LDC stabilization policies,price and output adjustment: theory and evidence, 1974–83

This paper introduces a method for the analysis of regional differences in the utilization of labour resources. The method developed is a version of ‘components-of-change’ analysis in which labour force utilization in each regional labour market is compared with the sitation of a labour market with the highest level of utilization. The aggregate measure is split up into three components: open (registered) unemployment, hidden unemployment and underemployment. The effects of structural factors on aggregate differences are also estimated. In the empirical section the situation of Finnish provinces in 1989 is analysed within the framework developed. The results indicated the existence of large regional differences in the utilization of labour resources.     

Analyzing time–frequency relationship between interest rate,stock price and exchange rate through continuous wavelet

In this study we investigate and identify the patterns of co-movement of interest rate, stock price and exchange rate in India in the period between July 1997 and December 2010 using the cross-wavelet power, the cross-wavelet coherency, and the phase difference methodologies. Our empirical findings suggest that stock prices, exchange rates and interest rates are linked. The cross wavelet results show that stock price movements are lagging both to the exchange rate and interest rate fluctuations. The interest rate lead over the stock price movements is even clearer, especially after 2006, and it suggests that the stock market follows the interest rate signals. Comparing results of WTC and XWT, we find very clear results of phase difference of lead–lag relationship between stock prices, exchange rates and interest rates.     

A post‐Keynesian model of output,employment and monetary demand

This paper presents a simple model based on three broad Post‐Keynesian hypotheses: (1) the economic process develops over time; (2) money is endogenous; and (3) producers are price setters. To make the analysis easier we also assume (4) that firms are vertically integrated. Producers assess the expected demand and ask banks for credit in order to start production; banks create credit at the request of producers to finance the wage bill; workers buy goods sold by firms; firms must repay banks the amount borrowed plus interest and earn a target rate of profit. Since firms have created only as much purchasing power as they have advanced to workers in the form of the wage fund, equilibrium requires that there is an amount of autonomous monetary demand equal to profits and interest. Furthermore, in order to make the value of supply equal to the value of effective demand, firms will employ the number of workers necessary to create the purchasing power which, when added to the anticipated autonomous demand, enables all costs to be covered and the planned rate of profits to be attained.     

A Darwinian perspective on “exchange rate undervaluation”

This paper studies how status competition for marriage partners can generate surprising effects on the real exchange rate (RER). In theory, a rise in the sex ratio (increasing relative surplus of men) can generate a decline in the RER. The effect can be quantitatively large if the biological desire for a marriage partner is strong. We also provide within-China and cross-country empirical evidence to support the theory. As an application, our cross-country estimation suggests that sex ratio as well as other factors in the existing literature can account for the recent evolution in Chinese RER almost completely.     

Monetary policy and bank lending in a low interest rate environment: Diminishing effectiveness?

This paper analyses the effectiveness of monetary policy on bank lending in a low interest rate environment. Based on a sample of 108 large international banks, our empirical analysis suggests that monetary policy is less effective in stimulating bank lending growth when interest rates reach a very low level. This result holds after controlling for business and financial cycle conditions and different bank-specific characteristics such as liquidity, capitalisation, funding costs, bank risk and income diversification. We find that the impact of low rates on the profitability of banks’ traditional intermediation activity helps explain the subdued evolution of lending in the period 2010–14.     

The “inflow-effect”—Trader inflow and price efficiency

We investigate the impact of cash and trader inflow on price efficiency in multi-period experimental asset markets. Implementing eight treatments with 672 subjects, we find that (i) the joint inflow of cash and traders triggers strong overvaluation and massive price run-ups (inflow-effect). Remarkably, the effect occurs in almost all of the 30 markets with joint cash and trader inflow and is very robust. The effect even prevails in markets with complete and symmetric fundamental information. We further show that (ii) in treatments with the joint inflow of cash and traders, prices crash to fundamentals towards maturity of the asset. The analysis of traders׳ beliefs reveals that (iii) despite fundamental values staying constant, beliefs about fundamentals co-move with upwardly trending prices. Finally, we report a speculative motive only among the optimists in treatments where we observe the inflow-effect.     

Regional bank efficiency and its effect on regional growth in “normal” and “bad” times

The financial crisis affected regions in Europe in a different magnitude. This is why we examine whether regions which incorporate banks with a higher intermediation quality grow faster in “normal” times and are more resilient in “bad” ones. For this purpose, we measure the intermediation quality of a bank by estimating its profit and cost efficiency while taking the changing banking environment after the financial crisis into account. Next, we aggregate the efficiencies of all banks within a NUTS 2 region to obtain a regional proxy for financial quality in twelve European countries. Our results show that relatively more profit efficient banks foster growth in their region. The link between financial quality and growth is valid in “normal” and in “bad” times. These results provide evidence to the importance of swiftly restoring bank profitability in euro area crisis countries through addressing high non-performing loans ratios and decisive actions on bank recapitalization.     

“New” monetary policy instruments and exchange rate volatility

Turkish economy has been suffering from rises in financial flows since the last two decades that these flows have raised financial stability challenges across emerging economies including Turkey. Regarding the ability of the central banks to decrease the financial risks including volatile exchange rate, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has designed and implemented a new policy mix. In this study, we investigated the effect of new policy instruments (IRC, RRR and ROM) on the volatilities of US dollar, euro, British pound and basket rate for Turkish economy between January 2, 2002 and December 9, 2014 by using ARMA-GARCH, ARMA-EGARCH and SWARCH models. From the estimation results, we could not reach enough evidence that the IRC and RRR instruments could decrease the volatilities of exchange rates under investigation while the ROM instrument was successful, especially on US dollar and basket rate. We also found strong evidence in favour of asymmetric volatility, indicating that the positive shocks led to greater exchange rate volatility than negative ones.     

Risk-taking channel,bank lending channel and the “paradox of credibility”: Evidence from Brazil

If from one hand credibility is important for the conduct of monetary policy, on the other hand, greater credibility may eventually stimulate the creation of bubbles in the credit market and asset prices through the risk-taking channel, and as a consequence, bring to reality the “paradox of credibility”. The “paradox of credibility” is the new dilemma posed to central banking in the effort to conciliate monetary policy and banking regulation under inflation targeting regimes. Thus, the present work aims to: (i) analyze the impact of central bank actions and the macroeconomic environment on the risk perception of banks, and; (ii) analyze the influence of this risk perception of banks on the credit spread, considering both the credit channel and the risk-taking channel. Based on an econometric analysis, the work provides evidence about: (i) the “paradox of credibility” and the risk-taking channel; (ii) the influence of monetary policies on the risk perception of banks and, as a consequence, on the credit spread; (iii) the procyclical nature of banks in relation to economic activity, and; (iv) the adherence of the countercyclical indicator (called credit gap) proposed in Basel III for the Brazilian case.     

Full price competition and Dupuit's defense of the long-and-short-haul “discrimination”

Condemnation of the long-and-short-haul discrimination has been nearly ubiquitous in the literature on economic theory and transportation. However, the French economist Dupuit developed a case against all transport regulation by relating it to a defense of the practice of place discrimination before the middle of the nineteenth century. He did so, moreover, within an early elaboration of a full price explanation of competitive functioning. This paper analyzes the idea in Dupuit's context and argues that this so-called form of price discrimination is actually an efficient and necessary form of the competitive process.     

Exchange rate undervaluation and manufactured exports: A deliberate strategy?

Recent literature suggests that a proactive exchange rate policy in accordance with price incentives (i.e. undervaluation) can foster manufactured exports and growth. This paper is built on these recent developments and investigates, using a sample of 52 developing countries, whether such a proactive exchange rate policy is adopted. The results show that during the period 1991–2005 a number of countries has used undervaluation to foster the price competitiveness of manufactured exports.     

Debt monetization,inflation, and the ‘neutral’ interest rate

The main purpose of this study is to explore the potential expansionary effect stemming from the monetization of debt. We develop a simple macroeconomic model with Keynesian features and four sectors: creditor and debtor households, businesses, and the public sector. We show that such expansionary effect stems mainly from the reduction in the financial cost to servicing the public debt. The efficacy of the channel that operates allegedly through the compression of the risk/term premium on securities is found to be ambiguous. Finally, we show that countries that issue their own currency can avert getting stuck in a structural ‘liquidity trap’ provided their central banks are willing to monetize the debt created by a strong enough fiscal expansion.     

Global stability and the “turnpike” in optimal unbounded growth models

This study proves various global stability results for unbounded optimal growth models. The main theorem states that any optimal path will eventually be in the neighborhood of a balanced growth path if future utility is sufficiently weakly discounted. The assumptions allow for non-smooth technologies, joint production, and production in independent sectors. Hence, the results form the integration of new growth and turnpike theory sought by McKenzie (1998) [31] in his Ely lecture. The applicability of the results is exemplified by means of a number of cases from growth theory and other areas of economics.     

Regime switching and the (in)stability of the price–rent relationship: evidence from the US

Present value models of house prices assert that in the absence of self-fulfilling bubbles, a house price is equal to the present discount value of all future rents, which implies a linear relationship between house price and rent, and hence a stable price-to-rent ratio. Using a Markov switching error correction model, we re-examine this relationship in the US housing market and find two distinctive regimes: one with a long-run relation between house price and rent predicted by the present value models and the other in which the relation is nonlinear. Furthermore, we find evidence that deviations of house prices from the present value models’ predictions are caused by the overreaction of house prices to movements in rents rather than speculative bubbles attributable to extraneous factors.     

Nonlinearity and asymmetry in the exchange rate pass‐through: What role for nominal price stickiness?

This paper examines the importance of nominal rigidity for nonlinearity and asymmetry of exchange rate pass‐through. For this purpose, we rely on company‐level data of French importing firms. We find that the well established fact that “prices rise faster than they fall,” which is characterized by the convex import price reaction function, lies primarily with the presence of nominal rigidity. Once price stickiness is controlled for, there is empirical evidence that the import price reaction function is rather concave if the linearity assumption can be rejected, indicating that firms aim primarily to protect their market share.     

Understanding the Solar Home price premium: Electricity generation and “Green” social status

This study uses a large sample of homes in the San Diego area and Sacramento, California area to provide some of the first capitalization estimates of the sales value of homes with solar panels relative to comparable homes without solar panels. Although the residential solar home market continues to grow, there is little direct evidence on the market capitalization effect. Using both hedonics and a repeat sales index approach we find that solar panels are capitalized at roughly a 3.5% premium. This premium is larger in communities with a greater share of college graduates and of registered Prius hybrid vehicles.     

Integrating bank profit and risk-avoidance decisions for selected European countries: A micro–macro analysis

A two-equation integrated model is developed to capture bank profit and risk-avoidance decisions. Output is limited to customer loans. The profit function is based on output and selected inputs. Risk-avoidance (using the capitalization ratio) depends on micro and micro 1 macro interactive variables. The SUR method is used to test the hypothesis that the two functions are interdependent. Also, a single reduced-form equation is derived from the SUR model to analyze the volatility of the capitalization ratio. Five European countries and their banks for the period 1991–2001 are used to run the regressions and to test the hypothesis. The individual statistical results were generally consistent with similar results found in the literature. The Breusch–Pagan test of independence was rejected. A key finding from the volatility analysis suggests that bank profit rates are inversely related to the volatility of the banks' capitalization ratios as measured by their variances.     

Factor price equalization beyond a “cubic” world

Summary. The importance of factor price equalization (FPE) is widely recognized in economics. The FPE theorem states that, absent any factor intensity reversal, factor prices are equal across countries with identical technologies and product mixes. In a two-factor-two-good-two-country Heckscher-Ohlin model this is equivalent to countries factor endowments being contained in the diversification cone defined by goods factor intensities. This paper identifies a condition, stated in terms of the allocation of factor endowments across countries relative to the demand for and the factor intensities of goods, that is necessary and sufficient for FPE in a world with arbitrary number of countries, goods and factors.Received: 16 July 2004, Revised: 10 January 2005, JEL Classification Numbers: F1.     

China’s value-added tax reform,firm behavior and performance

China reformed value-added tax (VAT) by removing investment from the tax base in northeastern provinces in 2004, which is a “natural experiment” of its tax system. Using difference-in-differences method, this paper for the first time investigates the impact of VAT reform on China firms’ fixed asset investment, employment behavior, innovative activities, and productivity, and furthermore discusses the impact of firm behavior on industrial structural upgrade and employment with a firm-level panel data of large and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in China. We find that VAT reform significantly promotes firms’ fixed asset investment, and increases firms’ capital-labor ratio and productivity; while enhancement of firms’ productivity is mainly achieved by means of substituting labor with capital, rather than independent technology innovation; meanwhile, VAT reform distinctly decreases employment. Our findings have essential policy implications on the extension of VAT reform in the entire China.