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Ize, Alain

Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, The World Bank
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International finance, Macroeconomics, Monetary policy, Financial sector issues and regulation
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Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, The World Bank
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Alain Ize is a senior consultant to the Chief Economist Unit of the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank. His research and publications cover issues of international finance and open macroeconomics (including exchange rate, monetary policy and financial dollarization issues), central banking and development banking, financial sector development and regulation, and fiscal policy. Prior to working for the World Bank, he was an Area Chief in the Financial Systems Department of the IMF. He worked previously for the Fiscal Affairs Departments of the IMF (as a senior economist), El Colegio de Mexico (as a professor and Chair of the Economics Department) and Banco de Mexico (as a researcher). He visited the University of California at Davis (1983-84) and Stanford University (1984).
Citations 23 Scopus

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Containing Systemic Risk : Are Regulatory Reform Proposals on the Right Track?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-10) de la Torre, Augusto; Ize, Alain
    This note questions two emerging views on ways to tackle systemic risk. As evidenced by the explosive growth of investment banks, which were regulated more lightly because they were assumed to be systemically less important, regulatory unevenness can trigger acutely destabilizing regulatory arbitrage. Hence, unless systemic footprints can be accurately measured and updated, something we think is unlikely, regulating differentially those institutions that are deemed to be the most systemically relevant looks like a perilous return to the past. Similarly, internalizing systemic liquidity risk by taxing maturity mismatches looks like a remnant of idiosyncratic thinking. Matching short liabilities with short assets can protect an individual intermediary's liquidity but at the expense of exacerbating systemic vulnerability.
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    Financial paradigms
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11) Torre, Augusto de la; Ize, Alain
    What market and regulatory issues led to the subprime crisis? How should prudential regulation be fixed? The answers depend on the interpretative lenses or 'paradigms' through which one sees finance. The agency paradigm, which has dominated recent regulatory policy, seems to be influencing much of the emerging reform agenda. But collective welfare failures particularly externalities and collective cognition failures particularly mood swings were at least as important in driving the crisis. All three paradigms should therefore be integrated into a more balanced policy agenda. But doing so will be difficult because they often have inconsistent policy implications.
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    Should Latin America Save More to Grow Faster?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-08) de la Torre, Augusto; Ize, Alain
    Latin America’s historically low saving rates and sub-par growth performance raise the question of whether the region should save more to grow faster. Economists generally resist acknowledging a policy-exploitable causal connection going from saving to growth because domestic saving is perceived to be fully endogenous, optimally determined, or fully substitutable by foreign saving. However, to the extent that these three assumptions do not hold, three channels can be established through which higher domestic saving—by curbing persistent current account deficits—can promote medium-term growth. The channels are first, a real interest rate channel, whereby higher saving reduces the cost of capital and enhances macro sustainability; second, a real exchange rate channel, through which higher saving leads to a more competitive real exchange rate; and third, an endogenous saving channel, whereby saving follows growth and, hence, subsequently compounds the effect of the first two channels. Econometric evidence supports all three channels and suggests that the lower-saving countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially those with recurrently weak balance of payments and persistent domestic demand pressures on the non-tradable sector, would benefit the most from boosting their saving rates.
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    The Conceptual Foundations of Macroprudential Policy : A Roadmap
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-08) de la Torre, Augusto; Ize, Alain
    This paper explores post-Lehman macroprudential regulation by interacting two types of market failures (principal-agent and collective action) with two cognition modes (unconstrained and constrained) in the context of aggregate risk. Four paradigms with orthogonal policy justifications are identified. In the first time consistency paradigm, regulation offsets the moral hazard implications of efficient but time inconsistent post-crisis bailouts. In the second dynamic alignment paradigm, it protects unsophisticated market participants by maintaining principal-agent incentives continuously aligned in the face of aggregate shocks. In the third collective action paradigm, regulation arises in response to the socially inefficient yet rational financial instability resulting from uninternalized externalities. The fourth collective cognition paradigm is grounded on the need to temper the mood swings that arise from bounded rationality or severe cognitive frictions in a rapidly changing, complex and uncertain world. These four rationales give rise to important tensions and trade-offs in the design of macroprudential policy.
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    The Process of Financial Development : A Statistical View from the FSAP Program
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-05) Pardo, Rafael; Ize, Alain; Zekri, Sarah
    This paper uses a simple statistical approach to exploit some of the wealth of information contained in FSAP reports. The authors classify and count FSAP recommendations along a logical grid that reflects the fabric of financial activity and the ways in which states organize their policies in support of financial development. With some caveats reflecting the inherent limitations of the exercise, this analysis provides a simple monitoring tool to help understand the nature and evolution of the FSAP program. At the same time, it throws light on the nuts and bolts of the process of financial development and its inter-linkages with economic development. While many of the findings conform well to what one would expect, others are more surprising and also potentially more useful for understanding the inner workings of financial development.