Weighed down by population aging, slow economic growth, and high unemployment, National Insurance Schemes in the Caribbean are projected to run substantial deficits and deplete their assets in the next decades, raising the prospects of government intervention. With the region highly indebted, this paper quantifies the impact of three parametric reforms—freezing pension benefits for two years, raising the retirement age and increasing the contribution rate by one percentage point—that, if implemented, would put the pension schemes on a stronger financial footing. While the appropriate combination of reforms necessary to eliminate the actuarial deficits varies depending on each country’s circumstances, most countries need to undertake reforms now or risk even higher taxes, lower growth and unsustainable debt dynamics.
This paper proposes a new index of sectoral labor distortion using employment and valueadded shares. We show that this index is highly correlated with growth both crosssectionally and over time. We also use it to compare the degree of distortion among countries and identify sectors where the potential payoffs in terms of growth from reforms could be large. The regression analysis in the paper shows that education and various structural reforms have potential to improve the efficiency of sectoral labor allocation.
This paper analyzes the determinants of banks’ net interest margins in Honduras during 1998 to 2013—a period characterized by increasing banks’ net interest margins, foreign bank participation and consolidation. In line with findings in the previous literature, we find that operating costs are the most important drivers of banks’ net interest margins. We also find that competition among banks has led to higher concentration and that funding by parent banks positively impacts foreign banks’ net interest margins. Together, these results suggest that banks, particularly foreign banks, are under pressure to consolidate and reduce operating costs in order to offer competitive interest margins. We conclude that further structural reforms and consolidation may lower banks’ net interest margins.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.