A Stochastic Model with Penalized Coefficients for Spatial Price Comparisons: An Application to Regional Price Indexes in Italy

This paper focuses on a new strand of research that uses stochastic approach for making spatial price comparisons. We propose a novel method to account for the presence of spatial dependencies in consumer prices and consequently in price indexes by imposing penalization conditions on the estimation of traditional CPD models leading to the spatially-penalized country-product-dummy (SP-CPD) model. The paper proposes an appropriate estimation strategy, which enables us to simultaneously estimate all the parameters in the model, including the smoothing parameter of the penalization term instead of determining it externally. In order to estimate spatial price indexes for areas lacking in price data, we suggest applying the kriging methodology to the price indexes obtained from the SP-CPD model. This new approach is applied to official Italian CPI data for constructing regional spatial price indexes for 2014. The results show that price levels are higher in the Northern-Central regions than in the South.     

Sources of employment fluctuations in Taiwan's industries and regions

This empirical study explores the sources of employment fluctuations in Taiwan's industries and regions over the period 1978 to 2004. The quarterly growth rates of employment in nine industries and four regions are modelled with a structural vector autoregression (VAR), and the employment shocks are measured by VAR residuals. The covariance matrix of the VAR residuals is decomposed using system estimation method that selects the parameters to make the error model close to the covariance matrix and, in turn, to estimate the relative importance of national as well as industry-specific and region-specific shocks. The empirical results show that industry-specific shocks account for the major fluctuations in industries and regions. On average, about 83.95% of an industry's cyclical variations and 56.28% of the volatility in a region may be attributed to industry-specific shocks. National shocks account for little employment volatility in industries. Only the finance and personal service industries are highly sensitive to national shocks.     

Potential Contagion Effects on OECD Countries: A FAVAR Model under Bayesian Framework

This paper studies whether and how US shocks impact the OECD countries in the case of a simulated crisis. Using Bayesian estimation methods we extract constrained factors (global, country and variable type specific) from a sample of 153 economic and financial OECD variables from 1980–2008. These factors are the transmission channels through which national shocks spread to other countries, as in a pandemic. The Bayesian interpretable factors are used to estimate FAVAR models. Our main findings suggest that differences exist in the contagion effects. This implies that no generalizations can be made for OECD countries even of equal economic size and in the same geographic region. In addition, our results show that a large portion of the variance of domestic economic variables is explained by global factors; and that the interest rate shock appears to play an important role in the spillover mechanism from the United States to the rest of the world. More precisely, Australia, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries appear to be most sensitive to the US shocks.     

人力资本空间特性的ESDA分析——基于山东省的实证研究

利用山东省2000-2010年17城市教育支出水平的面板数据,探究了山东省人力资本空间分布模式及其内在机理。总体来看山东省人力资本全域自相关特性并不显著,其空间分布趋向于离散、随机的分布模式;而局域空间自相关分析却表现出人力资本空间分布的异质性特点,其中以济青都市圈所辖城市为主的核心区域大都显示为正的空间自相关性,而外围区域大都显示出负的空间自相关性。     

Measuring the Benefits of Neighbourhood Park Amenities: Application and Comparison of Spatial Hedonic Approaches

The hedonic price method was used to estimate the influence of parks on the rental prices of single-room dwellings in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, Japan. A simple least squares method is not optimal when the data set contains spatial autocorrelation. To improve the accuracy of estimates, we employed spatial autoregression and kriging models, resulting in a higher validity of the spatial models compared to the least squares model. Kriging models were superior to others particularly in terms of prediction accuracy, indicating that these models should be employed if the objective is superior prediction rather than estimation. The results showed that the effect of parks on property values varied with the buffer distance and park size.     

基于ESDA和Kriging方法的东莞市住宅价格空间结构

房价空间分布是房地产价格研究的热点问题.为了探测房价空间分布的结构特征,文章以东莞市普通住宅交易均价为例,利用普通Kriging方法对东莞房价空间分布进行了估计和模拟,并利用ESDA(探索性空间数据分析)的理论与方法来分析东莞房价空间自相关性和变异性.研究结果表明:①东莞房价全局空间自相关性显著、总体上呈空间集聚格局;②东莞大部分住宅价格呈现局部空间集聚格局,少量存在空间异质性而呈现局部离散格局;③不同方向的半变异函数图显示东莞房价空间分布呈带状异向性,反映出房价分布在不同方向上具有不同的结构特征.并且确定性因素对房价变异的影响大于随机因素;④东莞房价的地域分异规律明显.     

省域相对贫困村多尺度空间格局与分异机制

文章基于多尺度、人—地系统的理论视角,以湖南省8 000个相对贫困村为研究对象,利用平均最邻近指数、空间基尼系数和空间自相关方法,从市级和县级两个尺度揭示了相对贫困村空间分布格局差异,运用空间计量模型识别出相对贫困村空间分异的影响因素,最后基于"四层一体"模型提炼出相对贫困村空间分异的机制。结果表明:(1)相对贫困村在市级尺度上均呈现集群分布模式,而在县级尺度上呈现出集群、离散和随机三种不同的模式。(2)市级和县级尺度上相对贫困村均呈现显著的全局空间自相关性,但在两个尺度上局部空间自相关性特征存在差异。(3)城镇化率、第一产业增加值占GDP比重、第二产业增加值占GDP比重、人均财政支出、文盲率、坡度、平均海拔是影响县级尺度相对贫困村空间差异的显著因素。(4)基于"四层一体"模型揭示出相对贫困村的空间分异机制。     

Capital Stock, Unemployment and Wages in the UK and Germany

This paper is concerned with the view that capital formation is an important variable in the determination of unemployment and wages in Germany and the UK. Adverse demand shocks affect employment and investment. When shocks reverse, unemployment may not fall to previous levels due to insufficient capital. The empirical results show that unemployment has risen in the last twenty years in both countries due to insufficient investment. Policies that are aimed at stimulating investment may have a permanent effect on unemployment in Germany and the UK.     

新疆人口经济压力评价与空间分布研究

利用主成分分析方法和空间自相关分析,对新疆人口经济压力分类及其分布关系进行了深入探索。人口经济压力较大的市县分布于经济不发达的南疆西南部,而压力较小的市县分布于经济较发达的天山北坡经济带。在空间分布关系上人口经济压力呈现明显的组团模式,南疆西南部地区呈现高—高关联模式,北疆中部呈现低—低关联模式。     

基于空间计量的房地产价格影响因素分析

现有文献大都认为各个地区的房地产价格是相互独立的,而事实上,空间依赖的存在会使得回归结果是有偏的。本文首先利用全局空间自相关指标(Moran’s I统计量)和局部空间自相关指标(LISA指标)检验我国房价的空间自相关,结果显示我国房价存在空间自相关。然后利用1999-2009年的省际面板数据,运用广义空间面板数据模型分析全国范围以及东、中、西部分区域房价,结果表明,在考虑了房价的空间相关性后,我国各区域房价的影响因素已不尽相同,东部地区房价基本完全由空间因素决定,西部地区房价由供给和需求等因素决定,而全国范围及中部地区房价受两者的共同影响,利率和汇率的变化对我国房价无显著影响。     

Avoiding pitfalls in using structural VARs to estimate economic models

Structural Vector Autoregressions with a differenced specification of hours (DSVAR) suggest that productivity shocks identified using long-run restrictions lead to a persistent and significant decline in hours worked. Economists have interpreted this evidence as showing that standard business cycle models in which a positive technology shock leads to a rise in hours are inconsistent with the data. In this paper we argue that such a conclusion is unwarranted because model's data and actual data are not treated symmetrically. To illustrate this problem, we estimate and test a flexible-price DSGE model with non-stationary hours using Indirect Inference on impulse responses of hours and output after technology and non-technology shocks. We find that, once augmented with a moderate amount of real frictions, the model can mimic well impulse responses obtained from a DSVAR on actual data. Using this model as a data generating process, we show that our estimation method is less subject to bias than a method that would directly compare theoretical responses with responses from the DSVAR.     

中国区域经济收敛的空间计量分析——基于长三角1993-2006年132个县市区的实证研究

文章运用空间统计与空间计量的分析方法,根据长三角132个县市区的统计数据,进行了区域经济增长收敛性的实证研究,结果发现长三角132个县市区经济增长存在着显著的空间依赖性或空间自相关特征,因而若采用标准的β收敛方程会使得估计结果出现有偏与不一致;而若采用考虑了空间依赖性或空间自相关因素的模型进行估计,则其结果显示,虽然长三角县市区经济增长的收敛方向并没有改变,但是其经济收敛的速度却明显下降,且在统计上显著.这一发现不仅证实了新古典增长模型所反映的增长机制仍然决定着长三角经济增长的基本面,新经济增长因素只是减弱了长三角地区经济收敛的趋势,并没有从根本上改变经济增长收敛的方向;而且从更小空间单元测度的层面刻画了长三角经济增长的空间依赖性特征.     

Generic inefficiency of equilibria in the general equilibrium model with incomplete asset markets and infinite time

Summary. We consider a Lucas asset-pricing model with heterogeneous agents, exogenous labor income, and a finite number of exogenous shocks. Although agents are infinitely lived, endowments and dividends are time-invariant functions of the exogenous shock alone and are thus restricted to lie in a finite-dimensional space; genericity analysis can be conducted on sets of zero Lebesgue measure. When financial markets are incomplete, that is, there are fewer financial securities than shocks, we show that generically in individual endowments all competitive equilibria are Pareto inefficient. Received: November 22, 1999; revised version: March 4, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We are grateful to an anonymous referee for very insightful comments on earlier drafts.     

Has Australia's floating exchange rate regime been optimal?

This paper develops a straightforward theoretical framework for evaluating exchange rate regime choice for small economies. It proposes that a floating exchange rate minimises national income and employment variation when real macroeconomic shocks predominate, whereas a pegged exchange rate achieves this goal should monetary shocks predominate. It then shows econometrically that, in the case of Australia, a floating exchange rate best suited the economy for the period 1985 to 2010, because real shocks were more significant than monetary shocks. Moreover, consistent with the theory, further results showing that a stronger (weaker) exchange rate correlated with positive (negative) deviations from trend GDP affirm that a floating exchange rate regime was optimal for Australia over this time.     

Corruption in space: A closer look at the world's subnations

Corruption levels differ not only between but also within countries. In this paper we analyze spatial interdependencies in corruption levels for a large sample of 1232 subnational regions from 81 countries. Based on a spatial autoregressive model, which controls for country-fixed effects and corrects for spatial autocorrelation in the error term, we find that a subnational region's corruption level is positively correlated with neighboring subnational regions' corruption levels. Extending the core model and allowing for heterogeneous spatial effects, we find that most spillovers among subnational regions occur within national borders. Moreover, in particular high income subnational regions and subnational regions with relative low corruption levels tend to spill in space. This is due to their high degree of connectivity in terms of economic, sociocultural and political exchange with other subnational regions. Our estimation results underline the importance to consider not only a subnational region's own characteristics, but also spatial interdependencies when implementing efficient anti-corruption policies at the local level.     

Emerging economy business cycles: Interest rate shocks vs trend shocks

The recent literature studying the source of business cycles in emerging market economies (EMEs) has debated the relative importance of productivity trend shocks versus interest rate shocks coupled with financial frictions. The studies in which an important role is assigned to interest rate shocks do not force their models to match the historical paths of the world or country interest rate. We show that this leads to poorly identified interest rate shocks and inaccurate measures of contributions of shocks to EME business cycles. To address this issue, we estimate a small open economy model for Argentina and Mexico using Bayesian methods where the world and country interest rate series in the model are forced to match their data counterparts. This estimation strategy results in larger variations in interest rate shock and, therefore, shifts explanatory power away from trend shocks towards interest rate shocks, although both shocks remain important.     

A Generalized Moments Estimator for the Autoregressive Parameter in a Spatial Model

This paper is concerned with the estimation of the autoregressive parameter in a widely considered spatial autocorrelation model. The typical estimator for this parameter considered in the literature is the (quasi) maximum likelihood estimator corresponding to a normal density. However, as discussed in this paper, the (quasi) maximum likelihood estimator may not be computationally feasible in many cases involving moderate- or large-sized samples. In this paper we suggest a generalized moments estimator that is computationally simple irrespective of the sample size. We provide results concerning the large and small sample properties of this estimator.     

城市化对房价的影响:线性还是非线性?——基于四种面板数据回归模型的实证分析

文章从线性和非线性两个角度分析了中国城市化进程对房价的影响。通过对各省历年房价和城市化的核密度估计空间分布分析,发现城市化和房价之间存在明显的正相关性,并且各省份的城市化和房价水平存在"双峰"分布特征和空间相关性。这说明在分析城市化对房价的影响时应考虑可能的门限效应和空间溢出效应这两种非线性关系。据此,文章基于中国30个省份1998-2009年的面板数据,使用普通面板回归、空间面板回归、门限面板回归和平滑门限面板回归这四种模型进行分析发现,城市化水平对本地区和相邻地区的房价均具有显著的促进作用,且在经济增长水平较高、人力资本集聚的地区,城市化对房价的促进作用更加显著。     

城市地价空间自相关分析——以宿州市为例

运用全局和局域自相关统计量及地统计学半变异函数分析方法,对宿州市商业和住宅地价的全局自相关、各项异性及局域自相关特征进行了全面分析.结果表明:在2 800m范围内,宿州市商业和住宅地价均存在较强的正自相关性且趋于高值集聚,随着相关距离的增大,地价半方差按球状模型曲线增长,自相关性逐渐减弱;在不同方向上,地价的空间自相关特征不尽相同,南北方向上的空间自相关范围要大于东西方向,但随机性较强,自相关程度较东西方向弱;在全局呈显著自相关的情形下局域地价也主要呈空间集聚格局,但部分地区表现出异质性.     

The lower bound and the causes of monetary policy inertia: evidence from Sweden

In 2009, in the midst of a global recession, Sweden’s Riksbank approached a lower bound on nominal interest rates. This encounter with the lower bound provides a natural experiment for investigating the causes of monetary policy inertia. To exploit this experiment, we estimate Taylor rules with Tobit specifications that permit both interest rate smoothing and persistent shocks (serial correlation) as explanations for inertia. The interest rate smoothing hypothesis leads to a specification in which lagged actual values of the dependent variable appear on the right-hand side of the Taylor rule, while the persistent shocks hypothesis leads to a specification in which lagged values of an unobserved latent dependent variable appear on the right-hand side of the Taylor rule. The divergence of actual and latent dependent variables that occurs at the lower bound provides leverage in distinguishing the two hypotheses. For a conventional Taylor rule, we find evidence of both sources of inertia. For a modified Taylor rule that includes a measure of financial stress, our evidence suggests that interest rate smoothing is the principal source of monetary policy inertia.