Dynamics of money, output and price interaction — some Indian evidence

The present study is an attempt to model the dynamic interactions between money, output and prices in a structural vector autoregression framework. The primary concern of the paper is to examine the sources of variations and response of one variable to changes in others in a system of economic variables in the Indian context. Using quarterly data from 1970Q1 to 1990Q4, we find that structural factors, in addition to monetary factors, play an important role in generating and sustaining the process of inflation and fluctuations in economic activity. An increase in money/credit supply is found to increase output and prices in the short-run and prices in the long-run, while a non-accommodating monetary policy is ineffective in controlling inflation even at the cost of substantial output losses, thereby indicating relative rigidities in price movements. Another interesting finding is that the monetary authority responds differently to different price shocks, exercising its leverage in altering the quantity as well as the composition of aggregate money supply. Our findings also indicate that the economy is characterized by relatively large and infrequent shocks to ‘price/cost’-related factors. Finally, our analysis suggests that a simple monetary targeting without adequate ‘supply side’ measures may not be able to serve the objective of maintaining growth with price stability.     

Asymmetries in Household Consumption and Liquidity Constraints — A Switching Regression Approach

Most of the empirical work in the Euler equation tradition in the consumption literature, that addressed the issue of liquidity constraints, has tested the hypotheses of Excess sensitivity and Liquidity constraints, with the sample selection based on a single exogenous criterion. Such a method will give misleading inferences, if the sample selection criterion is correlated with the Euler equation errors. In this paper, an attempt is made to correct for the sample selection bias and estimate the probability of a household being constrained simultaneously with the Euler equation parameters. Using the Additional Rural Incomes Survey (ARIS) data on rural Indian households, I find that consumption is excessively sensitive to income changes for constrained than for the unconstrained. In addition, I also find that consumption responds asymmetrically to positive and negative changes in income indicating a preference asymmetry for the unconstrained and binding liquidity constraints for the constrained group.