Central Bank Behavior and Statutory Independence

This paper integrates the Taylor reaction function literature with the literature on central bank independence (CBI). The central bank??s policy reaction function describes its behaviors, which measures the practical CBI, as opposed to the legal CBI measured by CBI indices. By analyzing the relationship between various legal CBI indices and the central banks?? reactions to inflation for 18 OECD countries, we find that the difference of behaviors among central banks is consistent with the economic measure of independence, which measures how easy it is for the government to finance its deficits by direct access to credit from the central bank.     

Volatility expectations and asymmetric effects of direct interventions in the FX market

In this paper, I investigate the effects of central bank interventions (CBI) on ex-ante exchange rate volatility. I measure volatility expectations by implied volatilities estimated from at-the-money currency options prices. Using a Markov switching model, I estimate the effects of CBI which depend on market conditions. The results suggest that the effects of CBI depend on the prevailing volatility regime. It is found that CBI on the DEM–USD market were not necessarily destabilizing after the Louvre Agreement when expected volatility was relatively high.     

ARE AFRICAN CENTRAL BANKS SUFFICIENTLY INDEPENDENT FOR MONETARY CONVERGENCE?

Central bank independence (CBI) is currently a widely debated and topical issue commanding the centre point of many economical and political debates, filling the pages of many scholarly journals. Both central bank independence and accountability are currently regarded as necessary best practices for achieving price stability. The importance of CBI rests on the premise that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon, and that the cost of reducing inflation can be lowered by an independent central bank with credibility. Support for CBI also stems from the argument that the power to create money should generally be separated from the power to spend it. This is even more relevant for countries with weak political institutions. However, various studies (cited below) detected lower inflation in those countries where independence of their central banks is the strongest. Countries all over – including some on the African continent – have increased the independence of their central banks accordingly.     

转轨经济中中央银行的独立性

中央银行独立性包括法定独立性和真实独立性两个方面的内容，还存在若干其他的分类。中央银行独立性和通货膨胀之间关系的研究一直是中央银行独立性研究的核心内容之一。实证研究表明，转轨经济中中央银行独立性与通货膨胀之间并不存在显著的相关性。但增强中央银行独立性对于转轨中国家而言，仍具有十分重要的意义。     

Foreign Capital Flows,Uncertainties of Exchange Rates and Central Bank Independence: Implications for Emerging Economies

Utilizing time series data for a panel of 22 emerging countries and applying Granger causality tests, this paper extends the relationship between central bank independence (CBI) and uncertainties of inflation by including the phenomena of exchange rates and foreign capital flows. There are two specific objectives of this investigation. The first objective is to see whether uncertainty of inflation induces volatility of exchange rates, and vice versa, under differing degrees of CBI. The second objective is to explore whether the dynamics of the former relationship influence foreign capital flows in turn and, if so, whether the extent of CBI plays any role in shaping that influence. The period of study spans the years 1968 through 2013. Conditional variances for inflation and exchange rates define proxies for uncertainties of inflation and exchange rates in the empirical analysis. Additionally, annual inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) provide measures for foreign capital flows in the analysis. Results of causality tests for high and low CBI country subgroups show interesting differences. For the high CBI countries, uncertainty of inflation and uncertainty of exchange rates do not share any causal relationship whatsoever between them. However, a weak link runs from FDI to uncertainties of inflation in the long run. This may be indicative of the disciplined monetary policy and tamed inflation in these countries. Contrastingly, for the low CBI countries, there is strong evidence of causal links running from uncertainties of inflation to uncertainties of exchange rates on the one hand and to FDI flows on the other. In addition, there is indication of a bi-directional causal link between FDI flows and exchange rates for these countries.     

Output Expectations and Forecasting of UK Manufacturing

This paper analyses both quarterly data from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Survey on respondents’ expectations of recent and forthcoming manufacturing output and monthly Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures on actual manufacturing output within the UK. Quarterly output expectations of the CBI manufacturers are explained from the monthly ONS observations using a bounded rationality approach. The logistic formulation models the diffusion process across respondents. There is a backward-looking CBI Survey perspective, explained by past ONS observations, and a forward-looking perspective, explained from future ONS statistics. Also, the forecasting of monthly manufacturing output from earlier values, along with the quarterly CBI Survey information, is examined and tested against the alternative Pesaran/Thomas method. The study provides econometric evidence for the validity of the logistic model and shows that bounded rationality can explain the formation of predictions among business managers in the UK manufacturing sector. The emerging consensus from the literature, supported by this paper, is that the logistic format is a superior approximation to the true data generating process compared with the earlier standard Anderson/Pesaran/Thomas approach. An adjustment to the Survey is used, which achieves perfect symmetry with up and down versions of the data. The benefits of this adjustment are tested in the forecasting section.

Recent U.S. economic policies and the Central Caribbean economies

This study examines the trade and investment performances of three economies in the Central Caribbean region since the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and associated programs. We find that the rapid growth in nontraditional exports from these economies to the United States did not necessarily translate into net foreign exchange earnings. On a per capita basis, export-related investment in Haiti was much lower than in the other two economies — Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. As a percentage of the labor force, gross employment gains for Jamaica have been significantly larger than those in either the Dominican Republic or Haiti. It appears that the policies favoring expansion in the offshore sector may foster employment opportunities of females, especially where traditional sectors are in decline.     

ERP持续业务改进（CBI）标准实施方法

ERP系统的上线运行仅仅意味着企业ERP项目的真正开始,接下来的考验是ERP系统能否支持企业持续不断的业务发展。也就是说,一个ERP系统必须要在运行过程中得到持续的改进和优化,才能满足企业业务不断发展或变化的需求,这就催生了ERP系统持续业务改进项目(continual business improvement,简称CBI项目)。本文总结了某企业历次CBI项目的实施经验,从项目主计划和蓝图设计报告两个方面详细介绍CBI项目的标准实施方法,建立了一套科学、规范、严谨的CBI项目标准工作流程和模板。     

Forecasting indicators of personal income differences

Forecasting of the distribution and differentiation parameters of personal cash income is discussed. Methods for forecasting parameters of population distribution by per capita income are proposed, and these parameters are correlated to predicted macroeconomic indices. Diagrams of transition to the Lorenz curve are presented. The dependence of income spread indices on parameters of income distribution of the population is established. Additional, more informative and accurate, income spread indices are proposed.     

Controlling inflation in transition economies: The relevance of central bank independence and the right nominal anchor

Controlling inflation is a central problem in transition economies. This paper asks under what conditions or even whether central bank independence helps in this task. The conclusion shows that merely imposing legal independence on the central bank may be ineffective or even counterproductive. It is necessary to make a monetary strategy and the responsibilities and restrictions of central bank policy transparent to the public. In addition, it is important that the right nominal anchor is selected—one that is, or is believed to be, effective and sustainable. Both monetary targeting and inflation targeting are assumed to be unsuitable for most transition countries. Instead, some kind of dynamic exchange rate targeting appears to be the most reasonable choice.     

The methods for building the differentiated balance of the population’s cash incomes and expenditures and the prediction calculations on its basis

The paper describes the methods for building the differentiated performance balances of cash incomes and expenditures for the modern Russian economy, which take into consideration the properties of the available initial statistical information. It gives the indices of differentiated performance balances for 2005 and 2007, including the detailed indices of the population’s expenditures for separate types of goods and services from the angle of decile income groups. The system for the prediction calculations of the indices of the differentiated balance, indices of income differentiation, and size and structure of the poor population is presented.     

Contracting out by the public sector: theory, evidence, prospects

Unlike privatization, contracting out (or simply 'contracting')does not generally involve the sale of publicly owned assets.Yet it has been widely used as a mechanism for reform of public-sectorservice provision. Contracting introduces ex-ante competition-competitionfor the market through competitive tendering. This article examinesboth the theory and evidence of contracting by the public sector.It considers the theoretical conditions, such as contractualincompleteness and the ownership pf physical assets, which mayimpede efficient contracting. It also reviews the internationalevidence which suggests that savings in the order of 20 percent are achievable, without sacrificing the quality of serviceprovided. In the UK, savings of between £240m and £280mhave been estimated for contracts let at the central governmentlevel. Substantial savings have also been generated by contractingat the local government level.     

我国财政专项转移支付决策过程分析--以多源流分析为视角

财政转移支付是1994年实行分税制以来平衡中央-地方以及区域间财力不均的制度，我国专项转移支付又始终占据着财政转移支付的重大比重。专项转移支付在确定资金转移地区，资金转移项目以及每个专项拨款多少的标准是如何确定的？这些都取决于专项转移支付的决策过程。文章通过多源流分析视角来探析我国财政专项转移支付的决策过程中存在的问题，了解我国财政专项转移支付的决策过程。     

Exchange rate determination: a theory of the decisive role of central bank cooperation and conflict

Economists’ faith that variable exchange rates benevolently equilibrate has been empirically disconfirmed. That faith is here tackled at its theoretical core with an exchange rate model that although ultra abstract, includes the undeniable fundamentals of market power and differential goals of central bankers and large-scale private players. It permits a game theoretic analysis under the assumption that all agents maximize their payoffs. The paper then relaxes the assumption of maximising agents, allowing for a more complex and thus realistic second version of the model that is interpretable within SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory of risk and uncertainty. In an experimental setting, this second version of the model points to: a) the inability of agents in central banks, governments and the private real and financial sectors to operate in maximising ways; b) destructive central bank conflict; and c) the widely discrepant outcomes arising from the dynamics of individual personality differences. The paper’s theoretical and empirical findings thus both point to the merits of a single world currency.     

An alternative to Marshall: Economic history and applied economics at the early LSE

Conclusion The LSE in its early years did not produce a “school of economics” in the sense that Marshall's Cambridge constituted a “school.” English historical economics was too diffuse, too lacking in strong leadership, too untheoretical, and too committed to economic history as a discipline to create such a “school.” The special contribution of the LSE in the pre-war period was certainly not in theory, since one of the chief reasons for it being an alternative to Marshall's school of orthodoxy was that it paid relatively little attention to economic theory during this period. Rather, its alternative economics was its central conception that the economist'sraison d'etre was to solve pressing contemporary problems for which orthodox theory seemed to offer little guidance. Thus its teachers and curriculum, assembled by Hewins and the Webbs, emphasized applied subjects and economic history.     

Entrepreneurship and intra-industry trade

Entrepreneurship and Intra-Industry Trade. — The paper introduces entrepreneurs into the theories of intra-industry trade and investigates the role of a country ’s “entrepreneurship” in international trade. It is shown that therelative entrepreneurship between countries determines the terms of trade but the welfare effects are not obvious. Among other things, it is found that (1) an increase in exports improves the terms of trade and (2) an increase in country size is not always beneficial.     

The economics of socialism as economics of shortage. A critical review

Summary The article is an extended review of J. Kornai’sEconomics of Shortage. Salient feature of this book is a behavioural in place of a decision-theoretic approach to socialist economies. The article discusses central concepts of Kornai’s analysis as hard and soft budget constraints, shortage and slack, taut plans, sellers’ markets. The main hypothesis says that the achievements of socialism, work guarantee and redistribution, bring about soft budget constraints and thus cause shortage. It is argued, however, that existing socialist systems have ample leeway for economic reforms. Review article of J. Kornai, Economics of Shortage, Vol. I and II, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam and New York, 1980. Pp. XVII + 650. 2-Volume Set Dfl. 170,-.     

The distribution of seigniorage: a note on klein and neumann

Conclusion Building on Drazen [1985], we have developed a suitable framework for the analysis of the revenue from money and its distribution between the government and the central bank. In contrast to the accounting system offered by K-N, this framework adopts a consistent approach with respect to the stock and flow aspects of monetary revenue. Comparing their measure of the government’s share in monetary revenue with ours, one can conclude that K-N: (i) neglect the stock effects of monetary revenue; (ii) use an incorrect concept of debt in their definition of the government’s revenue; and (iii) mistakenly include a revaluation term in their definition of fiscal seigniorage. After correction for this last factor the share of the government in total seigniorage rises from 38.3 per cent to 64.8 per cent. It should be noticed that in the literature often a narrower concept of monetary revenue is used, namely the change in high-powered money (M). This concept neglects the stock component of the revenue of money (r M) as well as the operating and other costs of the central bank. At first sight, this may seem appropriate if the analysis concentrates on the tax aspect, i.e. the savings due to money creation, rather than the broader issue of evaluation of the benefits of the monetary monopoly. This concerns the extensive literature on optimal seigniorage as well as the literature on the tax-seigniorage trade-off [cf. Grilli, 1989]. However, as is clearly pointed out by Klein and Neumann, it is just with respect to this fiscal aspect of money that the distribution of revenues from money between the central bank and the government becomes relevant.     

Regional integration in East Asia. From market-driven regionalisation to institutionalised regionalism?

Conclusions The analyses have shown that ESACs unprecedented emergence in world trade and capital transactions has been accompanied by a growing share of intra-area transactions. At least for the goods sector, the evidence is clear. Intra-area transactions grew faster than those to the rest of world, and the latter rose faster than world trade. Given this “double growth” performance, there was no trade diversion in the static zero sum meaning. Driving forces of fast growing intra-area transactions were basically internal conditions, such as “natural” trading partnership (geographical and cultural proximity, size, and complementarity in resource endowment and production structure), rising income levels fostering intra-industry trade, the economic opening of China, and unilateral liberalisation of trade and capital transactions on a non-discriminatory basis. It cannot be denied that external factors as protectionism and recession in non-Asian OECD countries have also contributed to this performance. Yet, it seems safe to assume that even without the US and European recession in the early eighties and early nineties and without the spread on non-tariff barriers, intraarea transactions would have received sufficient fuels from the internal factors to grow more rapidly than transactions with the rest of the world.¹⁷ Furthermore, a base effect of a low initial level of intra-area trade cannot be neglected.