Identifying Discretionary Fiscal Policy Reactions with Real‐Time Data

We propose a method of identifying discretionary fiscal policy reactions using real‐time data. Automatic stabilizers should depend on true GDP, while discretionary fiscal policy is contingent on the information that policy makers have in real time. We can compute a real‐time measurement error by comparing the first release of GDP data with later revisions. Discretionary fiscal policy is influenced by this measurement error, whereas automatic fiscal policy is not. We use this identification approach to test the central identifying assumption of Blanchard and Perotti’s (2002) seminal structural vector autoregression (VAR). According to this assumption, fiscal policy makers do not react to GDP developments contemporaneously in a discretionary fashion. We find that government expenditure is adjusted upward if GDP growth in real time is lower than true GDP. This suggests that fiscal policy makers use short‐term funds to buy goods and services in response to their perception of GDP dynamics.     

国际策展经验与亚洲当代艺术:CIGE2009论坛

Sook-Kyung Lee泰特利物浦美术馆每两年举办一次利物浦双年展,我们的顾问有来自包括台北等亚洲其他地区的策展人,正因为有了这些身份多元的策展人的参与,使得我们能够在展览当中充分地体现出不同地区的一些作品。     

CEO Ownership,Stock Market Performance,and Managerial Discretion

We examine the relationship between CEO ownership and stock market performance. A strategy based on public information about managerial ownership delivers annual abnormal returns of 4% to 10%. The effect is strongest among firms with weak external governance, weak product market competition, and large managerial discretion, suggesting that CEO ownership can reverse the negative impact of weak governance. Furthermore, owner‐CEOs are value increasing: they reduce empire building and run their firms more efficiently. Overall, our findings indicate that the market does not correctly price the incentive effects of managerial ownership, suggesting interesting feedback effects between corporate finance and asset pricing.     

Debt Stabilizing Fiscal Rules

Unstable government debt dynamics can typically be stabilized around a certain target level of debt by adjustments in various fiscal instruments, like government spending, transfers, or taxes. This paper investigates properties of debt stabilizing rules which link the needed budgetary adjustments to the state of the economy. The paper establishes that the magnitude of the target level of long‐run debt is a key determinant of whether it is possible to find a rule of this type that can be implemented under all available fiscal instruments. Specifically, considering linear feedback rules, the paper demonstrates that there may well exist a critical target level of debt beyond which this is no longer possible. From an applied perspective, this finding is of particular relevance in the context of a monetary union with decentralized fiscal policies. Depending on the target level of debt, there might be a conflict between a common fiscal framework that tracks deficit developments as a function of the state of the economy and the unrestricted choice of fiscal policy instruments at the national level.     

Do Central Banks React to House Prices?

We estimate the Federal Reserve's, the Bank of England's, and the Bank of Japan's responses to house prices. We show that generalized method of moments estimates of a Taylor rule augmented with house prices are biased and dispersed. We then use full‐information methods and estimate the policy rule together with a VAR for the nonpolicy variables. These estimates are also biased. We propose an alternative approach and estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model embedded with a monetary rule with a direct response to house prices. We find that house prices played a separate role in the reaction functions of these central banks.     

Globalization of R&D and China: An Introduction

In this introduction, we discuss the recent changes in multinational corporations' (MNCs) research and development (R&D) strategies and China's rising role in this new development. Significant changes include: 1) More and more corporations have started overseas R & D operations; 2) the missions of many overseas R&D facilities have shifted from the traditional supplementing and supporting roles to become critical and strategic components of MNCs' global R&D networks; and 3) MNC overseas R&D operations have expanded their geographic reach to carefully selected developing countries. China has benefited from such changes and has become one major attraction for such R&D facilities due to its rich endowment of low-cost and well- trained scientists and engineers as well as its fast growing domestic market and burgeoning foreign investment in manufacturing. The explosion of foreign R&D investment has also been accompanied by the rapid growth of China's domestic investment in R&D. The growth in both domestic and foreign investment in R&D implies that China will improve its position in global economic and technological competition. However, it is unclear to the rest of the world about the implications of China's rising R&D and whether or not China can capture the value from the presence of foreign R&D centres. We conclude that issues related to China's science and technology development in general and foreign R&D in China in particular warrant more research in the future.     

AN APPLICATION OF SEQUENTIAL REGRESSION MULTIPLE IMPUTATION ON PANEL DATA

The relatively new sequential regression multiple imputation (SRMI) method is introduced, with the process of SRMI laid out in detail. The Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development and the follow‐up KwaZulu‐Natal Income Dynamics Study provide the real panel data on which the methods reviewed are applied. The SRMI process is used to create multiple datasets completed with values imputed for data originally missing, and using the error component model estimation procedures and Rubin's rules, inferences on the panel data are made. Conclusions are drawn as to the applicability of the SRMI process to these data and as to the results of the regression analyses completed.