Credit Conditions in Pakistan: Supply Constraints or Demand Deficiencies?

This paper attempts to pin down the key drivers of demand for and supply of real private sector credit in Pakistan. I use both the equilibrium and disequilibrium econometric frameworks, specifically tackling the issue of lack of consistency and/or efficiency of joint estimators in the former via the three‐stage least squares technique. On the demand side, I find that higher economic activity provides stimulus to credit whereas inflation dampens it. The stock market seems to play a dual role: as a source of alternative financing, a bullish market negatively impacts credit while, as an indicator of economic expectations, it provides a positive impetus. On the supply side, banks' lending capacity is found to be the major driver of credit while government borrowing has a crowding‐out effect. Pakistan currently faces supply constraints, which might put an additional check on capacity utilization by firms, thus damaging growth prospects. The results have important policy implications.     

论超强有效市场

考虑到信息不对称、信息尤其是前瞻性信息的获得需要花费较高成本等因素,本文认为即使市场实现了强式有效,也不意味着经济效率就必然会实现.鉴于此,文中放松了有效市场理论的假设,考虑了前瞻性信息生产的不确定性,提出了超强有效市场的概念,并构造了一个超强有效均衡的模型.本文指出只有存在充分有效的激励和约束机制,使得投资者和经理都能努力生产关于公司潜在投资项目的前瞻性信息,并且经理会对股价传递的信息做出积极的反应时,股票市场才会真正在实现信息效率的同时充分发挥优化资源配置的功能.     

人民币实际汇率与贸易条件的实证研究

基于均衡汇率理论,应用协整模型,采用真实变量分析了1980-2003年的人民币实际汇率及其与均衡汇率的失调情况,进而研究了不同时期人民币实际汇率与贸易条件的关系。结果表明:贸易条件与中长期以及短期的实际汇率存在显著的关系,贸易条件的恶化或改善是导致人民币实际汇率升值或贬值的重要原因之一。并且,在不同的发展时期,贸易条件对实际汇率的影响呈现出不同的特点。     

General Equilibrium Analysis of International TFP Growth Rates

The paper presents a study of the total factor productivity (TFP) performance among developed countries between 1985 and 1990. The analysis includes the three large economies: the US, Japan and Europe. A general equilibrium model of these economies is used to estimate TFP growth at the sectoral and at the aggregate levels. The model is based on the fundamentals of the economies and employs only data on input-output flows, factor inputs across sectors, consumption and trade patterns and endowments. Prices are endogenous in the model. They are obtained as shadow prices from the model's linear program and then used to measure TFP growth and decompose it in a technical change effect, a demand effect and a terms-of-trade effect. The technical change effect is highly correlated with the conventional Solow residual measure. This result lends support to the standard measure of technological change.     

An interest rate peg might be better than you think

Active interest rate policy is frequently recommended based on its merits in reducing macroeconomic volatility and being a simple device. Yet, it might be outperformed by an even simpler policy. A peg can be welfare-enhancing and can uniquely be implemented.     

中国应该以经常项目逆差为目标吗——以人口结构变迁为视角

Williamson认为,作为处于发展初期的发展中国家,中国应该输入资本,即使人口因素也不能推翻该结论。本文建立修正的Blanchard-Fischer模型以反映人口结构变迁,计算结果表明,即使是处于发展初期的发展中国家,经常项目顺差也有可能是最优的外部均衡目标。利用人口预测数据模拟中国的经常项目余额目标值,支持目前中国应维持适量净储蓄,以备未来人口老化的结论。     

Technological forecasting at the Korean stock market: A dynamic competition analysis using Lotka–Volterra model

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to analyze the dynamic relationship between the Korean Stock Exchange (KSE) and Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (KOSDAQ), two competing markets at the Korean stock market, in the viewpoint of technological forecasting of competition. The Lotka–Volterra system of equations, one well-known competitive diffusion models, is adopted to represent the competitive situations of the Korean stock market and it is estimated using daily empirical index data of KSE and KOSDAQ during 1997–2001. The results show that there existed a predator–prey relationships between two markets in which KSE acted as a prey for the time being after the emergence of KOSDAQ. This interaction was altered to symbiotic relationship and finally to pure competition relationship. We also perform an equilibrium analysis of the estimated Lotka–Volterra equations. As a result, we find that there is an equilibrium point in a dynamic sense. However, the equilibrium point could be unstable in the latest pure competition relationship.     

Monetary equilibria over an infinite horizon

Summary. Money provides liquidity services through a cash-in-advance constraint. The exchange of commodities and assets extends over an infinite horizon under uncertainty and a sequentially complete asset market. Monetary policy sets the path of rates of interest and accommodates the demand for balances through open market operations or loans. A public authority, which, most pertinently, inherits a strictly positive public debt, raises revenue from taxes and seignorage, and it distributes possible budget surpluses to individuals through transfers. Competitive equilibria exist, under mild solvency conditions. But, for a fixed path of rates of interest, there is a non-trivial multiplicity of equilibrium paths of prices of commodities. Determinacy requires that, subject to no-arbitrage and in addition to rates of interest, the prices of state-contingent revenues be somehow determined.Received: 16 April 2003, Revised: 16 January 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D50, E40, E50.We are grateful to Pietro Reichlin, Rabah Amir, Tomoyuki Nakajima, Armando Dominioni and Leo Ferraris for helpful discussions and their reading of preliminary drafts. The usual disclaimer applies. An earlier version was circulated as [4].     

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE THREE‐LEGGED CENTIPEDE GAME?

Abstract.  In the last two decades, several frameworks have been proposed to analyze the question of whether common knowledge of rationality is sufficient to justify the play of backward induction (BI) in games of perfect information. Three strands of literature have addressed this issue: the literature on equilibrium refinements, the literature on knowledge-based epistemology and the literature on interactive epistemology. This paper surveys seminal frameworks within the first two strands of research and assesses the extent to which they provide a satisfactory solution to the problem. These approaches are illustrated using a three-legged version of Rosenthal's centipede game, which is the classical example in the literature. The paper argues that some of these frameworks provide sensible answers to the riddle of BI or, at least, succeed in bringing the paradox to another level. The paper also points at consistency problems in the body of refinements of Nash equilibrium revealed by the surveyed literature.     

交易成本对易货经济的影响——瓦尔拉斯均衡“不成立”的一种情形

本文首先用一种新的解析几何方法在易货经济 (即两种商品的纯交换经济 )条件下的一般均衡框架下揭示了价格与消费者的马歇尔需求之间的函数关系。在此基础上 ,由个人承担的交易成本被直接置入。然后 ,本文证明 :如果交易成本的固定项不为零 ,供、求函数将不连续 ;如果同时有非无穷小比例的人口进行同步化决策 ,那么瓦尔拉斯均衡将会被破坏