Optimum Currency Areas Under Inflation Targeting

Several countries face the choice between targeting inflation independently and entering a monetary union that targets inflation. The present paper extends the theory of optimum currency areas to deal with this choice. In contrast to the conventional theory, countries might form more of an optimum currency area the more asymmetric supply shocks are.     

Free or central banking? Liquidity and financial deepening in Sweden, 1834-1913

During Sweden’s nineteenth-century modernization, Enskilda banks contributed to economic expansion and integration by providing generally accepted means of payment beyond what would have been possible for the central bank, the Riksbank. The Riksbank was constrained by specie-convertibility requirements for Sweden’s currency. Contrary to previous arguments, however, the Enskilda banks did not operate according to free banking theory. The Enskilda banks held Riksbank notes instead of specie as base-money reserves. This arrangement led to a higher supply of formal liquidity than what would have been the case with either a free banking system or a pure deposit-based commercial banking system. The consequence for Sweden was a rapid rate of monetization and financial deepening.     

Constitutionalism and credibility in reforming economies1

There has been relatively little investigation of the effect of constitutional transformations on the economic transition in post‐communist countries. We develop a simple signalling model in which constitutionalism – a commitment to limit political power and provide judicial defence of basic rights – reinforces the credibility of pro‐market candidates’ electoral promises and boosts public support for economic reforms. These findings are tested using opinion poll data on public support for reform in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the former Soviet Union, in the 1990s. In a two‐stage procedure we show that public support for market reforms is higher in countries where incumbents have taken deliberate steps to increase political accountability and judicial independence. Public support also spurs actual economic reform.     

Estimates of a labour supply function using alternative measures of hours of work

Depending on data source, estimates of hours of work give widely different results both as to level and change. In this paper three alternative measures of hours worked are used to estimate a simple labour supply function to investigate if the estimated wage rate and income effects are data dependent as well. The measures used include those from time-use surveys and those from regular surveys. The latter are based on the responses to a question about normal weekly hours of market work. The results suggest that the estimates of the wage rate effects become much smaller when measures of normal hours are used compared to data collected for a well-defined time period close to the date of interview, such as time-use data. The income effects appear less sensitive to the choice of data.     

CONCEPTS AND PROBLEMS OF CONSISTENCY IN TERMS-OF-TRADE ANALYSIS*

The debate on how to deal with changes of relative prices in national accounts has, so far, remained inconclusive, especially with regard to the question of how to measure gains from changes of terms of trade. Keeping the experiences of the 1970s in mind (i.e. substantial changes of relative prices sparked off by increased oil prices), this state of affairs is not considered tenable. On this background, the paper takes up the old debate on how to deflate figures of domestic product, total as well as by industries. It tries to argue that deflated figures should be presented not only as real product figures by industries (using the double deflation method), but also as real income figures, obtained by deflating the current-prices figures of a certain year by the same general price index. When this is done according to procedures spelled out in detail, gains/losses from changes of the terms of trade in foreign trade will show up as an integral part of the framework. In the paper, special attention is given to the concept of industry terms of trade. On the basis of simplifying assumptions (which are, however, relaxed in the final part of the paper), it is shown how the ratio of real income divided by real product of a certain industry will be proportionate to the terms of trade of the industry concerned, when the latter concept is defined in the appropriate way. Furthermore, the sum of the industry gains/losses from changes of their terms of trade will be equal to the gain/loss of the economy taken as a whole from changes of the terms of trade in foreign trade.     

Granger-causality in multiple time series

The concept of Granger-causality is formulated for a finite-dimensional multiple time series. Special attention is given to causality patterns in autoregressive series, and it is shown how these patterns can be tested under quite general assumptions using a χ² statistic. The power of the test is discussed, and it is shown that the χ² statistic results from a Lagrange multiplier test in the Gaussian case. The causality test is tried both on artificial data and some economic time series. Finally we consider the problem of constrained estimation in models with a known causality structure.