JEL Code F: International Economics - 2005

Trade liberalization is thought to result in higher own-wage elasticities of labor demand, particularly for unskilled labor, with adverse implications for both labor market volatility and wage dispersion. The paper first argues that theoretically the link between liberalization and labor-demand elasticities is less clear than has previously been asserted. It then uses dynamic panel techniques to estimate labor-demand relations for manufacturing establishments in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico across periods of trade policy reform. The results do not strongly support the hypothesis that trade liberalization has a direct impact on own-wage elasticities.

Examining the production and consumption for copper between 1985 and 2003, we see two dramatic changes. The first is the rapid growth of consumption in China and other Asian countries, the second the rapid growth of production in Chile. This paper examines these two important developments, which nicely accommodated each other, allowing the global copper market to remain more or less in balance over this period. A better understanding of the forces responsible for both, it is hoped, will allow us to understand better whether they are likely to continue in the future in a manner that provides a rough balance between global consumption and the available production.

This paper analyzes the Chilean experience with capital flows. We discuss the role played by capital controls, financial regulations and the exchange rate regime. The focus is on the period after 1990, the period when Chile returned to international capital markets. We also discuss the early 80s, where a currency collapse triggered a financial crisis in Chile, despite stricter capital controls on inflows than the 90s and tighter currency matching requirements on the banking sector. We conclude that financial regulation and the exchange rate regime are at the center of capital inflows experiences and financial vulnerabilities. Rigid exchange rates induce vulnerabilities, which may lead to sharp capital account reversals. We also discuss three important characteristics of the Chilean experience since the 90s. The first is the fact that most international borrowing is done directly by corporations and it is not intermediated by the banking system. The second is the implication of the free trade agreement of Chilean and the US regarding capital controls. Finally, we examine the Chilean experience following the Asian-Russia crisis, showing that Chile did not suffer a sudden-stop, but a current account reversal due to policy reactions and a sudden-start in capital outflows.

We use high frequency data and a new econometric methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of controls on capital inflows. We focus on Chile’s experience during the 1990s and investigate whether controls on capital inflows reduced Chile’s vulnerability to external shocks. We recognize that changes in the controls will affect the way in which different macro variables relate to each other. We take this problem seriously, and we develop a methodology to deal explicitly with it. The main findings may be summarized as follows: (a) A tightening of capital controls on inflows depreciates the exchange rate. (b) We find that the “vulnerability” of the nominal exchange rate to external factors decreases with a tightening of the capital controls. And (c), we find that a tightening of capital controls increases the unconditional volatility of the exchange rate, but makes this volatility less sensitive to external shocks.

After the failure of the early 1980s, a second attempt at capital account liberalization was gradually carried out in Chile during the 1990s, this time in parallel with increased exchange rate flexibility. Capital account regulations were applied to support the independent monetary policy committed to the inflation target, while the exchange rate was quasi-pegged within a band that targeted the real exchange rate (RER). Still, the policy framework directed at stabilizing the RER appears to have been of limited effectiveness, with the surges and sudden-stops in capital flows playing an important role in RER dynamics. Foreign exchange market intervention appears not to have affected the RER while reserve requirement appears to have exerted a depreciating effect. Government spending and import tariffs, appear to be significant tools to moderate the real appreciation thus providing one additional reason for adopting a countercyclical fiscal policy and accelerating trade openness.

This paper shows that the Russian 1998 crisis had a big impact on capital flows to Emerging Market Economies, EMs, especially in Latin America, and that the impact of the Russian shock differs quite markedly across EMs. To illustrate this statement, we compare the polar cases of Chile and Argentina. While Chile exhibited a significant economic slowdown after August 1998, it did not suffer the excruciating collapse suffered by Argentina, where even the payments system came to a full stop. We attribute their difference to the fact that Chile is more open to trade than Argentina, and that it appears to suffer much less from balance-sheet currency-denomination mismatch that was rampant in Argentina before the 2002 crisis (due to large domestic liability dollarization). The paper is essentially descriptive but is in line with and, thus, complements econometric studies like Calvo, Izquierdo and Mejia (NBER Working Paper 10520). The final section addresses policy issues in light of the paper’s findings and conjectures.