Trade elasticity of substitution and equilibrium dynamics

The empirical literature provides a wide range of estimates for trade elasticities at the aggregate level. Recent contributions in international macroeconomics suggest that low (implied) values of the trade elasticity may play an important role in understanding the disconnect between international prices and real variables. However, a standard model of the international business cycle displays multiple locally isolated equilibria if the trade is sufficiently low. The main contribution of this paper is to compute and characterize some dynamic properties of these equilibria. In simulations, the presence of multiple equilibria is shown to imply a volatile and persistent real exchange rate.     

Consumption opportunities and the real value of the external debt

Developing countries have, in the period since the oil shock of 1973–1974, built up large external indebtedness. At the same time world inflation has in good part eroded the real value of existing debts. But the measurement of the inflation effects on real debt depend critically on which among a number of deflators is selected. The deflators proposed in this context have traditionally been export prices, import prices or prices in world trade. This paper argues that the correct deflator is the domestic consumer price index. Using the consumer price index as a debt deflator it is readily shown that conventional results in trade theory are recovered in the presence of external indebtedness: The income effect of an export price increase is proportional to the level of exports, the income effect of an import price increase is proportional to the level of imports. Real income, using a comprehensive income measure, is equal to the value of domestic output less the real value of real interest payments on external debt.     

The recent boom–bust cycle: The relative contribution of capital flows, credit supply and asset bubbles

We use an estimated open economy DSGE model with financial frictions for the US and the rest of the world to evaluate various competing explanations about the recent boom–bust cycle. We find that the savings glut hypothesis is insufficient for explaining all aspects of the boom in the US. Relatively strong TFP growth and expansionary monetary policy are also not able to explain fully the volatility of corporate and in particular residential investment. We identify bubbles in the stock and housing market as crucial. Concerning the downturn in 2008/2009, the fall in house prices and residential investment only plays a minor role. Mortgage defaults have more explanatory power, especially in a specification of the model with a segregated equity market. Finally, the bursting of the stock market bubble was at least as important in this recession as in 2001. Because of various negative shocks hitting the economy at the same time in 2008/2009 and continued positive technology growth, not only the real interest rate declined but inflation fell rapidly and left insufficient room for monetary policy to play a similar stabilising role as in previous recessions.     

Monetary business cycle accounting

This paper investigates the quantitative importance of various types of distortions for inflation and nominal interest rate dynamics by extending business cycle accounting to monetary models. Representing various classes of real and nominal distortions as ‘wedges’ in standard equilibrium conditions allows a quantitative assessment of those distortions. Decomposing the data into movements due to these wedges shows that distortions generating movements in TFP and wedges in equilibrium conditions for asset markets are essential. In contrast, wedges capturing the effects of sticky prices play less important role. These results are robust to alternative implementations of the accounting method.     

Agricultural and monetary shocks before the great depression: A graph-theoretic causal investigation

This paper uses graph-theoretic methods to investigate the causal relationships between agriculture, money, interest rates, prices, and real GDP in 12 countries during the years 1869–1929. We find that agricultural production directly and indirectly causes real GDP in two-thirds of the cases. Monetary shocks also play an important causal role in about half the cases, but unlike agriculture, the causal links are usually indirect through other variables to real GDP. The direct causal link between money and prices is also particularly strong. Between 1869 and 1929, money causes prices in nearly all of the countries in the sample.     

国内、国际期货市场期货价格之间的关联研究

该文利用协整检验和Granger因果检验等技术,首次对国内和国际期货市场的铜、铝、大豆和小麦的期货价格之间的动态关系进行了实证研究.结果显示:上海期货交易所与伦敦金属交易所铜、铝的期货价格之间存在长期均衡关系,大连商品交易所与芝加哥期货交易所大豆的期货价格之间存在协整关系;相对而言,国外市场的影响力较大;郑州商品交易所与芝加哥期货交易所小麦期货价格之间不存在协整关系.     

近十年全球主要国家房价波动的特征及驱动因素——基于经济学文献的分析

过去十年全球房价的上涨幅度与持续时间都是历史罕见的,各主要国家实际房价周期表现出高度的同步性。虽然本轮房价膨胀与经济周期相背离,但是多数国家房价的上涨仍然处于合理范围内。全球实际利率的持续走低与流动性过剩可能是全球房价膨胀与同向变化的主要因素。     

The 2007 financial crisis and the UK residential housing market: Did the relationship between interest rates and house prices change?

This paper investigates the impact of the 2007 financial crisis on the relationship between real mortgage interest rates and real house prices. It applies a dynamic conditional correlation based methodology that uses fractionally differenced data along with controls for structural breaks and non-interest-rate related factors that influence house prices. The key finding made is that the financial crisis had a long-term structural impact on the monetary transmission relationship. For example, we find that the mean conditional correlation between house prices in England and Wales and the three-year fixed mortgage rate rose by 6.6 percentage points. Similarly, the mean correlation between prices and the standard variable mortgage rate increased 6.4 percentage points to 54%. These findings suggest to us that interest-rate-based monetary policy still has an important role to play in the housing market.     

Macroeconomic Interdependence with Trade and Multinational Activities

This paper examines how differences in the integration strategies followed by firms active in foreign markets affect the way productivity and policy shocks spread their effects worldwide. The analysis incorporates costly trade and local sales by multinational firms in a general-equilibrium open economy macroeconomic model. The mode of foreign market access is found to play a major role in the international business cycle, affecting the dimension of consumption and output spillovers worldwide. We show that despite financial markets being effectively complete, consumption risks may not be fully insured in the world economy as long as multinational firms discriminate prices across markets. Furthermore, cross-country differences in firms' integration strategies can account for extensive asymmetries in the way country-specific and global shocks are transmitted in the world economy. We argue that this may have relevant consequences for the welfare implications of monetary and trade policies.     

我国资产价格波动与货币政策关系研究

随着金融自由化的逐步推进,资本市场存量日益增大.这既体现了金融深化程度的提高,又意味着货币供应与国民经济主要指标之间稳定性的弱化.资产价格对货币政策的制订和执行会产生深刻的影响.其中股价、房价等资产价格在货币政策传导机制中扮演的角色越来越重要.本文从实证角度出发,通过构建VAR模型检验我国资产价格对货币政策的反应以及资产价格对货币政策目标的影响,发现资产价格、货币政策及货币政策目标间存在长期协整关系,资产价格对产出有正向冲击作用,股市显著影响通货膨胀,但房地产市场对通货膨胀推动作用不明显,资产价格受货币政策的冲击影响显著,其中股市对货币政策冲击的反应明显大于房地产市场.     

Exchange‐rate Effects on China's Trade*

Though China's share of world trade exceeds that of Japan, little is known about the response of China's trade to changes in exchange rates. The few estimates available have two limitations. First, the data for trade prices are based on proxies for prices from other countries. Secondly, the estimation sample includes the period of China's transformation from a centrally‐planned economy to a more market‐oriented one. We address these limitations with an empirical model explaining the shares of China's exports and imports in world trade in terms of the real effective value of the renminbi. The specifications control for foreign direct investment and for the role of imports of parts to assemble exports. Parameter estimation uses disaggregated monthly trade data and excludes China's decentralization period. We find that a 10 percent real appreciation of the renminbi lowers the share of aggregate Chinese exports by nearly one percentage point. However, the estimated response of imports is negligible and lacks precision.     

中国金融与经济周期的测度与分析——兼论双重周期中的政策选择

本文采用了更为匹配样本数量的中低频域分析和拐点分析方法来研究中国的金融周期。从单个变量的识别结果来看,信贷、信贷与GDP比例、M2和房地产价格均是识别中国金融周期的重要变量,而股价并非识别中国金融周期的代表性变量。综合的金融周期实证表明,金融周期的确是与传统经济周期所不同的一种内生的经济现象。金融周期普遍比用GDP识别出来的传统经济周期的持续期更长、振幅更大。中国的金融周期是先行于实体经济周期的。金融周期下行会对实体经济的复苏带来负面影响。宏观政策需要严格把握政策力度,确保双周期的平稳过渡。     

Shortage and currency substitution in transition economies: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania

This paper examines currency substitution in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania during the end of central planning and transition to market economies. Before liberalization, central European economies faced increasing shortage and repressed inflation in the official sector. Households held substantial wealth in real assets and foreign currency. Furthermore, part of their savings was held as hunting money against potential opportunities to buy in bulk at bargain prices in official stores or pay a premium price on the black market. The shift from centrally-planned to market economies is modeled with a shortage variable. Foreign currency demand and consumption functions are estimated by the Johansen procedure. Environmental constraints play a key role in interpreting estimates. The official sector shortage is an important determinant of foreign currency demand in each country.     

可计算的一般非均衡模型

本文根据现实世界经济变化的鲜明特征,建立了一个多部门市场经济的可计算非均衡动态模型。该模型突出了市场经济运转中市场中介人的核心作用:即在供求不等的价位上如何促使买卖成交,在生产和消费计划不协调的情况下如何协调生产、交换和消费活动。文章用递归(recursive-programming)方法模拟了市场的非均衡动态过程,部门内、部门间和市场上的反馈系统结构以及各种产品、投入物的存货调节机制和价格形成机制。经济人受约束的理性行为、适应性行为和小心谨慎行为以及若干经济制度特征都按可操作、可运转、可计算的方式进行了详细精致地描述和刻画。     

Macroeconomic Synchronization Between G3 Countries

This paper studies the existence of a world business cycle by examining quarterly and annual comovements in production, prices and interest rates in the three main world economies: Germany, Japan and the US. In accordance with earlier studies, contemporaneous relationships clearly dominate short-term dynamics. The evidence indicates the existence of strong comovements in prices and long-term interest rates, and, to a lesser degree, in GDP and short-term interest rates. They are, however, rather unstable over time.     

Manipulation and the Allocational Role of Prices

It is commonly believed that prices in secondary financial markets play an important allocational role because they contain information that facilitates the efficient allocation of resources. This paper identifies a limitation inherent in this role of prices. It shows that the presence of a feedback effect from the financial market to the real value of a firm creates an incentive for an uninformed trader to sell the firm's stock. When this happens the informativeness of the stock price decreases, and the beneficial allocational role of the financial market weakens. The trader profits from this trading strategy, partly because his trading distorts the firm's investment. We therefore refer to this strategy as manipulation . We show that trading without information is profitable only with sell orders, driving a wedge between the allocational implications of buyer and seller initiated speculation, and providing justification for restrictions on short sales.     

Two Crises: Inflationary Inertia and Credibility

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the Mexican currency crisis of 1994 and the Chilean crisis of 1982 to assess to what extent exchange-rate-based stabilisation programmes are successful in reducing – or even eliminating – inflationary inertia. The paper provides a brief overview of the Chilean and Mexican reform and stabilisation programmes. A theoretical model that emphasises the role of credibility is developed to analyse the effects of exchange-rate based stabilisation programmes on inflationary inertia. According to the model, less than credible stabilisations will not eliminate inertia and will generate major real exchange rate overvaluation. Detailed data are used to test the hypothesis     

影子银行规模变动的金融资产价格效应*

本文基于所构建的TVP VAR模型，检验了我国影子银行规模变动对金融资产价格的溢出效应。研究结果发现，影子银行规模的增加对商业银行同业拆放利率、房地产价格、股票市场价格指数和人民币实际有效汇率指数具有正向冲击。宏观经济政策调整使经济系统结构发生改变，从而导致金融资产价格对影子银行规模变动的冲击响应具有时变性。由于信息传导需要时间，因此影子银行规模变动的溢出效应具有时滞性。因此，应规范与引导影子银行的发展，在发挥其配置金融资源功能的同时提高资源配置效率，促进实体经济健康发展。     

Did monetary or technology shocks move euro area stock prices?

Using a Bayesian vector autoregressive (VAR) model, I investigate the impact of monetary and technology shocks on the euro area stock market. I find an important role for technology surprise shocks, but not monetary shocks, in explaining variations in real stock prices. Specifically, the pronounced boom?Cbust cycle of 1995?C2003 is largely due to technology surprise shocks. The identification method allows me to study the effects of technology news shocks. The responses are consistent with the idea that news on technology improvements has an immediate impact on stock prices. These findings are robust to several modelling choices, including the productivity measure, the specification of the VAR model, and the identifying restrictions.