Pricing in Australian Manufacturing*

The rate of change of prices of competing foreign products and the rate of change of costs of domestic production are both found to have positive impact on the rate of domestic price inflation in a cross section of Australian manufacturing industries over the period from 1968-69 to 1986-87. Prices of competing foreign products are found to have more impact, while production costs are found to have less impact, the higher is the level of domestic concentration, supporting the hypothesis that foreign and domestic competition have interactive effects on domestic prices.     

Pricing Monitoring Uncertainty in Climate Policy

This article assesses the environmental and economic efficiency of three different approaches to treat monitoring uncertainty in climate policy, namely prescribing uncertainty, setting minimum certainty thresholds and pricing uncertainty through a discount. Our model of the behavior of profit-maximizing agents demonstrates that under the simplest set of assumptions the regulator has no interest in reducing monitoring uncertainty. However, in the presence of information asymmetry, monitoring uncertainty may hamper the economic and environmental performance of climate policy due to adverse selection. In a mandatory policy, prescribing a reasonable level of uncertainty is preferable if the regulator has enough information to determine this level. For voluntary mechanisms, such as carbon offsets, allowing agents to set their own monitoring uncertainty below a maximum threshold or discounting carbon revenues in proportion to monitoring uncertainty are the best approaches for the regulator to mitigate the negative effects of information asymmetry. These conclusions are much more pronounced when agents do not accrue revenues from their mitigation action, other than carbon. Our analysis of monitoring uncertainty under information asymmetry, which results in heterogeneity in the agents’ benefits from abatement, generalizes the classical trade-off between production efficiency and information rents.     

Portfolio Choice and Liquidity Constraints*

We study the infinite‐horizon model of household portfolio choice under liquidity constraints and revisit the portfolio specialization puzzle. We show why the puzzle is robust to several model variations, and argue that positive correlation between earnings shocks and stock returns is unlikely to provide an empirically plausible resolution. We find that relatively small fixed costs for stock market entry are sufficient to deter stockholding because, for a plausible range of parameter values, households can achieve desired consumption smoothing with small or zero holdings of stocks. Such costs could arise from informational considerations, sign‐up fees, and investor inertia.     

Probabilistic Voting and Accountability in Elections with Uncertain Policy Constraints

We consider accountability in repeated elections with two long‐lived parties that have distinct policy preferences and different levels of valence. In each period the government faces a privately observed feasibility constraint and selects a publicly observed policy vector. While pure strategy equilibria do not exhibit tight control on government policy making, complete control is possible in mixed strategies. In optimal equilibria voters use reelection functions which depend on policy in a manner that causes the governing party to internalize voter preferences. In these optimal equilibria the voters use different reelection functions for different parties.     

Experience Goods, Expectations and Pricing*

This paper studies a peculiar problem involved in the pricing of an 'experience good' whose value is not known to consumers until it is actually consumed It shows that the producer faces an expectational problem that does not arise in the framework of a 'search good'. Noticing a link between markets in earlier and later periods due to the expectational problem, the present paper analyzes equilibrium price patterns when a producer can precommit to a certain future price path and when he cannot It also discusses social welfare implications.     

影子银行对中国货币政策的影响

在新凯恩斯主义和货币主义理论基础上引入影子银行存量规模对货币供给和利率的影响,从而得到一个包含影子银行、货币供应量、利率、CPI和GDP的动态系统模型。在考虑时间聚合问题后,利用混频抽样数据结构向量自回归(MIDAS-SVAR)模型分析了影子银行对货币政策目标的影响。LR检验的结果显示MIDAS-SVAR模型优于季度SVAR模型。对比MIDAS-SVAR模型和SVAR模型中GDP方差分解的结果发现,影子银行在MIDAS-SVAR模型中对GDP预测方差的贡献要高于SVAR模型。脉冲响应函数的结果显示,影子银行对货币供应量M2的影响要强于利率R。季度内第3个月份影子银行存量规模对货币政策中介目标和最终目标变量的影响与季度内第1个月和第2个月的影响存在差异。央行在利用货币政策进行宏观调控时,应充分考虑不同月份影子银行存量规模,保证货币政策效果不被扭曲。     

The Most-Favoured-Customer Pricing Policy and Competitive Advantage

The paper investigates the effects on competition of the unilateral most-favoured-customer pricing policy. A model is considered in which a multimarket incumbent firm faces a threat of entry in one of its two markets. It is shown that contemporaneous most-favoured-customer clauses may change competition to the advantage of the incumbent both under strategic substitutes and strategic complements. If the duopolistic market is strong, the most-favoured-customer policy makes the incumbent 'tough' and may be used for entry deterrence purposes.     

Optimal Monetary Policy with Vertical Production and Trade*

This paper explores the optimal monetary policy response to domestic and foreign technology shocks in an open economy with vertical structure of production and trade. We find that any stage‐specific productivity shock in one country may have a transborder spillover effect on the other country via the vertical trade. So when choosing optimal monetary rules, each monetary authority should respond to both home and foreign productivity shocks. Also, the flexible exchange rate cannot replicate the flexible price equilibrium, even under producer currency pricing, due to price stickiness in multiple stages. We also find that the existence of a transborder spillover effect depends on the currencies of price setting. Finally, vertical trade may affect the value of exchange rate flexibility under PCP and LCP setting.     

影子银行、金融风险与宏观审慎监管有效性

近年来,众多学者提出影子银行监管不充分是国际金融危机发生的重要原因,影子银行规模扩张增强了金融体系的顺周期性并造成了金融风险的积累.与此同时,具有逆周期调控理念的宏观审慎政策开始被各国金融监管机构付诸实践.本文通过构建符合中国经济金融运行特点,纳入影子银行和宏观审慎政策的NK-DSGE模型进行脉冲响应分析,研究了影子银行对中国金融风险的影响以及宏观审慎政策调控的有效性问题.研究结果表明,影子银行高杠杆的经营方式加剧了金融系统脆弱性与风险积累,对影子银行和商业银行信贷监管不对称会刺激影子银行规模扩张;宏观审慎政策实施能有效防范金融风险,包含影子银行的宏观审慎政策能够抑制影子银行的顺周期性,使金融调控政策更为有效.     

Australian Macroeconomic Policy Experience*

This paper looks at Australian macroeconomic experience from approximately 1912 to 1985. The whole period is divided into five episodes. The idea in preparing this paper was to try to answer three questions namely: how did Australian experience differ from that of other OECD countries, what policy lessons could be learnt, and finally, what light could be shed on the relevance of various macroeconomic theories notably rational expectations. In fact. the questions have by no means been adequately answered though the paper goes furthest in dealing with the first question. I hope it will encourage further discussion and research¹ Anticipating some of the conclusions, the historical review suggests that Australian experiences have been fairly similar to those of other OECD countries. notably European countries. But the timing has sometimes differed the Australian wages explosions have been (more or less) exceptional and recently Australia has been special in having on incomes policy, It also appears that the theory of rational expectations does not get much support from Australian was behaviour, that policy from 1916 to 1981 was not really monetarist, and that fiscal expansions since 1982 have been made possible by the availability of the international capital market.     

掠夺性定价行为的异化及其竞争策略研究

在网络经济条件下,掠夺性定价行为的主体、掠夺条件、表现形式和实施效果都出现了异化,因此,针对掠夺性定价行为的竞争政策也需作相应调整,从效率与公平两个角度系统考量新经济条件下掠夺性定价行为,而不是简单地加以限制.     

International Labor Union Policy and Growth with Creative Destruction*

A multi‐economy Schumpeterian growth model is constructed. Economies are interdependent through technology transfer. Households can stay as workers or become researchers at some cost. Workers are employed in production and researchers in R&D. Workers are unionized and union power depends on the government's protection. The main findings are as follows. If international technological dependence increases, then workers’ wages, the growth rate, and the level of welfare fall. The international coordination of labor union policy raises workers’ wages and promotes growth and welfare.     

Effects of Capacity Constraints and Concentration on the Pricing Behaviour in Oligopolistic Industries with Demand Fluctuations

It has been found that prices move procyclically in some industries and countercyclically in others. Empirical research has documented that prices in an industry are likely to move countercyclically when concentration is high and procyclically when concentration is low. I explain these findings by introducing capacity constraints found in the model of Rotemberg and Saloner.
JEL Classification Number: L13.     

Pricing Behaviour and the Cost-Push Channel of Monetary Policy

This paper examines the empirical and theoretical status of the cost-push channel of monetary policy, according to which interest rates affect the costs of production and hence pricing behaviour. Particular attention is paid to modelling the cost-push channel in a manner consistent with cost-plus pricing theory, which is identified as the canonical model of pricing behaviour in heterodox economics. It is shown that different variants of cost-plus pricing behaviour give rise to qualitatively different specifications of the cost-push channel, with important consequences for macrodynamics and the conduct of monetary policy.     

燃料乙醇政策研究及定价机制探讨

针对目前燃料乙醇行业发展的困境,结合现行法规政策体系、补贴政策和定价机制,分析存在的问题,借鉴美国法规体系、目标标准、补贴措施和RFS实施与管理,提出政策建议、燃料乙醇新定价机制与燃料乙醇推广环节的补偿机制。     

An Incentive Water Pricing Policy for Sustainable Water Use

By adopting the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the European Commission (EC) and the European Council made recommendations for water pricing policies in European Union (EU) member states with a view to enhancing the sustainability of water resources. Clearly, the directive integrates economic instruments in environmental policies to provide incentives for the sustainable use of water resources. Our analysis will focus on public water utilities, required to be financially self-sufficient, facing demand and capacity shocks. The paper deals with the simultaneous determination of incentive pricing policies and investment rules under an ex~ante maximum demand charge. We will characterize the welfare-optimal capacity selection rule and the welfare-optimal maximum demand pricing rule. Heterogeneous consumers demands are considered when tariffs are set ex~ante, before demands are known. Our results are state-contingent nonlinear pricing that responds to demand fluctuations and capacity constraints.