Policy towards Commodity Shocks in Developing Countries

Jan Willem Gunning and Paul Collier

No 1996/084, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: On the basis of a comparative study of 23 episodes involving commodity price shocks we find that both the public and private sectors typically save around half of a windfall gain resulting from a price rise. We argue that private windfalls should be left with the private sector rather than taxed. The focus of policy towards windfalls should be monetary rather than fiscal. The central bank should accommodate aggregate changes in the demand for financial assets. The private sector will initially wish to increase its claims on the central bank as it saves the windfall, but will then reduce them as portfolios are switched into real assets.

Keywords: WP; private sector; rate; price level; savings rate; financial asset; rate of return; asset demand; investment rate; windfall income; Income; Monetary base; Reserves accumulation; Agricultural commodities; Demand for money; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22
Date: 1996-08-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=1937 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:1996/084

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().