to FF&E reserves in hotels; (iv) determining the sufficiency of FF&E reserves in hotels; and (v) appraising the degree of ease with which hotel operators can draw on FF&E reserve funds. These objectives have been pursued through the analysis of qualitative field data as well as survey data collected in Australia and New Zealand. The study's more significant findings include the determination that, consistent with the wishes of operators, maintaining cash funded FF&E reserves is the most popular approach (particularly in small hotels). It has also been found that FF&E reserves are 40 per cent underfunded. This deficiency beckons a question over whether hotel FF&E reserve accounting serves any meaningful role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars believe with the United States' increasing debt, the global position of the dollar is weakening. As the dollar declines, China, now the largest holder of U.S. dollars in the world, is understandably concerned. China's controversial peg to the U.S. dollar, combined with its $2.4 trillion in foreign reserves and trade imbalances, is debated daily by politicians and economists. This article presents arguments for and against the current China monetary policy in economic and political contexts. Statements from China's leaders, other global leaders, and economists are reviewed. Economic and political obstacles and incentives in the context of their influence on the China government are considered. Finally, milestones for business leaders to look for are suggested to help determine China's possible path to a fully convertible yuan. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use panel probit models with unobserved heterogeneity, state dependence and serially correlated errors in order to analyse the determinants and the dynamics of current account reversals for a panel of developing and emerging countries. The likelihood-based inference of these models requires high-dimensional integration for which we use efficient importance sampling. Our results suggest that current account balance, terms of trades, foreign reserves and concessional debt are important determinants of current account reversal. Furthermore, we find strong evidence for serial dependence in the occurrence of reversals. While the likelihood criterion suggest that state dependence and serially correlated errors are essentially observationally equivalent, measures of predictive performance provide support for the hypothesis that the serial dependence is mainly due to serially correlated country-specific shocks related to local political or macroeconomic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries are showing interest in accumulating foreign reserves to ensure macroeconomic stability. There has been some debate whether to beef up the level of nations' foreign reserves or make it lower, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. Whereas some argue that the foreign reserve determines the country's rating in the global market, others hold opposing views. In this light, this paper examined the interactive influence of foreign reserve (FRS) on some macroeconomic variables such as: economic size (GDP); trade; level of capital inflows (KFL); exchange rate (EXR); and inflation. Analyzing secondary data from CBN statistical bulletins (1970–2007), the econometric results obtained from cointegration test, vector error correction (VEC) within the framework of autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) revealed the following: (1) existence of a long-run relationship between the variables and two cointegrating equations; (2) possibility of convergence of the variables from the short run to the long run with slow speed of adjustment. It is thus the conclusion of this paper that accumulation of large foreign reserves is not very productive in Nigeria due to its inability to induce some of the macroeconomic variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates empirically the relationship between the pattern of fiscal policy and the demand for international reserves in developing countries, and how this relationship is associated with political risk and conditional access to global capital markets. It finds evidence that for developing countries with low political risk, countercyclical (procyclical) fiscal policies are associated with higher (lower) international reserve holdings in economic downturns. The relationship is stronger when the countries with low political risk rely heavily on external financing. For developing countries with high political risk, the link between reserves holdings and fiscal policy pattern is not clear-cut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign reserve accumulation is a widespread phenomenon of recent years, particularly among emerging economies. Using a panel of 136 countries for the period 1973–2003, we demonstrate the need of using both a dynamic specification of the reserve demand equation and the system GMM estimator. These improvements change the results found by previous studies. Openness, regional imitation, persistence, an inverted U-shaped relationship between reserves and income level, and financial deregulation are the factors driving reserve hoardings. In contrast, reserves yield, and both trade and financial volatility are not statistically significant. Surprisingly, we find that countries with flexible exchange rate regimes have higher ratios of reserves to GDP. This result is robust to alternative exchange rate regime classifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper nests the buffer stock model within a standard open-economy model to capture two motives for international reserves accumulation—the insurance motive and the export-led growth motive. The model is solved for two exchange-rate policies, discretion and a rule with escape clause. It illustrates the behavior of international reserves and other macroeconomic variables when the policymaker pursues output and inflation stabilization and recognizes the supply of reserves can constrain the choice of exchange rate and the choice of exchange rate affects the supply of reserves. When output is below potential, it is optimal under both discretion and the rule to adopt a weak currency and promote export-led growth to achieve output and inflation stabilization. This policy leads to reserve accumulation and is consistent with the behavior of China. When reserves are low initially, welfare is higher when the policymaker follows a rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the changing pattern and efficacy of sterilization within emerging market countries as they liberalize markets and integrate with the world economy. We estimate the marginal propensity to sterilize foreign asset accumulation associated with net balance of payments inflows, across countries, and over time. We find that the extent of sterilization of foreign reserve inflows has risen in recent years to varying degrees in Asia as well as in Latin America, consistent with greater concerns about the potential inflationary impact of reserve inflows. We also find that sterilization depends on the composition of balance of payments inflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings forward the insurance aspect of holding reserves by using the conceptual equivalence between insurance and financial options, and explores when reserves are likely to become the primary means of precautionary arrangement, in particular in emerging markets. The sharp rise in the amount of reserves held by many emerging markets since the mid-1990s can be traced to the rise in the “globalization hazard” that confronts emerging markets. A modest probability of globalization hazard (sudden stop) can induce emerging markets to self-insure fully by hoarding international reserves, rather than relying on nonreserve alternatives of taking precautions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the observed international reserve hoarding behavior in the post-1997 crisis period, we explore the Mrs Machlup's Wardrobe hypothesis and the related keeping up with the Joneses argument. It is conceived that, in addition to psychological reasons, holding a relatively high level of international reserves reduces the vulnerability to speculative attacks and promotes growth. A stylized model is constructed to illustrate this type of hoarding behavior. The relevance of the keeping up with the Joneses effect is examined using a few plausible empirical specifications and data from 10 East Asian economies. Panel-based regression results are suggestive of the presence of the Joneses effect, especially in the post-1997 crisis period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating the duration gap of a life insurer demands the knowledge on the durations of liabilities and assets. The literature analyzed the durations of assets extensively but rendered limited analyses on the durations of insurance liabilities. This article calculated the reserve durations for individual policies and estimated the duration of the aggregate reserves. The results showed that the duration of the policy reserve might be negative and/or have a large figure. They further revealed an interesting pattern of the reserve duration with respect to the policy's time to maturity. A term structure with abnormal durations, however, does not result in an abnormal duration of the aggregate reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the network of bilateral liquidity swaps (BSAs) among the ASEAN+3 countries. We find that the network has taken the correlation of capital flows in the region into account, in the sense that countries with lower correlation of reserve growth have engaged in larger BSAs. All else equal, a decimal point increase in the correlation of international reserve growth decreases the size of a bilateral swap agreement between 18% and 27%. Moreover, we find that the approximately $ 60 bn of BSAs have had a limited impact, if any, on government bond spreads so far. Finally, we identify potential gains from inter-regional BSAs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the reforms made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding their credit policies for emerging market borrowers. Several factors were taken into account including the Greenspan-Guidotti benchmark, Chiang Mai Initiative of bilateral swaps and reserve accumulation in Latin America. As of Spring 2007, the credit outstanding to emerging market borrowers has been listed to be approximately at 12 billion special drawing rights (SDR). Key information about the Fondo Latinamericano de Reservas (FLAR) in Latin America is presented.

IAS 36 requires an asset's recoverable amount to be measured by discounting its pre-tax rather than post-tax cash flows. Although defined so as to produce the same value, the pre-tax approach is claimed to be simpler and more reliable. The paper demonstrates that an appropriate pre-tax discount rate varies between assets with different tax depreciation schedules and that it changes over time. Hence, pre-tax discounting is likely to become complex. The paper advocates an amendment of the standard such that value in use is measured by company-specific after-tax cash flows, and such that deferred taxes are included in the impairment review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a theoretical exploration of a new budgetary system to cope with fiscal uncertainty and instability. 1 It examines policies requiring positive year-end balances and infers that annual budget cycles lead to a mismatch between the budget cycle and the continuity of public service provision. The author considers a multiyear perspective on budgeting as a potential solution, with countercyclical fiscal reserves to help ensure stability during fluctuating economic conditions. By adopting budget stabilization funds and keeping sufficient reserves, states can better maintain trend-level public services during recessions. Panel data analysis provides empirical evidence that such funds helped stabilize state general expenditures during downturns. The adoption of countercyclical fiscal policy and budget stabilization funds is a step toward a longer-term perspective on budgeting, thus promoting fiscal stability over the economic cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test for asymmetry in a model of the dependence between the Deutsche mark and the yen, in the sense that a different degree of correlation is exhibited during joint appreciations against the U.S. dollar versus during joint depreciations. We consider an extension of the theory of copulas to allow for conditioning variables, and employ it to construct flexible models of the conditional dependence structure of these exchange rates. We find evidence that the mark–dollar and yen–dollar exchange rates are more correlated when they are depreciating against the dollar than when they are appreciating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the effect of a domestic policy choice, the exchange rate regime, on countries’ interaction with an international institution, their participation in International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending agreements. I hypothesize that the effect of the level of international reserves on a country's probability of participation in an IMF program depends on the exchange rate regime. A low level of international reserves threatens unfavorable economic and political outcomes only in countries that maintain a fixed exchange rate regime. The level of reserves may thus be a significant determinant of participation in IMF programs only for countries that maintain a fixed exchange rate regime. I use a dynamic univariate probit model of IMF program participation to assess empirically the effect of reserves in countries that maintain fixed, intermediate, and floating exchange rate regimes. The empirical results support my hypothesis: reserves have a significant effect only in countries that maintain a fixed exchange rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic studies suggest that the Eurosystem's international reserves ($370 billion) could be reduced by up to half of its existing level. The article discusses the likely size and distribution of excess reserves and proposals for their uses. Small economic gains can be expected from a reserve reduction, as well as an elimination of incompatibilities and conflicts of interest between the conduct of monetary and investment policy. A careful and co-ordinated reserve reduction would pose no threat to financial stability, making it also admissible from a legal perspective against the background of Art. 31 of the ESCB (European System of Central Banks) Statute. Finally, transferring reserves as an extraordinary gain to the government does not constitute monetary financing as prohibited by Art. 101 EC Treaty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]