The Impact of Inflation on the Aggregate Debt-Asset Ratio

This paper demonstrates that, contrary to the results of previous studies, the impact of inflation on the aggregate debt-asset ratio cannot be determined theoretically. However, it is shown that inflation is likely to increase this ratio when personal income tax schedules are indexed to the price level and/or when leverage-related costs are relatively high and the personal tax rate on income from holding common stocks is relatively low.     

Inflation and stagflation

This paper reports on the author's theoretical and empirical research which has supported the following propositions. First, the change in the rate of inflation from one year to the next depends upon the growth of the money supply less the current rate of inflation. The current unemployment rate does not significantly affect whether the rate of inflation will rise or fall. If the monetary authorities raise the rate of monetary expansion above the current rate of inflation, the latter will rise regardless of the slack in the economy. Second, the change in the unemployment rate from one year to the next depends upon: (a) the deviation of the current unemployment rate from its equilibrium value and (b) the growth of the money supply less the current rate of inflation. The first effect concerns wage flexibility and the second effect concerns the shift of the aggregate demand (C+I+G) curve.     

The impact of inflation on ROE,growth and stock prices

Using the constant growth dividend discount model (DDM), it can be shown that the critical factor which determines whether common stocks will be able to be an inflation hedge is the growth rate of dividends. In turn, the growth of dividends is mainly impacted by the aggregate return on equity (ROE). Using the DuPont formula, it is clear that the main variable that drives the aggregate ROE in an inflationary environment is the profit margin.Following from this background, this article updates and extends an earlier analysis that involves an analysis of ROE and its components for the 40-year period 1956–1995. The analysis demonstrates that the aggregate ROE is currently at about the same level as in the 1960's, but the components have changed, that is, there has been a decline in total asset turnover and profit margin, but a significant increase in financial leverage that has compensated for the declines in turnover and profit margin. It is further shown that there have been periods of high and low inflation since 1956, and the negative impact of inflation of the implied growth rate is confirmed, which helps explain why investigators find consistent empirical results that common stocks are poor inflation hedges.     

基于SVEC模型的中国货币政策效应与规则研究:1996M01-2011M02

本文基于SVEC模型框架,分析了1996年1月至2011年2月期间中国人民银行所使用的多种货币政策工具与多重政策目标之间存在的关系.研究结果表明,物价、产出及货币供给冲击均对利率工具和准备金率工具产生持久、显著的影响,这与通过泰勒规则预测得到的结论基本吻合,但与其预测的反应时滞存在一定的差别.利率和准备金率对实体经济有重要影响,但效果、传导时滞存在差异,同时,两种工具对货币供给冲击的反应既不充分、也不及时.针对以上结论,本文一一作了解释,并在此基础上得到了许多有益启示.     

Capital taxation and accumulation in a growing world economy with deficit finance

Prior analyses of the incidence of capital taxation have assumed that the government budget is balanced and changes in capital taxes affect either other taxes, transfers, or government expenditures. The general conclusion is that an increase in the capital tax rate will increase the gross-of-tax interest rate and decrease capital accumulation. This article examines the steady-state effects of capital taxation on the gross-of-tax interest rate and capital accumulation within a two-country model of overlapping generations, which allows capital taxation to directly affect government budget deficits. It is shown that, under the residence tax system, if the after-tax-interest rate is greater than the growth rate, an increase in the capital tax rate willdecrease the gross interest rate andincrease the capital-labor ratio. This result holds even under the territorial tax system, with some additional assumptions.     

The cross-sectional effect of inflation on corporate investment and employment

This paper examines the cross-sectional effect of inflation on the investment and employment decisions. The paper shows that more heavily capitalized firms tend to have a greater reduction in the capital-labor ratio during an inflationary period. The paper also shows that firms with a higher cost of debt to wage ratios and a larger amount of depreciation shelter tend to use more labor in the inflationary period. Empirical results are generally consistent with these arguments. The authors wish to thank John Anderson, Jim Hodder, two anonymous referees and Cheng F. Lee, the Editor for their helpful comments. All remaining errors are ours.     

基于金融形势指数对我国货币政策效果非线性的实证研究

本文基于总需求方程缩减式构建包含利率、汇率、资产价格以及货币供给因素具有动态权重的金融形势指数FCI,将其作为信息变量纳入到线性和非线性泰勒规则中进行实证分析,结果表明拓展的前瞻性泰勒规则更能描述我国利率行为,利率能很好的反应金融形势而对产出和通胀反应不足。以通货膨胀率为转换变量对我国货币政策效果进行检验和估计表明泰勒规则是非线性的,存在LSR1模型的非线性形式,利率对通胀的反应是非对称的。对非线性进行拓展性研究表明当通胀达到一定程度时,利率和FCI指数才具有稳定关系。     

A note on reserve requirements and monetary control with a flexible deposit rate

This paper examines the relationship between reserve ratios and monetary control when deposit rates are flexible in the short run. For a total reserves operating target, it is shown that an increase in the deposit reserve ration may raise the variance of a monetary aggregate. Under an interest rate operating target, it is also shown that the deposit reserve ratio affects both the expected value and the variance of a monetary aggregate. These findings for the two alternative operating targets differ sharply from previous results which were based on the assumption of fixed deposit rates.     

最低工资标准提高对企业资本劳动比的影响研究

资本劳动比的提高对企业发展、经济增长和结构转型都具有重要意义。本文利用2002—2011年中国工业企业数据和283个地级市统计数据,探讨了最低工资标准提高对企业资本劳动比的影响。研究发现,最低工资标准提升对制造业企业资本劳动比具有显著的正向影响。平均而言,最低工资标准每提升10%,企业资本劳动比将提高2%,该结果在工具变量回归、双重差分法等多项稳健性检验下均成立。机制分析表明,最低工资标准提高会使企业增加资本投入和减少劳动力雇佣,这一结论为企业用资本替代劳动力的事实提供了直接证据。异质性分析表明,最低工资标准提升对企业资本劳动比的影响主要集中于非国有企业、较低工资水平企业和劳动密集型企业。进一步研究发现,随着最低工资标准提升,企业生产率和盈利能力显著提高,从而佐证了企业用资本替代劳动力的积极效应。本文的研究为进一步完善最低工资制度,促进经济转型升级提供了经验依据与政策启示。     

Inflation at the household level

We use scanner data to estimate inflation rates at the household level. Households’ inflation rates have an annual interquartile range of 6.2–9.0 percentage points. Most of the heterogeneity comes not from variation in broadly defined consumption bundles but from variation in prices paid for the same types of goods. Lower-income households experience higher inflation, but most cross-sectional variation is uncorrelated with observables. Households’ deviations from aggregate inflation exhibit only slightly negative serial correlation. Almost all variability in a household’s inflation rate comes from variability in household-level prices relative to average prices, not from variability in aggregate inflation.     

Monetary rules and the nominal rate of interest under uncertainty

The expected real rate of return on a nominal bond is shown to be equal to the real rate of interest plus a premium for systematic purchasing power risk. The particular monetary rule employed by the central monetary authority affects the entire joint distribution of inflation and aggregate real wealth. Thus, the monetary authority is able to influence the relationship between the real and nominal interest rate not only by affecting the expected rate of inflation but also by affecting the systematic purchasing power risk of fixed nominal claims.     

投资效率下滑与劳动力市场结松矛盾的关系

新古典宏观经济学柯布一道格拉斯生产函数揭示了保持合理的资本劳动比率对于促进经济可持续发展的重要意义。数据显示,当前国内资本要素对经济增长的促进作用有所减弱,从生产函数关系看,支持经济增长的最优资本一劳动比率可能发生了变化。文章分析指出,未来几年我国劳动力供给还将处于较高水平,劳动力素质亦呈不断提升趋势,制约劳动力要素释放的因素主要来自于劳动力市场的结构性问题,未来应基于改善劳动力投入要素角度进一步挖掘投资效率。     

通货膨胀对资本结构的影响：理论模型与实证检验

利率管制下具有股权融资偏好的企业融资模型表明,通货膨胀会增大公司的债务融资比重,并且利率管制带来的利率刚性和公司税率都会放大通货膨胀的这种作用。同时,以中国30家上市公司25个季度的财务面板数据为基础进行的实证研究发现,通货膨胀对中国上市公司的债务—权益比率具有非常显著的正向作用,货币对于公司的资本结构是非中性的。另外固定资产比率非常显著的正向作用于债务—权益比率。     

A quantitative exploration of the opportunistic approach to disinflation

Under a conventional policy rule, a central bank adjusts its policy rate linearly according to the gap between inflation and its target, and the gap between output and its potential. Under “the opportunistic approach to disinflation” a central bank controls inflation aggressively when inflation is far from its target, but concentrates more on output stabilization when inflation is close to its target, allowing supply shocks and unforeseen fluctuations in aggregate demand to move inflation within a certain band. We use stochastic simulations of a small-scale rational expectations model to contrast the behavior of output and inflation under opportunistic and linear rules.     

Firm Characteristics,Unanticipated Inflation,and Stock Returns

This paper re-examines the effects of nominal contracts on the relationship between unanticipated inflation and an individual stock's rate of return. This study differs in three main ways from previous research. First, announced inflation data are used to examine the effects of unanticipated inflation. Second, a different specification is used to obtain more efficient estimates. Third, additional nominal contracts are considered. The empirical results indicate that time-varying firm characteristics related to inflation predominately determine the effect of unanticipated inflation on a stock's rate of return. A firm's debt-equity ratio appears to be particularly important in determining the response.     

Menu costs and Markov inflation: A theoretical revision with new evidence

We revisit a foundational theoretical paper in the menu-cost literature, Sheshinski and Weiss [1983. Optimum pricing policy under stochastic inflation. Review of Economic Studies 50(3), 513-529], one of the few to treat stochastic inflation with persistent deviations from trend. In contrast to the original finding, we show that optimal pricing in this environment entails using different (s,S) bands in high-inflation and low-inflation states of the world. The low-inflation band is strictly contained within the high-inflation band. This revised solution has very different implications from the original one. Firms are generally risk loving, not risk averse, with respect to inflation. An increase in the variance of inflation increases price dispersion when inflation is high and decreases price dispersion when inflation is low. On an aggregate level, this optimal pricing would lead to bunching of prices and non-neutrality of money in the setting of Caplin and Spulber [1987. Menu costs and the neutrality of money. Quarterly Journal of Economics 102(4), 703-725]. To test the main finding, we construct an establishment-level dataset from the months surrounding Mexico's “tequila crisis” in 1995. In the high-inflation state, price increases are larger and establishments allow their prices to vary more widely around their respective long-run mean relative prices. Cross-establishment price dispersion is lower, but this result seems due to decreased establishment heterogeneity rather than narrower (s,S) bands. Overall, the evidence suggests that establishments employ wider (s,S) bands in the high-inflation state.     

The Gordon-Shapiro Dividend Growth Formula and Inflation

The share valuation model which discounts expected dividends is widely accepted in the finance literature. Beyond some point a constant growth rate in expected ividends is assumed. The accepted specification of this growth rate involves a constant retention rate for earnings, and is valid under no inflation. This paper derives the corresponding nominal formula under inflation using a retention rate defined in terms of inflation accounted earnings, and shows that its real counterpart is the accepted formula. It is also shown under inflation that the nominal formula using a retention rate defined in terms of historic cost earnings is considerably more complicated, and that a major error in share valuation results from mistakenly assuming the accepted formula to be valid in nominal terms with a retention rate defined in terms of inflation accounted earnings.     

Aggregate earnings and stock market returns: The good,the bad,and the state-dependent

Prior research documents a negative aggregate earnings-returns relation. In contrast, we posit that the sign of the relation varies, depending upon the macroeconomic and financial market conditions that exist in the earnings announcement quarter. We argue that the existing macroeconomic and financial market conditions influence market participants’ frame of reference, which in turn affects whether they interpret aggregate earnings surprises to be informative about the expected inflation component of the discount rate, the market risk premium component of the discount rate, or aggregate future cash flows. Consistent with this, we find that the sign of the aggregate earnings-returns relation changes numerous times across our sample period. We also find that market participants interpret aggregate earnings to be informative about changes in expected inflation (market risk premium) when the sign of the aggregate earnings-returns relation is negative (positive). Finally, we identify macroeconomic and financial market conditions under which the aggregate earnings-returns relation is more (less) likely to be negative (positive).     

Inflation and Welfare in a Competitive Search Equilibrium with Asymmetric Information

We study an economy characterized by competitive search and asymmetric information. Money is essential. Buyers decide their cash holdings after observing the contracts posted by firms and experience match-specific preference shocks which remain unknown to sellers. Firms are allowed to post general contracts. In the baseline model with indivisible goods, we show that, when the number of potential buyers is fixed, inflation decreases markups. This, in turn, increases aggregate output and ex ante welfare. When goods are divisible the negative effect of inflation on markups holds for unconstrained agents but is ambiguous for constrained agents. Still, optimal monetary policy implies a positive nominal rate. When there is buyers' free entry, asymmetric information causes a congestion effect that can be corrected by monetary policy.     

Asset Pricing and Expected Inflation

This paper provides an equilibrium model in which expected real returns on common stocks are negatively related to expected inflation and money growth. It is shown that the fall in real wealth associated with an increase in expected inflation decreases the real rate of interest and the expected real rate of return of the market portfolio. The expected real rate of return of the market portfolio falls less, for a given increase in expected inflation, when the increase in expected inflation is caused by an increase in money growth rather than by a worsening of the investment opportunity set. The model has empirical implications for the effect of a change in expected inflation on the cross-sectional distribution of asset returns and can help to understand why assets whose return covaries positively with expected inflation may have lower expected returns. The model also agrees with explanations advanced by Fama [5] and Geske and Roll [10] for the negative relation between stock returns and inflation.