Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(171)
- Faculty Publications (88)
- March 2006 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
China: To Float or Not To Float? (B)- Timeline of Changes Relevant to the Chinese Renminbi
By: Laura Alfaro and Rafael M. Di Tella
On July 21, 2005 China revalued its decade-long quasi-fixed exchange rate of approximately 8.28 yuan per U.S. dollar by 2.1% to 8.11% and, at the same time, introduced a more market-based exchange rate system. Many analysts and economists were disappointed with what... View Details
Keywords: Currency; Exchange Rate; China; Macroeconomics; Trade; Currency Exchange Rate; Governance Controls; Policy; China; United States
- December 2005
- Comment
Review of "The Monetary Geography of Africa," by Paul R. Masson and Catherine Patillo
By: Laura Alfaro
- March 2005
- Article
Sovereign Debt As a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide set of parameters, the only equilibrium is one... View Details
- 2005
- Working Paper
Nominal versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
The main arguments in favor of and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model and calibrate these arguments to assess their quantitative importance. We use a dynamic equilibrium... View Details
- August 2004
- Article
Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
The paper presents an overlapping-generations model where agents vote on whether to open or close the economy to international capital flows. Political decisions are shaped by the risk over capital and labor returns. In an open economy, the capitalists (old) completely... View Details
Keywords: Business Cycles; Development Economics; Voting; Risk and Uncertainty; Cash Flow; Saving; Investment; Economy; Wages
- Article
On the Political Economy of Temporary Stabilization Programs
By: Laura Alfaro
This paper provides a political economy explanation for temporary exchange-rate-based stabilization programs by focusing on the distributional effects of real exchange-rate appreciation. I propose an economy in which agents are endowed with either tradable or... View Details
- April 2002 (Revised September 2002)
- Background Note
Capital Controls
By: Rawi E. Abdelal and Laura Alfaro
Only in the waning years of the 20th century did international financial markets begin to enjoy the freedom from government regulation that they had experienced before the first world war. By 2002, international capital markets had grown to be enormous--$1.2 trillion... View Details
- Research Summary
Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)
By: Laura Alfaro
We construct an Overlapping-Generations model where agents vote on whether to open or close the economy to international capital flows. Political decisions are shaped by the risk over capital and labor returns. In an open economy, the capitalists (old) completely hedge... View Details
- Research Summary
Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal? (with Fabio Kanczuk)
By: Laura Alfaro
We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity-term premium, tax smoothing, rolling over risk and the cost from defaulting. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion,... View Details
- Research Summary
Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation
By: Laura Alfaro
In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. We revisit sovereign debt sustainability under the assumptions that countries can accumulate reserves and borrow internationally using their own... View Details
- Research Summary
Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India
By: Laura Alfaro
This paper examines the impact of the deregulation of compulsory industrial licensing in India on firm size dynamics and reallocation of resources within industries. Following deregulation, resource misallocation declines, and the left-hand tail of the firm size... View Details
- Research Summary
Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal? (joint with Andrew Charlton)
By: Laura Alfaro
In this paper we distinguish different qualities of FDI to re-examine the relationship between FDI and growth. Establishing the quality of FDI, however, is a difficult concept. Quality, that is the effect of a unit of FDI on economic growth, is a combination and... View Details
- Research Summary
How Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Economic Growth? Exploring the Effects of Financial Markets on Linkages (with Areendam Chanda, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Selin Sayek)
By: Laura Alfaro
The empirical literature finds mixed evidence on the
existence of positive productivity externalities in the host country
generated by foreign multinational companies. We propose a novel
mechanism, which emphasizes the role of local financial markets in
enabling... View Details
- Research Summary
India Transformed? Insights from the Firm Level 1988-2005 (with Anusha Chari)
By: Laura Alfaro
Using firm-level data this paper analyzes, the transformation of India’s economic structure following the implementation of economic reforms. The focus of the study is on publicly-listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services... View Details
- Research Summary
Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis
By: Laura Alfaro
In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a subset of their production stages. A key decision facing firms worldwide is the... View Details
- Research Summary
Intra-Industry Foreign Direct Investment (joint with Andrew Charlton)
By: Laura Alfaro
We identify a new type of vertical foreign direct investment (FDI) made up of multinational subsidiaries producing intermediate inputs, which are of similar skill intensity to the final goods produced by their parents, and which are overwhelmingly located in high skill... View Details
- Research Summary
Nominal versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)
By: Laura Alfaro
There are different arguments in favor and against nominal and indexed debt which broadly include the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model these arguments and calibrate the model to assess the quantitative importance... View Details