Monetary policy shocks and productivity measures in the G-7 countries

An implication of two-country international real business cycle models is that total factor productivity should be an exogenous stochastic process. Economic theories which feature labor hoarding, variable capacity utilization, and increasing returns predict that measured productivity shifts are not exogenous; instead, expansionary aggregate demand shocks should lead to an increase in measured productivity. For each of the G-7 countries, this paper measures quarterly aggregate total factor productivity for the domestic country and its rest-of-world (G-6) counterpart. In each case the domestic productivity measures are not strictly exogenous: expansionary U.S. monetary policy shocks, as well as other G-6 monetary policy shocks, lead to productivity expansions. The evidence indicates that international business cycle models are misspecified unless they feature endogenous productivity mechanisms.Received: June 2001, Accepted: December 2001, JEL Classification: E5, F4Correspondence to: Charles L. EvansFor their helpful comments, we thank Mario Crucini, Patricia Reynolds, and Steve Strongin. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago or the Federal Reserve System.     

Welfare-improving government behavior and inequality in a heterogeneous agents model

Government’s behavior is expected to be non-neutral in terms of impacts on both welfare and inequality. It is acknowledged in most literature that fiscal policy often involves trade-offs between economic growth and inequality.By applying an equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, capable of exploring the relationship between fiscal policy variables and the endogenous cross-section distribution of income, wealth, consumption and leisure, this paper aims at assessing (i) the optimal menu of government expenditures as well as of (ii) their inter-temporal financing. These are key issues in times of fiscal imbalances and their correction is dominating the current (European) policy agenda.     

Productivity Shocks and Monetary Policy in a Two-Country Model

In this paper, we examine the effects of foreign productivity shocks on monetary policy in a symmetric open economy. Our two-country model incorporates the New Keynesian features of price stickiness and monopolistic competition based on the cost channel of Ravenna and Walsh (2006). In particular, in response to asymmetric productivity shocks, firms in one country achieve a more efficient level of production than those in another economy. Because the terms of trade are directly affected by changes in both economies’ output levels, international trade creates a transmission channel for inflation dynamics in which a deflationary spiral in foreign producer prices reduces domestic output. When there is a decline in economic activity, the monetary authority should react to this adverse situation by lowering the key interest rate. The impulse response function from the model shows that a productivity shock can cause a real depreciation of the exchange rate when economies are closely integrated through international trade.     

Optimal Monetary Policy with Vertical Production and Trade*

This paper explores the optimal monetary policy response to domestic and foreign technology shocks in an open economy with vertical structure of production and trade. We find that any stage‐specific productivity shock in one country may have a transborder spillover effect on the other country via the vertical trade. So when choosing optimal monetary rules, each monetary authority should respond to both home and foreign productivity shocks. Also, the flexible exchange rate cannot replicate the flexible price equilibrium, even under producer currency pricing, due to price stickiness in multiple stages. We also find that the existence of a transborder spillover effect depends on the currencies of price setting. Finally, vertical trade may affect the value of exchange rate flexibility under PCP and LCP setting.     

Rational expectations,market shocks,and the exchange rate

The world economy has been subjected to numerous real shocks in recent years. In addition, purchasing-power parity seems to have collapsed. Critics of the monetary approach to the exchange rate have been quick to draw attention to these facts. This paper extends the basic framework of the monetary approach so that it provides a useful tool for explaining the impact of real shocks on the exchange rate and so that it is compatible with the existence of significant deviations from purchasing-power parity. The real shocks that are discussed include changes in commercial policy, the terms of trade, and productivity. It is demonstrated that real shocks influence the exchange rate through two distinct channels—a real-income channel and a deviations from purchasing-power-parity channel.     

Endogenous uncertainty and the non-neutrality of money

Summary. We study some implications of the Theory of Rational Beliefs to monetary policy. We show that monetary policy in a Rational Beliefs environment can have an important effect on the characteristics of economic fluctuations. In Rational Beliefs Equilibria money is generically non-neutral unlike Rational Expectations Equilibria in which money is neutral and monetary policy is ineffective. Under Rational Beliefs Equilibria nominal prices and real output change not only in response to changes in the exogenous growth rate of money but also in response to changes in the state of beliefs. In Rational Beliefs Equilibria monetary shocks have real effects even when they are observed but are not fully anticipated. Furthermore, the non-neutrality of money results in a short run Phillips curve. When money “flutters, real output sputters” [8]. We show that Endogenous Uncertainty and the distribution of market beliefs are the major explanatory variables of such fluctuations. Under Rational Expectations monetary policy is ineffective because agents neutralize it by predicting correctly the effect of the policy. Under Rational Beliefs it is shown instead that inflation and recessions can be substantially aggravated by the distribution of market beliefs. Received: January 14, 2002; revised version: April 5, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" I would like to thank Mordecai Kurz for his constant help and support. Most of the ideas developed hereby have been inspired by innumerable and fruitful discussions with him. I have also greatly benefited from helpful comments by Stanley Black, Luigi Campiglio, Carsten Nielsen and Ho-Mou Wu. I also received valuable remarks from participants at the V meeting of “The Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory” held in Ischia, Italy, on July 2-8, 2001, where an initial draft of the present work was presented.     

Demand shocks and productivity growth

This paper presents evidence on the relationship between cyclical shocks and productivity growth, for 20 2-digit SIC US manufacturing industries and a set of monetary policy, fiscal policy, and oil price shocks. The paper uses as a measure of productivity change a Solow residual corrected for a wide range of non-technological effects due to imperfect-competition, non-constant returns to scale, and cyclical utilization rates of capital and labor services. The empirical framework identifies policy shocks independently of productivity measurement issues via a two-step procedure. While the typical industry shows weak responses of productivity to the shocks considered, in some industries temporary contractionary policy shocks lead to increases in productivity. In addition, the results reveal that there are localized asymmetries, with contractionary policy shocks having larger productivity effects than their expansionary counterparts. The results support the thesis that job reallocation is an important channel linking contractionary policy shocks and productivity growth. These results support the pit-stop view of downturns.Received: April 200, Accepted: March 2005, António Gomes de Menezes: I thank participants at seminars at Boston College, University of Alberta and Simon Fraser University and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

The division of labor in innovation between general purpose technology and special purpose technology

This paper constructs an endogenous growth model that identifies three patterns in the division of labor in terms of innovation between GPT and SPT sectors: (1) the SPT stage, (2) the GPT-SPT joint-research stage, and (3) the autonomous GPT stage. It is shown that the emergence of GPT only has a temporary level effect, and a negative effect on economic growth. However, the new phenomenon of the autonomous GPT stage has a positive influence on both growth and level effects. This result theoretically explains the emergence and resolution of the IT productivity paradox.     

FINANCIAL MARKET INTEGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLE VOLATILITY IN A MONETARY UNION

This paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium two‐country sticky‐price model to analyze the implications of financial market integration for the propagation of asymmetric productivity and government spending shocks in a monetary union. Financial market integration has a small effect on the propagation of these shocks if households can only trade in risk‐free bonds. However, financial market integration has a more substantial effect on the propagation of these shocks in a monetary union with a complete market for state‐contingent claims. This result indicates that it may be important to account for threshold effects in empirical analyses of the impact of financial market integration on business cycle volatility in a monetary union.     

THE EFFECTS OF NEWS WHEN LIQUIDITY MATTERS

We analyze the impact of news (information shocks) in economies where liquidity matters, including those with endogenous credit limits, and those with assets serving as collateral or media of exchange. Although we also consider news about productivity and credit conditions, a leading case concerns monetary policy announcements. Real or monetary news has big effects on markets, potentially causing cyclic or boom–bust responses, even though we focus on the unique transition consistent with stationarity after shocks. In particular, policy announcements may induce instead of reduce volatility. We also discuss the implications for the inflation puzzle, forward-guidance puzzle, and other apparent anomalies.     

A re-examination of the impacts of macroeconomic and financial shocks on real exchange rate fluctuation: evidence from G7 and Asian countries

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to investigate the sources of real exchange rate fluctuation by utilizing sign restrictions in structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) method. Under an agnostic identification scheme, the empirical results show that the delayed overshooting puzzle still exists in response to monetary shock even if price puzzle is ruled out by construction. In contrast, all countries experience a significant initial real depreciation, and then gradually appreciate in response to currency risk premium (CRP) shock. This finding is consistent with Dornbusch’s overshooting model. In addition, I examine the importance of investors’ expectations in determining the short-term variations in the real exchange rate. The results indicate that the CRP and expectation shocks obviously outperformed the demand, supply and monetary shocks in terms of explaining the real exchange rate fluctuation.     

Optimal long-run inflation with occasionally binding financial constraints

This paper studies the optimal long-run inflation rate in a simple New Keynesian model with occasionally binding collateral constraints that intermediate-good firms face on hiring labor. The paper finds that the optimal long-run annual inflation rate is around 1.5% if the economy is hit by a total factor productivity (TFP) shock and nearly 2.5% if the economy is subject to a markup shock. The shadow value of the collateral constraint is akin to an endogenous cost-push shock. Differently from usual cost-push shocks, however, this shock is asymmetric as it takes non-negative values only. Since the mean of this asymmetric endogenous cost-push shock is positive, inflation is also positive on average. In addition, a binding collateral constraint resembles a time-varying tax on labor, which the monetary authority can smooth by setting a positive inflation rate. More generally, the basic result is related to standard Ramsey theory in that optimal policy smoothes distortions over time.     

MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY EFFICIENCY AND COORDINATION IN A MULTI‐SECTOR OPEN‐ECONOMY GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM MODEL

The paper analyzes monetary and fiscal stabilization and coordination in a multi‐sector stochastic new open economy macroeconomics (NOEM) model. It first aims to assess the capacity of fiscal and monetary policy to reduce or eliminate the negative welfare effects of an unanticipated productivity shock affecting some or all of the sectors in each country. Second, it evaluates the possible gains from international monetary cooperation as well as the impact of active fiscal policy on the welfare performance of monetary policy. The setup also allows for international asymmetry concerning the uncertainty over the shocks. The results show that monetary and fiscal policies are efficient tools of stabilization and under several conditions they can replicate the flexible‐price equilibrium. However, their welfare performance is not necessarily increased when both monetary and fiscal policies react to shocks at the national level. The existence of bilateral gains from monetary cooperation depends on the degree of asymmetry concerning the uncertainty over the shocks.     

Money-based underlying inflation measure for Russia: a structural dynamic factor model approach

We estimate a dynamic factor model for the cross section of monetary and price indicators. We extract the common part of the dataset’s fluctuations and decompose it into structural shocks. We argue that one of the shocks identified has empirical properties (in terms of impulse response functions) that are fully in line with the theoretically expected relationship between money growth and inflation, confirming that the process identified has the capacity for economic interpretation. Based on this finding, we decompose recent inflationary developments in Russia into those that are associated with changes in monetary stance and other shorter-lived shocks.     

The optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a small open economy

Abstract.  This paper studies how the nature of shocks affects the optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a small open economy. Three classic rules, fixed exchange rates, monetary targeting, and inflation targeting are studied and ranked by comparing with the optimal monetary policy under commitment. We find that the ranking of the simple rules can be mapped to the terms-of-trade variability that the rule allows relative to what a particular shock optimally calls for. It turns out that inflation targeting dominates the other two rules under productivity or velocity shocks, whereas monetary targeting is the best performer under fiscal shocks.     

External monetary shocks and monetary integration: Evidence from the Bulgarian currency board

Starting July the 1st 1997, Bulgaria adopted a Currency Board (CB) monetary system. This paper aims at investigating if the adoption of the CB monetary system, which involves the cost of losing monetary autonomy, has provided a relatively better (with respect to other CEEC) monetary integration of Bulgaria with the European Monetary Union (EMU). Since Bulgarian monetary variables are endogenous under a CB, we focus on the ECB and FED interest rates as the main sources on monetary volatility. First, we find that ECB shocks are more rapidly absorbed and have less significant impact of domestic variables, with respect to other external monetary shocks (FED rate changes). Second, the responses of Bulgarian variables following changes in the ECB interest rate present lower persistence and significance, with respect to what the previous literature emphasized for other CEEC with monetary autonomy. This latter result still holds when accounting for different sources of cross-country heterogeneity outlined in the literature, thus supporting that the adoption of the CB may have worked as a rather good device in terms of integration of Bulgaria into the EMU.     

ENDOGENOUS SELECTION OF PRODUCERS,ASSET PRICES,AND PRODUCTIVITY SLOWDOWN*

This paper presents a simple heterogeneous agent model to show that shocks that reduce aggregate borrowing capacity of producers under borrowing constraints cause endogenous productivity slowdowns through declines in asset prices and biased selections of producers. These dynamics of the model replicate the qualitative features of the Japanese economy during the 1990s, including a decline in the within effect in total factor productivity growth decomposition as well as default on mortgage loans. Policy experiments demonstrate that foreclosure restrictions already in place mitigate an exogenous productivity slowdown, but that a tightening of foreclosure restrictions causes an endogenous productivity slowdown.     

Exchange rate dynamics in economies with portfolio rigidities

This paper studies the international transmission of productivity and monetary shocks in a general equilibrium two-country monetary model with portfolio rigidities and distribution costs in trade. The model features two types of transport costs (iceberg costs and distribution costs in terms of nontradables) and incomplete markets. The specification employed here is able to generate the domestic liquidity effect, increase in the foreign–domestic interest rate differential, and the nominal depreciation after a monetary injection. Quantitatively, the model with distribution costs as in Burstein, Neves and Rebelo (2003) performs better matching some business cycle moments, but fails to generate the high volatility of exchange rates observed in the data.     

Financial Market Imperfections, Labour Market Imperfections and Business Cycles

A Greenwald–Stiglitz (1993a) style rational expectations business cycle model is introduced in which uncorrelated productivity shocks or monetary shocks generate autocorrelated employment fluctuations due to financial constraints. The propagation mechanism is carefully modelled: because of capital market imperfections (only standard debt contracts are traded), firms' labour demand changes in response to changes in their balance-sheet position; because of labour market imperfections (efficiency wages), employment and unemployment fluctuate in response to shifts in labour demand. The virtue of the model is its simplicity. Despite the fact that unemployment is endogenous, the dynamic behaviour of the model under rational expectations can be characterised analytically.
JEL classification : E 32     

Endogenous Growth and Equilibrium Unemployment in a North–South Model

A North–South model is developed which incorporates an endogenous rate of equilibrium unemployment in the North in the context of long-run growth. It is shown how increases in the size of public debt and unemployment compensation financed by payroll taxation, all measured relative to productivity, raise the Northern natural rate of unemployment and, consequently, reduce the global rate of long-run growth. The effect of the shocks is also to drive down the rate of employment expansion in the South. A set of the fundamental determinants of the world terms of trade is obtained, which includes policy parameters.