Hites Ahir

Bio: Hites Ahir is an academic researcher from International Monetary Fund. The author has contributed to research in topics: Financial services & Public finance. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 3 publications receiving 185 citations.

The World Uncertainty Index

Abstract: We construct a new index of uncertainty — the World Uncertainty Index (WUI) — for 143 individual countries on a quarterly basis from 1996 onwards. This is defined using the frequency of the word “uncertainty” in the quarterly Economist Intelligent Unit country reports. Globally, the Index spikes near the 9/11 attack, SARS outbreak, Gulf War II, Euro debt crisis, El Nino, European border crisis, UK Brexit vote and the 2016 US election. Uncertainty spikes tend to be more synchronized within advanced economies and between economies with tighter trade and financial linkages. The level of uncertainty is significantly higher in developing countries and is positively associated with economic policy uncertainty and stock market volatility, and negatively with GDP growth. In a panel vector autoregressive setting, we find that innovations in the WUI foreshadow significant declines in output.

Economic growth and income inequality

Abstract: We investigate whether income inequality affects subsequent growth in a cross-country sample for 1965-90, using the models of Barro (1997), Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) and Sachs and Warner (1997), with negative results. We then investigate the evolution of income inequality over the same period and its correlation with growth. The dominating feature is inequality convergence across countries. This convergence has been significantly faster amongst developed countries. Growth does not appear to influence the evolution of inequality over time. Outline

Inequality and Growth: What Can the Data Say?

Abstract: This paper describes the correlations between inequality and the growth rates in cross-country data. Using non-parametric methods, we show that the growth rate is an inverted U-shaped function of net changes in inequality: Changes in inequality (in any direction) are associated with reduced growth in the next period. The estimated relationship is robust to variations in control variables and estimation methods. This inverted U-curve is consistent with a simple political economy model, although, as we point out, efforts to interpret this model causally run into difficult identification problems. We show that this non-linearity is sufficient to explain why previous estimates of the relationship between the level of inequality and growth are so different from one another.

COVID-induced economic uncertainty

Abstract: Assessing the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is essential for policymakers, but challenging because the crisis has unfolded with extreme speed. We identify three indicators – stock market volatility, newspaper-based economic uncertainty, and subjective uncertainty in business expectation surveys – that provide real-time forward-looking uncertainty measures. We use these indicators to document and quantify the enormous increase in economic uncertainty in the past several weeks. We also illustrate how these forward-looking measures can be used to assess the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, we feed COVID-induced first-moment and uncertainty shocks into an estimated model of disaster effects developed by Baker, Bloom and Terry (2020). Our illustrative exercise implies a year-on-year contraction in U.S. real GDP of nearly 11 percent as of 2020 Q4, with a 90 percent confidence interval extending to a nearly 20 percent contraction. The exercise says that about half of the forecasted output contraction reflects a negative effect of COVID-induced uncertainty.

Global assessment of environment, health and economic impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Abstract: The institution of social distancing and punitive measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 through human-to-human transmission has environmental, health and economic impact. While the global pandemic has led to the enhancement of the health system and decline of emissions, economic development appears deteriorating. Here, we present the global environmental, health and economic dimension of the effect of COVID-19 using qualitative and empirical assessments. We report the health system policies, environmental sustainability issues, and fiscal, monetary and exchange rate measures introduced during lockdown across countries. While air pollution is reported to have declined, municipal and medical waste is increasing. The COVID-19 global pandemic uncertainty ranks the UK as the country with the highest uncertainty level among 143 countries. The USA has introduced 100% of pre-COVID-19 crisis level GDP, the highest policy cut-rate among 162 countries. Science, innovation, research and development underpin COVID-19 containment measures implemented across countries. Our study demonstrates the need for future research to focus on environment-health-economic nexus-a trilemma that has a potential trade-off.