Small Emerging Market Economies Research Articles

Economic Development, Unemployment and Inflation in the Western Balkans

Economic security is one of the main challenges facing the Western Balkans. Poverty, unemployment and inequality threaten the everyday security of average citizens in the region. The Western Balkan economies have emerged from a serious economic recession and are in search of a new growth path on their way to eventual EU membership. However, they are beset by numerous economic and social problems that hinder their progress. The economic transition in the Western Balkans implicated a large structural change which has come through the processes of privatization and enterprise restructuring which caused the disappearance of many professions and jobs and have made the stock of skills inherited from the former system obsolete. All countries in the Western Balkans are striving to join the European Union. This transformation process presents enormous challenges and requires many changes and improvements in various fields especially when regards the economic development and employment. The Western Balkan (WB6) region, consisting in small emerging market economies, is aspiring to embark on an export-led growth and convergence path. After a late start in transition due to civil wars, the region experienced notable income growth nearly doubling its real GDP level in the last two decades. However, income convergence with advanced Europe has been less impressive when compared to new member states, partly reflecting lower exports. Western Balkan countries have the same problematics which regard widespread corruption, the presence of organized crime, the lack of freedom of legal functioning, and the deep politicization of public administration. The countries differ according to the importance and the sensibility of their problems, politics will treat them according to their platforms, legal frameworks in place and capacity for enforcement. These issues have a great impact for economic performance, generating employment, state revenue collection, and the development of small and medium enterprises. These problems are rooted in the general state of democracy and the political culture in the region, as well as diplomatic issues surrounding statehood. The main aim of this paper is to reflect and analyze the economic development through GDP in the Western Balkan in relation to unemployment and inflation. The analysis is based on the literature review, on the reports given form different structures and also based on quantitative data form the Worl Bank for Western Balkans’ countries on GDP, unemployment and inflation and testing their correlations through the e Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Model. At the end of this paper based on the theoretical and practical review are give the conclusions and the recommendation of the study.
 
 Received: 10 September 2022 / Accepted: 21 October 2022 / Published: 30 November 2022

Lifting Growth in the Western Balkans

In the past 25 years, exports have contributed strongly to growth and economic convergence in many small open economies. However, the Western Balkan (WB) region, consisting of small emerging market economies, has not fully availed itself of this driver of growth and convergence. A lack of openness, reliance on low value products, and weak competitiveness largely explain the insignificant role of trade and exports in the region’s economic performance. This paper focuses on how the countries in the WB could lift exports through stronger integration with global value chains (GVCs) and broadening of services exports. The experience of countries that joined the European Union in or after 2004 shows that participation in GVCs can help small economies accelerate export and income growth. WB countries are not well integrated into Europe’s vibrant GVCs. Trade within the region is also limited—it tends to be bilateral and not cluster-like. Our analysis shows that by improving infrastructure and labor skills and adopting trade policies that ensure investor protection and harmonize regulations and legal provisions, the region can greatly enhance its engagement with GVCs. Services exports are an increasingly important part of global trade, and they offer an untapped source of growth. The magnitude of services exports from the WB region compares favorably with that of peers in Europe, particularly in travel services where several of these countries have a revealed comparative advantage. But there is significant room for growth in tourism exports and an untapped potential in business and information technology services exports that these countries can materialize through policy efforts that increase openness and enhance connectivity and labor skills. Serbia offers a good example of how decisive efforts, including education policies to ensure a sustained supply of skilled labor, can help information technology services exports to take off.

Sharing a ride on the commodities roller coaster: Common factors in business cycles of emerging economies

We explore the hypothesis that fluctuations in commodity prices are an important driver of business cycles in small emerging market economies (EMEs). First, we document that commodity prices exhibit strong comovement with other macro variables along the business cycle of these economies; and that a common factor accounts for most of the time series dynamics of these commodity prices. Guided by these stylized facts, we embed a commodity sector into a dynamic, stochastic, multi-country business cycle model of EMEs where exogenous fluctuations in commodity prices coexist with other driving forces. Commodity prices follow a common dynamic factor structure in the model. When estimated with EMEs data, the model gives to commodity shocks, mostly in the form of perturbations to their common factor, a paramount role when accounting for aggregate dynamics: more than a third of the variance of real output across the EMEs considered is associated to commodity price shocks. The model also performs well when accounting for other business cycle facts. A further amplification mechanism is a “spillover” effect from commodity prices to interest rates. Yet, sometimes, positive commodity price shocks have also cushioned other negative domestic shocks, particularly during the fast recovery from the world financial crisis.

Sharing a Ride on the Commodities Roller Coaster: Common Factors in Business Cycles of Emerging

Fluctuations in commodity prices are an important driver of business cycles in small emerging market economies (EMEs). We document how these fluctuations correlate strongly with the business cycle in EMEs. We then embed a commodity sector into a multi-country EMEs' business cycle model where exogenous fluctuations in commodity prices follow a common dynamic factor structure and coexist with other driving forces. The estimated model assigns to commodity shocks 42 percent of the variance in income, of which a considerable part is linked to the common factor. A further amplification mechanism is a 'spillover' effect from commodity prices to risk premia.

Sharing a Ride on the Commodities Roller Coaster: Common Factors in Business Cycles of Emerging Economies

Fluctuations in commodity prices are an important driver of business cycles in small emerging market economies (EMEs). We document how these fluctuations correlate strongly with the business cycle in EMEs. We then embed a commodity sector into a multi-country EMEs’ business cycle model where exogenous fluctuations in commodity prices follow a common dynamic factor structure and coexist with other driving forces. The estimated model assigns to commodity shocks 42 percent of the variance in income, of which a considerable part is linked to the common factor. A further amplification mechanism is a ”spillover” effect from commodity prices to risk premia.

Effectiveness of intervention in a small emerging market: an event study approach

This article addresses the effectiveness of intervention using daily data from a small open economy for which intervention constituted an integral part of policy making. A matched-sample test of equality of means before and after intervention events, shows that the sterilized interventions by the central bank were effective for both purchases and sales of US dollars, but with associated fiscal costs. These results, which are robust to alternative event-window definitions and to alternative criteria for measuring ‘success’, suggest that the authorities were successful in keeping the exchange rate within a ‘target’ corridor. With many small emerging market economies seeking to balance the twin objectives of maintaining competitiveness while containing imported inflation, these results present an interesting case study which suggests that intervention can be an appropriate policy tool in some small open and emerging market economies.

Comment on “The Role of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Sustaining Growth With Stability in India”

Mohan (2008) presents a comprehensive review of the macroeconomic policy developments in India over the past four decades with a particular emphasis on the last two decades. India transformed from a tightly controlled socialistic economy to one of the emerging market economies with accelerating growth. Before the transformation, the Indian economy was characterized by many regulations and controls, the nationalization of banks, and fiscal deficits that were financed by the central bank. The economy was in a low growth state, and the inflation rate was high. After the transformation, fiscal deficits have been reduced, and their direct financing by the central bank is banned. Monetary policy has been geared towards achieving a low and stable inflation rate. The critical regulatory changes took place after the balance of payments crisis of 1990 ‐1991. My comments are mostly directed to the current challenges rather than to India’s historical experience. The growth acceleration from 3% in the 1960s to 1980s, to 5% in the 1990s, to 8% after 2003, as shown in Mohan’s Table 1, is impressive, but still not perfect. It is impressive because it shows steady improvement as various reforms were taking place. It does not seem perfect because, first, the growth rate did not jump to a high range, say 8 ‐10%, immediately after the critical set of reforms in the beginning of the 1990s, and, second, in the near future, the growth rate does not seem likely to climb up to the 10% level that China has been able to achieve in the last decade. Why couldn’t India achieve doubledigit growth, if China could do it? The frustration is understandable but it may be important to recall some of the other growth experiences in Asia. Japan achieved double-digit growth in the 1950s and 1960s. South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore achieved near 10% growth in the 1980s and 1990s. They all relied upon manufactured exports and climbed up the ladder of sophistication as they grew. Sustained 10% growth was possible only because those countries enjoyed export booms and their export items went from low-tech to middle-tech, and eventually to high-tech goods, as they chased the country just ahead of them. This view is known as the flying geese pattern of Asian growth. In a sense, 10% gross domestic product (GDP) growth was helped by very high (much higher than 10%) growth in the exports of toys and shoes followed by motorcycles and TVs, and then petrochemicals, steel, and automobiles.

Monetary policy for small emerging market economies: the way forward

Discretionary monetary policy for small emerging market economies, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, can benefit from closer scrutiny and strengthening through appropriate and incremental policies. Field research and related analysis challenge the conventional wisdom on the relationship between interest rates and inflation. Lessons learned suggest that monetary policy needs to be tempered to prevailing social, cultural, and socio-economic factors. In addition, access to credit through financial inclusion policies and programmes needs to be addressed, and the overarching role of good governance cannot be overlooked. Given the broad scope of weaknesses inherent in monetary policy-making (and the systems that support it) in small emerging market economies such as Botswana's, two options are available to tackle the problems: either monetary union should be adopted or incremental new directions to the status quo are required.

Modelling the term structure of interest rates in a small emerging market economy

This paper investigates the term structure of interest rates in a small emerging market economy – the Dominican Republic. The modelling finds a significant dynamic link amongst the day-to-day interbank interest rate and a representative banking system interest rate. But the interbank rate's forecasting power breaks down in the aftermath of the 2003 banking crisis. This episode illustrates how the monetary authorities' credibility with the public and market expectations affect the term structure's reliability.