IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v28y2009i6p987-1005.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public sector layoffs, severance pay, and inflation in the small open economy

Author

Listed:
  • Buffie, Edward F.

Abstract

Because severance pay is worth 2-5 years of wages in many LDCs, public sector layoffs increase the fiscal deficit in the short run. Nevertheless, generous severance pay is not as serious a macroeconomic problem as generally thought. In the case where the fiscal deficit is financed by printing money, inflation is continuously lower under plausible conditions. When the government can borrow in world capital markets and layoffs reduce the present-value wage bill, there exists a sequence of bond sales and subsequent redemptions that guarantees continuously lower inflation. This result does not hold, however, if the reform lacks credibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Buffie, Edward F., 2009. "Public sector layoffs, severance pay, and inflation in the small open economy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 987-1005, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:28:y:2009:i:6:p:987-1005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261-5606(08)00166-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sebastian Edwards, 1983. "LDC's Foreign Borrowing and Default Risk: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Working Papers 1172, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Uribe, Martin & Yue, Vivian Z., 2006. "Country spreads and emerging countries: Who drives whom?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 6-36, June.
    3. Rama, Martin, 1999. "Public Sector Downsizing: An Introduction," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 1-22, January.
    4. Thurlow, James & Wobst, Peter, 2004. "The road to pro-poor growth in Zambia: past lessons and future challenges," DSGD discussion papers 16, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Mr. Krishna Srinivasan & Erich Spitäller & Mr. M. Braulke & Mr. Christian B. Mulder & Mr. Hisanobu Shishido & Mr. Kenneth M. Miranda & Mr. John R Dodsworth & Keon Lee, 1996. "Vietnam: Transition to a Market Economy," IMF Occasional Papers 1996/001, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Charles Harvey, 1996. "Constraints on Sustained Recovery from Economic Disaster in Africa," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Charles Harvey (ed.), Constraints on the Success of Structural Adjustment Programmes in Africa, chapter 7, pages 130-151, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Subramanian S. Sriram, 2001. "A Survey of Recent Empirical Money Demand Studies," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 47(3), pages 1-3.
    8. Mohsin S. Khan, 1980. "Monetary Shocks and the Dynamics of Inflation (Les chocs monétaires et la dynamique de l'inflation) (Los "choques" monetarios y la dinámica de la inflación)," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(2), pages 250-284, June.
    9. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    10. Haltiwanger, John & Singh, Manisha, 1999. "Cross-Country Evidence on Public Sector Retrenchment," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 23-66, January.
    11. Tait Davis, J., 1991. "Institutional impediments to workforce retrenchment and restructing in Ghana's State enterprises," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 19(8), pages 987-1005, August.
    12. Mr. Sanjeev Gupta & Mr. Henry Ma & Mr. Christian Schiller, 1999. "Privatization, Social Impact, and Social Safety Nets," IMF Working Papers 1999/068, International Monetary Fund.
    13. Barry Eichengreen & Ashoka Mody, 1998. "What Explains Changing Spreads on Emerging-Market Debt: Fundamentals or Market Sentiment?," NBER Working Papers 6408, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Sahn, David E. (ed.), 1996. "Economic Reform and the Poor in Africa," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198290353.
    15. Vito Tanzi, 1993. "Fiscal Issues in Adjustment Programs," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Riccardo Faini & Jaime Melo (ed.), Fiscal Issues in Adjustment in Developing Countries, pages 21-42, Palgrave Macmillan.
    16. Dennis Chiwele & Christopher Colclough, 1996. "Economic Crisis, Adjustment and the Effectiveness of the Public Sector in Zambia," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Charles Harvey (ed.), Constraints on the Success of Structural Adjustment Programmes in Africa, chapter 10, pages 192-209, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Bijan B. Aghevli & Mohsin S. Khan & P. R. Narvekar & Brock K. Short, 1979. "Monetary Policy in Selected Asian Countries (La politique monétaire dans certains pays d'Asie) (La política monetaria de algunos países asiáticos seleccionados)," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(4), pages 775-824, December.
    18. Mr. Thomas Helbling & Ms. Sena Eken, 1999. "Back to the Future: Postwar Reconstruction and Stabilization in Lebanon," IMF Occasional Papers 1999/005, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Edwards, Sebastian, 1984. "LDC Foreign Borrowing and Default Risk: An Empirical Investigation, 1976-80," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 726-734, September.
    20. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1996. "Determinants and impact of sovereign credit ratings," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 2(Oct), pages 37-53.
    21. Rama, Martin & MacIsaac, Donna, 1999. "Earnings and Welfare after Downsizing: Central Bank Employees in Ecuador," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 89-116, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Uribe, Martin & Yue, Vivian Z., 2006. "Country spreads and emerging countries: Who drives whom?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 6-36, June.
    2. Samir Jahjah & Bin Wei & Vivian Zhanwei Yue, 2013. "Exchange Rate Policy and Sovereign Bond Spreads in Developing Countries," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(7), pages 1275-1300, October.
    3. Jaramillo, Laura & Weber, Anke, 2013. "Bond yields in emerging economies: It matters what state you are in," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 169-185.
    4. Eichler, Stefan & Maltritz, Dominik, 2013. "The term structure of sovereign default risk in EMU member countries and its determinants," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1810-1816.
    5. Mr. Sanjeev Gupta & Mr. Amine Mati & Mr. Emanuele Baldacci, 2008. "Is it (Still) Mostly Fiscal? Determinants of Sovereign Spreads in Emerging Markets," IMF Working Papers 2008/259, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Zalán Kocsis & Dénes Nagy, 2011. "Variance decomposition of sovereign CDS spreads," MNB Bulletin (discontinued), Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 6(3), pages 36-50, October.
    7. Maltritz, Dominik & Molchanov, Alexander, 2014. "Country credit risk determinants with model uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 224-234.
    8. Andreas Schabert & Sweder van Wijnbergen, 2006. "Debt, Deficits, and Destabilizing Monetary Policy in Open Economies," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-045/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Jens Hilscher & Yves Nosbusch, 2010. "Determinants of Sovereign Risk: Macroeconomic Fundamentals and the Pricing of Sovereign Debt," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(2), pages 235-262.
    10. Francis, Johanna L. & Aykut, Dilek & Tereanu, Eugen, 2014. "The cost of private debt over the credit cycle," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 146-181.
    11. Maltritz, Dominik & Molchanov, Alexander, 2013. "Analyzing determinants of bond yield spreads with Bayesian Model Averaging," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5275-5284.
    12. Banerji, Sanjay & Ventouri, Alexia & Wang, Zilong, 2014. "The sovereign spread in Asian emerging economies: The significance of external versus internal factors," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 566-576.
    13. Salvatore Dell’Erba & Emanuele Baldacci & Tigran Poghosyan, 2013. "Spatial spillovers in emerging market spreads," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 735-756, October.
    14. Beirne, John & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2013. "The pricing of sovereign risk and contagion during the European sovereign debt crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 60-82.
    15. Edda Zoli, 2005. "How does fiscal policy affect monetary policy in emerging market countries?," BIS Working Papers 174, Bank for International Settlements.
    16. Luis Catão & Sandeep Kapur, 2006. "Volatility and the Debt-Intolerance Paradox," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 53(2), pages 1-1.
    17. Ivan Tchakarov & Selim Elekdag, 2006. "The role of interest rates in business cycle fluctuations in emerging countries: the case of Thailand," Asia-Pacific Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 13(1), pages 53-73, June.
    18. Stephanie Prat, 2007. "The Relevance of Currency Mismatch Indicators: an Analysis Through Determinants of Emerging Market Spreads," Economie Internationale, CEPII research center, issue 111, pages 101-122.
    19. Eichler, Stefan & Plaga, Timo, 2020. "The economic record of the government and sovereign bond and stock returns around national elections," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    20. Gabriel Cuadra & Juan Sanchez & Horacio Sapriza, 2010. "Fiscal Policy and Default Risk in Emerging Markets," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(2), pages 452-469, April.

    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:eee:jimfin:v:28:y:2009:i:6:p:987-1005. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30443 .

    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.