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Lecture IV. Country Risk Assessment Methodologies: the Qualitative, Structural Approach to Country Risk –The Welfare and Social Dimension-. Risk Analysis: Why?.
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Lecture IV Country Risk Assessment Methodologies: the Qualitative, Structural Approach to Country Risk –The Welfare and Social Dimension-
Risk Analysis: Why? • The globalisation of the world’s trade, financial and technology markets and the emergence of new economies have created a new world environment, full of opportunities, but fraught with uncertainty and spill-over risks.
Country Risk: DEFINITION • It’s the possibility that a foreign country’s: • borrower (financial investment); • Importer/producer (trade and sub-contracting) • Corporate partner (FDI) May be UNABLE or UNWILLING to fullfill its contractual obligations toward a: • Foreign lender; • Exporter; • Investor.
Risk Analysis and Investment Decision • Two possible way to include Risk in our investment decision (NPV): • Expected Value of Profit (EV) probability of a negative event; • Adjust the Discount Rate risk premium. • Which are the sources of risk? • How can we measure it?
Sources of Risk (1) • Natural Disasters; • Tsunami; • Earthquake; • Socio-Political Risks: • Social Risk; • Boycott; • Terrorism; • Strikes; • Religion and racial problems; • Government Policy Risk: • Trade restrictions; • Legal enforcement; • Loan repudiation; • Foreign exchange controls; • Expropriation. • Political Risk: • War; • Nationalisation.
Sources of Risk (2) • Country-Specific Economic risk • Macroeconomic Risks: • Exchange rate; • Hyperinflation; • Terms of Trade; • Debt Service. • Microeconomic Risks: • Market Failure; • Market Inefficiency. • Supranational Level risk of contagion!
How can we measure Country Risk? • The Quantitative Approach (Lecture VII): • Ratio, indices and ratings; • Reduces a complex situation into a number/letter; • Cross-country and cross-time comparison; • Shortcomings: • Similar ratio and financial indicators BUT different socio-economic structure; • Quantitative data not available on time, incomplete, wrong or distorted; • Interpretation is difficult; SOL: integrate with qualitative data to account for volatility and regional contagion.
The Qualitative Approach (1) • Qualitative Approach (SWOP): • Assessment of the economic, financial and socio-political fundamentals that can affect the investment return prospects in a foreign country; • Describes/identifies the structure of a country’s development strategy/process by shedding light on: • Strengths and opportunities; • Weaknesses and threats.
The Qualitative Approach (2) • A robust qualitative approach leads to comprehensive country risk report that includes the following six elements: • Social and welfare dimension of the development strategy; • Macroeconomic fundamentals; • External indebtedness evolution, structure and burden; • Domestic financial system situation; • Assessments of the governance and transparency issues; • Evaluation of the political stability.
Social and Welfare Dimension • Development: • Definition; • Measurement; • Poverty: • Definition; • Measurement; • Inequality: • Definition; • Measurement; ✔ Impact on Country Risk Assessment
What is Development? • Adam Smith (1774) “Wealth of Nations”; • Recent years distinctive analytic and methodological identity: NARROW INCOME • Def BROADER BASIC NEED
A Narrow Definition of Development • “The capacity of a national economy, whose initial economic condition has been more or less static for a long time, to generate and sustain an annual increase in its gross national product (GNP) at rates of perhaps 5% to 7%”; • OR “ rates of growth of income per capita or per capita GDP”. • ADVANTAGES: easily to measure and understand • DISADVANTAGES: experience 1950s 1960s: “growth without human development”
The Broader Basic Needs Approach • Three basic components: • Ability to meet basic needs; (food, shelter, health and protection) • Self-esteem; (self respect and cultural identity) • Human Freedom (emancipation from material conditions, ignorance, misery)
Three objectives of Development • Increase the availability and distribution of basic goods; • Raise the living standards: • higher income; • better jobs; • better education; • cultural and humanistic values. • More economic and social choices.
Development: Income measurement • GDP = Gross Domestic Product; • final output • GNP = Gross National Product; • total income • GDP and GNP per capita; • Purchasing Power Parity (PPP): DEF: This purchasing power rate equalizes the purchasing power of different currencies in their home countries for a given basket of goods. • Different purchasing power of US$1 in different countries; • better than Exchange Rate (underestimate real value of income in LDC).
Low-Income: < 755 US$ Lower Middle Income: [$756 - $2995] Upper Middle Income [$2996 - $755] High Income OECD and other Countries > $ 9265 Developing Countries Countries Classification (per capita GNP in 2000)
Development: Non-Income Measurement (1) • A long and Healthy Life • Life expectancy at birth (age); • Knowledge: • Adult Literacy Rate (% aged 15 and above); • Gross enrollment ratio in education (%) • A decent Standard of Living: • GDP per capita (PPP US$) • Composite Indicator UNDP Human Development Index: • Low Human Development [0.00 – 0.49]; • Medium [0.5 – 0.799]; • High [0.8 – 1].
Development: Non-Income Measurement (2) • Are there other useful development indicators? • Urban population % (urbanisation) • Percentage under 15 years old (age structure); • Gender structure; • Gender-Related Development Index (GDI); • Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) • Number of computers per 1,000 inhabitants; • Health care.
Social and Welfare Dimension: Development • Economic Growth VS Development • Not only GDP growth but also: • Self-sustaining development; • Enlarging people’s choice/rights; • Democracy; • Robust and stable institutions; • Decent standard of living: • Access to education; • Nutrition and health; • Political and cultural freedom. • Basic components of country risk and close correlation between HDI and country risk (ex. Sierra Leone) but not the reverse (ex. Cuba!)
What is Poverty? • Poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional concept: • Material aspects; • Non material aspects; • Personal features (age, gender, race); • Location cannot be fully captured by the income level!
Three Perspectives on Poverty • Income Need Perspectives: • Being below a defined poverty line; • Basic Need Perspective: • no minimal acceptable fulfilment of human needs; • Capability Perspective • physical; non-physical needs and functionings.
Measuring Poverty • 1st STEP: IDENTIFICATION • 2nd STEP: AGGREGATION i.e. how identify the poor people in society and once identified how summarise (aggregate) the information on them into an useable and meaningful measure of poverty (Amartya Sen)
Identification • A) Objective indicators of poverty: • Income or Expenditure? • Unit of analysis: Household, Families or Individuals? • Adjusting for differences in household size and composition: equivalence of scale
B) Subjective Indicators of Poverty • Basic needs: adequate clothing, food and shelter, health and education; • Measure: Human Poverty Index (HPI): • Decent Standard of Living: • % of pop not using an improved water source; • % of chinldren under weight for age; • Knowledge/Adult Illiteracy Rate: • % of illiterate people aged > 15; • A long and healthy life: • Prob at birth of not surviving to age 40 (60 in OECD countries);HDI Achievements • Weak relationship between objective indicator of poverty and HPI.
Aggregation:The Poverty Line • 1° step: choose and indicator of well-being; • 2° step: define a threshold or poverty line; • 3° step: population below the PL are poor. Absolute (Sen) • Poverty as an concept Relative (Atkinson)
Growth & Poverty • Growth reduces poverty; BUT it depends on two factors: • The type of growth; • The initial level of inequality (share of population just below the poverty line VS extreme poverty).
Poverty and Growth • Poverty may be a barrier to growth: • Vicious circle and poverty traps: high poverty leads to low growth and low growth leads to high poverty! • Which channels? • Poverty deters investment and growth especially where the degree of financial development is limited; • But also through a negative impact on education, health and innovation!
References • Bouchet, Clark and Groslambert (2003): “Country Risk Assessment”, Wiley finance (Chapter 4). • Human Development Report –UNDP web site- • McCulloch, N.; Winters, A. and Cirera, X. (2002): “Trade Liberaliation and Poverty: an Handbook”, Chapter3 “Poverty and the poor”, eds. CEPR • Perry, G. et all (2006): ”Poverty Reduction and Growth: Virtuous and Vicious Circles”, World Bank Report