In the short run, devaluation hurts private investment because higher real import costs for capital and intermediate goods limit private sector profitability. In the long run, the recovery in tradable goods sectors increases profitability and private investment recovers. But how long is the long run?
The aim of the research described in this volume is to examine the behavior of private domestic investment in a sample of seven developing economies: Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. The studies represent a first step toward understanding the investment process in developing countries and the scope for government policy to affect private capital formation. Such issues will become increasingly important in the future as more developing countries try to encourage private investment. Four key issues emerge in the analysis of the determinants of private investment and its role in adjustment programs in developing countries. The first is the impact of changes in the exchange rate; the second major concern is the existence of crowding out of private activity as a result of government borrowing in domestic financial markets through interest rates or quantity rationing. A third and related issue is whether government spending, particularly that on investment, "crowds in" or "crowds out" private capital formation. Fourth, the effects of uncertainty are important in determining the response of private agents to changes in the incentive structure.
Perestroyka, introduced in the Soviet Union to reform the economy after the "period of stagnation" under Brezhnev, involves combining centralized planning with elements of a market economy. For it to succeed, certain micro and macro conditions need to be fulfilled.
Reducing and rationalizing the earmarking of government funds will give Colombia's government more flexibility. The extent of earmarking could be sharply reduced by limiting its application to revenue- sharing between levels of government and to cases where the benefit applies.