A Framework for Independent Monetary Policy in China

As the Chinese economy becomes more market based and continuesits rapid integration into the global economy, having an independentand effective monetary policy regime oriented to domestic objectiveswill become increasingly important. Employing modern principlesof monetary policy in light of the current state of China'sfinancial institutions, we motivate and present a package ofproposals to guide the operation of a new monetary policy regime.Specifically, we recommend an explicit low long-run inflationobjective, operational independence for the People's Bank ofChina (PBC) with formal strategic guidance from the government,and a minimal set of financial sector reforms (to make the Chinesebanking system robust against interest rate fluctuations). Weargue that anchoring monetary policy with an explicit inflationobjective would be the most reliable way for the PBC to tiedown inflation expectations, and thereby enable monetary policyto make the best contribution to macroeconomic and financialstability, as well as economic growth. The management and monitoringof money (and credit) growth by the PBC would continue to playa useful role in the stabilization of inflation, but a moneytarget would not constitute a good stand-alone nominal anchor.(JEL codes: E5 and P2)     

Do Macroeconomics Channels Matter for Examining Relationship Between Public Debt and Economic Growth in India?

Inter-state disparity has been a perennial feature of Indian agriculture. The study probes if per capita income from agriculture has converged across states and finds evidence in favour of beta convergence. Spatial econometric techniques used indicate significant spatial dependence in agricultural growth. Infrastructure like roads, irrigation, and electricity, diversification in cropping pattern and quality of human capital are found to aid in growth. However, excessive rainfall tends to decrease growth rate in India. The spill-over across states are found to be primarily driven by roads, irrigation and rural literacy and we also find significant impact of spatial income growth providing evidence in favour of agglomeration effects. Hence, investments in human capital, physical infrastructure specially water management and incentives towards growing crops which yield higher returns will aid agriculture growth in India.

     

Return generating processes of long-term bonds and measurement of risk: Theory and empirical tests

Using a continuous-time framework, Kazemi (1992) shows that changes in prices of long-term bonds could be perfectly correlated with changes in the representative investor's marginal utility of wealth. Therefore, the equilibrium expected excess return on any security would be proportional to its covariance with changes in prices of long-term bonds. The present paper first extends the above result to a discrete time framework and shows that there are significant differences between the continuous time and discrete time versions of the model. Second, we test an empirical implication of this result; the evidence supports the theoretical model.     

Internal Marketing at Continental Airlines: Convincing Employees that Management Knows Best

Maintaining a high level of customer service quality is necessary for success, particularly for firms in service industries, but employees need to be motivated to provide it. Management can provide the motivation through the use of compensation schemes and internal marketing. In this paper we examine profit sharing compensation schemes that reward employees for achieving customer service objectives. We discuss how such schemes should be implemented, and explain why management needs to convince employees through internal marketing programs about the benefits of its scheme. We obtain the optimal amount of profit that the firm should share with employees, and the optimal effort it should spend on internal marketing. Finally, we relate the analysis to a successful scheme implemented by Continental Airlines.