Hector Perez Saiz's Books

The African Continental Free Trade Area: Potential Economic Impact and Challenges

By: Mr.Lisandro Abrego,Mr.Mario de Zamaroczy,Tunc Gursoy,Garth P. Nicholls,Hector Perez-Saiz,Jose-Nicolas Rosas

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The African Continental Free Trade Area: Potential Economic Impact and Challenges

By: Mr.Lisandro Abrego,Mr.Mario de Zamaroczy,Tunc Gursoy,Garth P. Nicholls,Hector Perez-Saiz,Jose-Nicolas Rosas

Political momentum towards Africa-wide free trade has been intensifying. In March 2018, over 40 countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. Once fully implemented, the AfCFTA is expected to cover all 55 African countries, with a combined GDP of about US$2.2 trillion. This SDN takes stock of recent trade developments in Sub-Saharan Africa and assesses the potential benefits and costs of the AfCFTA, as well as challenges to its successful implementation. In addition to increased trade flows both in existing and new products, the AfCFTA has the potential to generate substantial economic benefits for African countries. These benefits include higher income arising from increased efficiency and productivity from improved resource allocation, higher cross-border investment flows, and technology transfers. Besides lowering import tariffs, to ensure these benefits, African countries will need reduce other trade barriers by making more efficient their customs procedures, reducing their wide infrastructure gaps, and improving their business climates. At the same time, policy measures should be taken to mitigate the differential impact of trade liberalization on certain groups as resources are reallocated in the economy and activities migrate to locations with comparatively lower costs.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 10

1513542370

ISBN 13

9781513542379

FinTech in Sub-Saharan African Countries

A Game Changer?

By: Mr.Rodolfo Maino,Mr.Alexander Massara,Hector Perez Saiz,Preya Sharma,Mr.Amadou N Sy

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FinTech in Sub-Saharan African Countries

A Game Changer?

By: Mr.Rodolfo Maino,Mr.Alexander Massara,Hector Perez Saiz,Preya Sharma,Mr.Amadou N Sy

FinTech is a major force shaping the structure of the financial industry in sub-Saharan Africa. New technologies are being developed and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa with the potential to change the competitive landscape in the financial industry. While it raises concerns on the emergence of vulnerabilities, FinTech challenges traditional structures and creates efficiency gains by opening up the financial services value chain. Today, FinTech is emerging as a technological enabler in the region, improving financial inclusion and serving as a catalyst for the emergence of innovations in other sectors, such as agriculture and infrastructure.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 10

1484399455

ISBN 13

9781484399453

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement: Welfare Gains Estimates from a General Equilibrium Model

By: Mr.Lisandro Abrego,Maria Alejandra Amado,Tunc Gursoy,Garth P. Nicholls,Hector Perez-Saiz

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The African Continental Free Trade Agreement: Welfare Gains Estimates from a General Equilibrium Model

By: Mr.Lisandro Abrego,Maria Alejandra Amado,Tunc Gursoy,Garth P. Nicholls,Hector Perez-Saiz

In March 2018, representatives of member countries of the African Union signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. This agreement provides a framework for trade liberalization in goods and services and is expected to eventually cover all African countries. Using a multi-country, multi-sector general equilibrium model based on Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2014), we estimate the welfare effects of the AfCFTA for 45 countries in Africa. Three different model specifications—comprising both perfect competition and monopolistic competition—are used. Simulations include full elimination of import tariffs and partial but substantial reduction in non-tariff barriers (NTBs). Results reveal significant potential welfare gains from trade liberalization in Africa. As intra-regional import tariffs in the continent are already low, the bulk of these gains come from lowering NTBs. Overall gains for the continent are broadly similar under the three model specifications used, with considerable variation of potential welfare gains across countries in all model structures.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 10

1498318789

ISBN 13

9781498318785

Renminbi Usage in Cross-Border Payments: Regional Patterns and the Role of Swaps Lines and Offshore Clearing Banks

By: Hector Perez-Saiz,Ms. Longmei Zhang

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Renminbi Usage in Cross-Border Payments: Regional Patterns and the Role of Swaps Lines and Offshore Clearing Banks

By: Hector Perez-Saiz,Ms. Longmei Zhang

The paper examines the usage of the Renminbi (RMB) as an international payment currency. Globally, the use of RMB remains small, accounting for 2 percent of total cross-border transactions. Using country-level transaction data from Swift** for 2010–21, we find significant regional variations in the use of RMB for cross-border payments. While RMB is little used in some regions, it has gained traction in others, and these cross-country differences have widened over the years. Such differences can be partly explained by an economy’s geographic distance, political distance, and trade linkages with China. However, it also reflects the impact of policy measures by the People’s Bank of China, including establishing bilateral swap lines and offshore clearing banks. Both policy measures helped to address offshore RMB liquidity shortages given China’s overall capital account restrictions, with the offshore clearing banks having a quantitatively larger impact. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of the growing importance of RMB within the international monetary system.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 13

9798400235559

Stress Testing in Sub-Saharan Africa

Practices, Communications, and Capacity Development

By: Mindaugas Leika,Hector Perez-Saiz,Ms.Olga Ilinichna Stankova,Torsten Wezel

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Stress Testing in Sub-Saharan Africa

Practices, Communications, and Capacity Development

By: Mindaugas Leika,Hector Perez-Saiz,Ms.Olga Ilinichna Stankova,Torsten Wezel

The paper finds that supervisory stress tests are conducted in more than half of sub-Saharan African countries, particularly in western and southern Africa, and that the number of individual stress tests has grown exponentially since the early 2010s. By contrast, few central banks publish assessments of macro-financial linkages; the focus leans more toward discussing trends and weaknesses within the financial sector than on outside risks that may negatively affect its performance.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 10

151353291X

ISBN 13

9781513532912

The Impact of Remittances on Economic Activity: The Importance of Sectoral Linkages

By: Hector Perez-Saiz,Mr.Jemma Dridi,Tunc Gursoy,Mounir Bari

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The Impact of Remittances on Economic Activity: The Importance of Sectoral Linkages

By: Hector Perez-Saiz,Mr.Jemma Dridi,Tunc Gursoy,Mounir Bari

We propose a simple macroeconomic model with input-output sectoral linkages based on Acemoglu et al. (2016) to quantify how changes in aggregate demand due to additional income from household’s remittances propagates through the network of input-output linkages in Sub-Saharan African countries. We first propose two network centrality measures to assess the role of some sectors as key input providers in the economy. Then, we use these measures to quantify the effect of sectoral linkages on sectoral and total output following an increase in remittances inflows. Our empirical results suggest that the effects of remittances on recipient economies increase with the degree of linkages across sectors, which is especially prominent in the case of the financial intermediation sector. Our paper contributes to the emerging macroeconomic literature on the propagation of shocks across sectors and the implications for the whole economy.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 10

1513511483

ISBN 13

9781513511481

Assessing Macrofinancial Risks from Crypto Assets

By: Ms. Burcu Hacibedel,Hector Perez-Saiz

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Assessing Macrofinancial Risks from Crypto Assets

By: Ms. Burcu Hacibedel,Hector Perez-Saiz

Failures in the crypto space—including the fall of Terra USD and the FTX debacle—have sparked calls for strengthening countries’ policy frameworks for crypto assets, including by enhanced regulation and supervision. How have these heightened concerns about crypto assets been picked up in systemic risk assessment, and what can be done going forward? In this paper, we introduce a conceptual macrofinancial framework to understand and track systemic risks stemming from crypto assets. Specifically, we propose a country-level Crypto-Risk Assessment Matrix (C-RAM) to summarize the main vulnerabilities, useful indicators, potential triggers and potential policy responses related to the crypto sector. We also discuss how experts and officials can weave in specific vulnerabilities stemming from crypto asset activity into their assessment of systemic risk, and how they can provide policy advice and take action to help contain systemic risks when needed.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 13

9798400255083

Currency Usage for Cross Border Payments

By: Hector Perez-Saiz,Ms. Longmei Zhang,Roshan Iyer

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Currency Usage for Cross Border Payments

By: Hector Perez-Saiz,Ms. Longmei Zhang,Roshan Iyer

While the global usage of currencies other than the U.S. dollar and the euro for cross-border payments remains limited, rapid technological (e.g. digital money) or geopolitical changes could accelerate a regime shift into a multipolar or more fragmented international monetary system. Using the rich Swift database of cross-border payments, we empirically estimate the importance of legal tender status, geopolitical distance, and other variables vis-à-vis the large inertia effects for currency usage, and perform several forecasting simulations to better understand the role of these variables in shaping the future payments landscape. While our results suggest a substantially more fragmented international monetary system would be unlikely in the short and medium term, the impact of new technologies remains highly uncertain, and much more rapid geopolitical developments than expected could accelerate the transformation of the international monetary system towards multipolarity.

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ISBN 13

9798400235375

Financial Inclusion and Bank Competition in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Azanaw Mengistu,Hector Perez Saiz

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Financial Inclusion and Bank Competition in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Azanaw Mengistu,Hector Perez Saiz

In this paper we study how competition and financial soundness affect financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We use detailed individual-level survey data, combined with key country-level indicators of bank competition and financial soundness, to study the effect on the adoption of several financial products (bank accounts, credit and debit cards, and bank loans). We find that more competition tends to increase the probability of access to these financial products. On the contrary, we do not find strong evidence of the effect of bank-balance sheet variables (i.e. capital adequacy or liquidity) on borrowing by individuals. Our results may help policy makers design regulations that could improve financial inclusion, which could potentially impact economic growth and long-term economic development.

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