Inflation and stagflation

This paper reports on the author's theoretical and empirical research which has supported the following propositions. First, the change in the rate of inflation from one year to the next depends upon the growth of the money supply less the current rate of inflation. The current unemployment rate does not significantly affect whether the rate of inflation will rise or fall. If the monetary authorities raise the rate of monetary expansion above the current rate of inflation, the latter will rise regardless of the slack in the economy. Second, the change in the unemployment rate from one year to the next depends upon: (a) the deviation of the current unemployment rate from its equilibrium value and (b) the growth of the money supply less the current rate of inflation. The first effect concerns wage flexibility and the second effect concerns the shift of the aggregate demand (C+I+G) curve.     

地方政府债券置换对银行信贷及货币供给的影响

通过构建基于商业银行资产负债结构的地方债置换分析框架,研究表明,地方债置换将通过商业银行资产结构在贷款与债券之间的配置调整影响货币供给,它将使银行可贷资金增加,并导致贷款规模的变化,在贷款创造存款的信用放大机制下,引起货币供应量的变化,进而造成货币政策的扩张(收缩).贷款市场的供求弹性将决定地方债置换的扩张效应或收缩效应.在经济增长放缓、银行为弥补持有地方债收益下降、地方债纳入货币政策工具的抵押品和质押品范围的情况下,地方债置换具有货币政策扩张效应.为减少地方债对金融市场的冲击,央行需密切监测商业银行资金运用情况,提高货币政策操作的针对性,并加强同财政政策的协同配合.     

Irrepressible monetarist conclusions from a non-monetarist model

This paper presents monetary/fiscal multiplier results from the MPS Econometric Model which give irrepressible monetarist conclusions. Albert Ando's challenge to monetarist to develop their own model may now be reserved. Weak fiscal policy is supported by the MPS Model and reflects the dominant role of money in the short-run macro economic adjustment process.     

Deficits,money and inflation

This paper examines the interrelationships between monetary and fiscal policy. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether Government budget deficits influence monetary growth. Using a money supply model originally developed by Barro, we find that deficits have had a significant impact on the growth of the U.S. money supply throughout most of the period since 1961. Such a relationship need not always hold. It depends on whether government deficits place upward pressure on interest rates and whether the central bank monetizes the debt in an effort to stabilize interest rates.     

The Role of Money in Monetary Policy at the Lower Bound

In light of the current low-interest-rate environment, we reconsider the merits of strict money growth targeting (MGT) relative to conventional inflation targeting (IT) and to price level targeting (PLT). We evaluate these policies in terms of social welfare through the lens of a New Keynesian model and accounting for a zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on the nominal interest rate. Although MGT makes monetary policy vulnerable to money demand shocks, MGT contributes to achieving price level stationarity and significantly reduces the incidence and severity of the ZLB relative to both IT and PLT. Furthermore, MGT lessens the need for fiscal expansions to supplement monetary policy in fighting recessions.     

Inside–outside money competition

We study how competition from privately supplied currency substitutes affects monetary equilibria. Whenever currency is inefficiently provided, inside money competition plays a disciplinary role by providing an upper bound on equilibrium inflation rates. Furthermore, if “inside monies” can be produced at a sufficiently low cost, outside money is driven out of circulation. Whenever a ‘benevolent’ government can commit to its fiscal policy, sequential monetary policy is efficient and inside money competition plays no role.     

Public sector layoffs, severance pay, and inflation in the small open economy

Because severance pay is worth 2–5 years of wages in many LDCs, public sector layoffs increase the fiscal deficit in the short run. Nevertheless, generous severance pay is not as serious a macroeconomic problem as generally thought. In the case where the fiscal deficit is financed by printing money, inflation is continuously lower under plausible conditions. When the government can borrow in world capital markets and layoffs reduce the present-value wage bill, there exists a sequence of bond sales and subsequent redemptions that guarantees continuously lower inflation. This result does not hold, however, if the reform lacks credibility.     

Demand and supply functions for money in Canada: Some further evidence

The demand and supply functions for money in Canada are estimated in a simultaneous-equation model format in which the supply of money is considered endogenous. The results indicate that the important determinants of the demand for money are income, short-term interest rate and lagged real cash balance variables. Wealth is an unimportant explanatory variable in money demand thus rejecting the hypothesis that an increase in outside wealth increases the demand for money. The monetary base and cash reserve ratio are important explanatory variables in the money supply function and play a direct role in monetary control.     

A Model of QE,Reserve Demand,and the Money Multiplier

Quantitative easing (QE) programs have driven unprecedented expansions in the supply of central bank reserves around the world over the past two decades, fundamentally changing the implementation of monetary policy. The collapse in money multipliers following QE episodes has often been interpreted as implying banks are happy to passively hold most of the reserves created by QE. This paper develops a simple microsimulation model of the banking sector that adapts the traditional money multiplier model and allows for bank reserve demand to be inferred from monetary aggregates. The model allows the use of unwanted reserves by banks to play out over time alongside QE purchases and incorporates both significantly higher reserve demand after 2008 and capital constraints. With these additions, the model explains the persistently lower money multipliers seen in the United States following QE, as well as the growth in commercial bank deposits. The model suggests the demand from banks for reserves has increased substantially since the introduction of QE but not to the point where banks are passively absorbing all newly created reserves.     

Fiscal Policy in a Currency Union at the Zero Lower Bound

This paper constructs a two‐country core–periphery New Keynesian model of a currency union to address the interaction between the objectives of regionally directed fiscal policy constrained by a single currency and the aggregate use of fiscal policy in face of the zero lower bound (ZLB) on policy interest rates. We identify an optimal path of aggregate and relative fiscal policy responses to a negative region‐specific demand shock. Our results show that (i) in a monetary union, the optimal policy response to an asymmetric reduction in demand concentrated in the periphery always entails a relative shift of fiscal expenditure toward the worse‐affected regions, (ii) though no aggregate fiscal response is required outside the ZLB, and (iii) optimal union‐wide fiscal policy is expansionary at the ZLB. Therefore, optimal policy always entails an expansion in the periphery at the ZLB, but the optimal fiscal response in the core regions can be either expansionary or contractionary depending on the parameters of the model. However, (iv) fiscal expansion in the core is warranted if the periphery cannot implement an expansion due to constraints on public spending.     

On the joint determination of fiscal and monetary policy

The conduct of fiscal and monetary policy absent commitment depends on the interaction between the objective of smoothing distortions intertemporally and a time-consistency problem. When net nominal government obligations are positive, both fiscal and monetary policies are distortionary and the choice of debt depends on how the anticipated response in future monetary policy affects the current demand for money and bonds. There exists a unique steady state with positive net nominal government obligations, which is stable and time-consistent. For any initial level of debt, the welfare loss due to lack of commitment is small.     

Monetary disequilibria and the euro/dollar exchange rate

Although stable money demand functions are crucial for the monetary model of the exchange rate, empirical research on exchange rates and money demand is more or less disconnected. This paper tries to fill the gap for the euro/dollar exchange rate. We investigate whether monetary disequilibria provided by the empirical literature on US and European money demand functions contain useful information about exchange rate movements. Our results suggest that the empirical performance of the monetary exchange rate model improves when insights from the money demand literature are explicitly taken into account.     

我国货币政策对投资和消费的影响——基于VECM的实证研究

本文运用1996—2012年月度数据建立VECM模型,分析了货币政策对投资和消费的影响,结果显示:(1)货币政策对投资及消费的刺激作用存在非对称性,货币政策对投资的刺激作用比对消费的拉动作用强很多。(2)货币和信贷都可以对消费发挥积极作用,信贷的作用稍强,货币对投资的刺激作用几乎为零,而信贷对投资的拉动作用很明显。(3)利率对投资和消费都有一定影响,但不显著。分析表明,我国货币政策主要通过信贷渠道拉动投资来促进经济增长。通过进一步分析投资与消费的关系,发现当前应着力于扩大消费需求,而且目前财政政策对消费的刺激作用比货币政策有效。     

我国货币供应量变动对保险需求传导效应的实证分析

本文通过建立STR模型,实证分析了1999年第一季度至2010年第一季度我国货币供应量变动对保险需求的传导效应。结果表明：货币供应量变动对保险需求的影响具有显著的非对称性和非线性特征,即扩张性货币政策对当期保险需求的影响显著,而紧缩性货币政策对当期保险需求的影响有限。具体来讲,宽中趋紧与紧中趋紧的货币政策都将导致当期保...     

中国金融发展中货币政策与财政政策有效性的比较检验

从中国1978~2005年间金融发展的模式以及在这一过程中货币政策和财政政策对经济增长影响的差异性和它们之间的动态特性可以看到,广义货币供应量与经济增长指标GDP的长期均衡关系支持中国金融发展的“供给导向型”模式;全社会固定资产投资在中国经济增长中的短期和长期效应不一致;财政支出增加的经济增长效应要弱于货币供应量的扩张。     

高货币化、通货膨胀预期与通货膨胀

通货膨胀成为信用货币经济中循环往复的问题,货币是症结关键。通过建立包含货币缺口和收入差距的凯恩斯Phillips曲线理论模型,利用中国1979-2010年的数据实证得出:货币化通过两种途径作用于通货膨胀,一是通过扩大货币缺口、直接推动当期物价上升,二是高货币化导致了较高的通货膨胀预期,这种预期又推动了通货膨胀的自我实现。因此,在经济平稳发展情况下,货币化是一个金融发展程度指标,但在严重依赖货币扩张推动经济增长的情况下,货币化却可能是货币超发的指标,与通货膨胀存在着密切关系。     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy Switching

A growing body of evidence finds that policy reaction functions vary substantially over different periods in the United States. This paper explores how moving to an environment in which monetary and fiscal regimes evolve according to a Markov process can change the impacts of policy shocks. In one regime monetary policy follows the Taylor principle and taxes rise strongly with debt; in another regime the Taylor principle fails to hold and taxes are exogenous. An example shows that a unique bounded non-Ricardian equilibrium exists in this environment. A computational model illustrates that because agents' decision rules embed the probability that policies will change in the future, monetary and tax shocks always produce wealth effects. When it is possible that fiscal policy will be unresponsive to debt at times, active monetary policy (like a Taylor rule) in one regime is not sufficient to insulate the economy against tax shocks in that regime and it can have the unintended consequence of amplifying and propagating the aggregate demand effects of tax shocks. The paper also considers the implications of policy switching for two empirical issues.     

Optimal exchange rate flexibility with large labor unions

We study the optimal volatility of the exchange rate in a two-country model with sectoral non-atomistic wage setters, non-traded goods, nominal rigidities and alternative pricing assumptions – producer or local currency pricing. Labor unions internalize the sectoral impact of their wage settlements through firms' labor demand. With local currency pricing, exchange rate depreciation raises sales revenue, which in turn boosts domestic consumption and labor demand. Unions anticipate this effect and set higher wages accordingly. With small unions and low wage markup, optimal monetary policy enhances exchange rate movements to improve its terms of trade. With large unions and high wage markup, optimal monetary policy curbs exchange rate movements to restrain inflationary wage demands and to stabilize employment.     

The precautionary demand for money: A rigorous foundation

Consumers' demand for money to hold is shown rigorously to be related to possible but uncertain purchase opportunities rather than to total consumption (income) or to the variability of bond yields. A formal model of consumers' demand for precautionary balances is analyzed. It implies that cash balances demanded will be changed by different amounts in response to equivalent changes in the rates of time preference and inflation. This perhaps explains recent instability in money demand estimates.