Interest rate rules and global determinacy: An alternative to the Taylor principle

A well‐known determinacy condition on interest rate rules is the “Taylor principle,” which states that nominal interest rates should respond more than 100 percent to inflation. Unfortunately, notably because interest rates must be positive, the Taylor principle cannot be satisfied for all interest rates, and as a consequence global determinacy may not prevail even though there exists a locally determinate equilibrium. We propose here a simple alternative to the Taylor principle, which takes the form of a new condition on interest rate rules that ensures global determinacy. An important feature of the policy package is that it does not rely at all on any of the fiscal policies associated with the “fiscal theory of the price level,” which has so far been the main alternative for determinacy.     

A note on the existence of Nash networks in one-way flow models

We study the one-way flow model of network formation with owner-homogeneous link costs and heterogeneous profits. Recently, several proofs of existence of Nash networks are discussed in literature. The proof by Billand et al. (Econ Theory, 2007, forthcoming) is based on a nice and clear idea, but the technical elaboration is tedious and too complex in our opinion. In this note, we provide an alternative and easy accessible proof based on the same idea. Also, we show by means of a counterexample that Nash networks may not exist for games where link costs are heterogeneous, but arbitrarily close to owner-homogeneity.     

INFLATION, REDISTRIBUTION OF FACTORS AND UNEMPLOYMENT: ILLUSTRATED BY THE CASE OF FRANCE

This paper examines the causes and consequences of the inflationary process in terms of its impact upon the national accounting flows, illustrated by the case of France during the period 1966–76. The first section of the paper discusses the apparent causes of inflation, and lays out the circuits through which inflation is propagated. The second section looks behind the apparent causes to examine more closely the reasons for the observed behavior. The final section considers the consequences of inflation in terms of factor allocation, and in turn its impact upon unemployment, the balance of payments, and the rate of growth.     

Energy use and fruits and vegetables

The consumer has many options to save energy through small dietary changes. With no change in the variety of fruits and vegetables eaten, the consumer can save considerable amounts of energy by bringing them to the table without use of a home freezer, frequent long distance shopping trips and oven cooking. Other conservation measures include buying in large containers, eating uncooked food, using fresh produce rather than canned or frozen, except in the case of frozen juice concentrates, and having a home fruit and vegetable garden.     

Binding Overhang and Tariff-Cutting Formulas

Trade negotiations deal with cuts in bound duties, which differ substantially from applied preferential duties, and from MFN applied duties. Based on WTO’s Consolidated Tariff Schedules (CTS) database and on national sources, this paper proposes a systematic assessment of ad valorem-equivalent bound duties at the detailed product level, for almost all WTO members. Fully consistent with the assessment of applied protection provided in the MAcMap-HS6 database, this work allows the full structure of protection—bound, MFN applied, preferential applied duties—to be accurately assessed. We thus provide the first worldwide assessment of the binding overhang, i.e. the gap between bound and applied MFN tariffs. We also assess the likely applied-protection impact of an agreement in the Doha Round. JEL no. F13     

全球国际收支失衡的可持续性、调整时机与对策建议

全球国际收支失衡是我们讨论的一个出发点,对此我们有着明显不同的观点.总的来说,我们没有考虑到美国国际收支失衡的可持续性.我们提到了有关解决全球国际收支失衡的一些问题和概念,比如美国的资产回报率可能比较高等问题;前面的讨论主要是考虑到亚洲的顺差,特别是中国的顺差;有时候政策制订者会对危机做出过度反应;余永定也提到中国实际上并不想拥有太多的外汇储备.     

Research report: Energy requirements of mechanized aquaculture

The authors present the results of a comparative study on the energy inputs required for traditional fishing and various techniques of aquaculture in the USA. The importance of suitable environmental conditions for reducing energy costs is stressed.