Adjustment to devaluation in a small country

Summary This paper presents a simple model of adjustment to devaluation in the context of a small, open economy consisting of traded goods, non-traded goods, and money. The analysis stresses the purely transitional importance of substitution and liquidity effects following devaluation, and at the same time, derives the time path of adjustment of the trade balance and the price of non-traded goods.The major result of interest is that during the process of adjustment, the substitution and liquidity effects both act so as to improve the trade balance, but work in opposite directions on the excess demand for non-traded goods.     

Rural-led exchange rate appreciation in China

The departure of a factor in excess supply in a non-traded rural sector leads to a Rural-led Exchange Rate Real Appreciation (RERA), in a dual economy setup. The RERA highlights for the first time a potential link between intra-national factor movements and real exchange rates. In China, where there is excess labor employed in the production of (largely) non-traded rural goods, we attribute around one third of the recent appreciation of the real exchange rate – defined as the relative price of nontradables – to a RERA effect.     

Alfred Marshall,Silver, and China

The paper provides an empirical investigation of Alfred Marshall's analysis of the silver flow mechanism between the West and the East, which maintains that silver will flow whenever there is a difference in its purchasing power. The results show that Marshall's analysis offers an empirically sound interpretation of changes in the price level in China and the silver flow across China's borders. The results also confirm that there was a high degree of international integration for China's internal and external prices of silver. Moreover, the stable purchasing power parity could in practice be maintained by silver flow without resorting to a substantial percentage of tradable goods.     

Prices and the growth of the knowledge economy in Sweden and Western Europe before the industrial revolution

Abstract

This article uses long-term series of real prices for various goods and services to analyse the evolution of the knowledge economy before the Industrial Revolution by focusing on Sweden in comparison with other European countries. During the early modern period, the relative price of knowledge-intensive goods and services, such as iron, paper, salt, sea transports and silver, decreased relative to a Consumer Price Index. The increased productivity levels of these goods and services were caused by increased division of labour and accelerated diffusion of knowledge. However, the real price of foodstuff tended to increase, implying that living standards declined with increased population. Early modern Western Europe acquired a peculiar price structure, characterized by low prices of industrial goods relative to the price of food. Only with the advent of industrial society could the knowledge economy escape the Malthusian entrapment.     

Philip I of England,embezzlement, and the quantity theory of money

Early in 1555, King Philip I of England minted at the Tower of London over £40,000 in sterling from New World silver brought from Spain. By probing Spanish and English accountancy procedures, this article demonstrates that this sum has not been included in either sixteenth –century or modern calculations of the circulating medium. Revised estimates for the money supply are given and possible inflationary effects on the mid –Tudor price rise are considered.     

The Argentine stabilization plan of December 20th

In this paper an analytical model is developed to incorporate the essential characteristics of the stabilization plan implemented in Argentina in January 1979. The model is based upon a set of simplifying assumptions that only approximate the complexity of the real world. It is assumed that the expectations of inflation and the degree of excess demand or supply in the non-traded goods market are the main intermediate determinants of the rate of inflation in that market, the rate of change of prices of traded goods being determined by the external inflation together with the rate of devaluation. Treating thus the external rate of inflation as exogenous, the only instrument available for influencing the rate of inflation in the long run is the rate of devaluation. Since the model assumes a fixed exchange rate regime, the money supply is endogenous and hence unsuitable as an instrument of economic policy.     

Dilemma of the Silver Standard Economies: The Case of China

Exchange rate commitments implied in the silver standard originally anchored China's monetary policy and the inflation rate in the early republican period. It was believed that China's free silver standard acted as a natural check on the excessive issuing of notes by warlords and local governments. This consensus view, however, overlooks the fact that the silver standard was inherently unstable because it left no room for monetary policy to stabilize output and inflation. This article employs a formal structural model to show that a fiat currency unlinked to fluctuations in the price of silver that allows government to implement self‐adjusting monetary policies would further stabilize China's output and inflation.     

反倾销政策与研发竞争

借助异质产品的Bertrand双寡头模型,本文分析了一国反倾销政策对该国企业和外国企业的研发、产品价格及社会福利的影响。研究结论表明:与自由贸易相比,当产品的差异度较小时,受反倾销政策保护的企业会策略性地利用反倾销政策而退出国外市场,减少研发投入,进而提高产品价格,而遭受反倾销政策约束的外国企业由于其研发投入的边际收入增加,因而会增加研发投入,降低产品价格。此外,反倾销政策的存在还有可能促进各国社会福利的提升。     

Silver fetters? The rise and fall of the Chinese price level 1928–34

We show how the silver standard transmitted world silver price fluctuations into China and made the Chinese price level closely linked to the world silver price. Inflation was transmitted between 1929 and 1931 when the world silver price was falling; while deflation was transmitted during 1932 and 1934 when the world silver price was rising. Using micro-level evidence and counterfactual simulations, we show that the exchange rate was the main shock transmission channel, and silver stocks played an insignificant role.     

More on the emigration of the peasantry

This paper sets out some circumstances in which emigration of some fraction of the population may be harmful to those who are left behind. In elaborating on the recent work of Keith Griffin, we argue that when emigration takes place, non-emigrant income will rise or fall depending upon the proportion of the original endowment of capital emigrants take with them. When pure labour emigrates, in a one-sector model, non-emigrant income must decline. In a two-sector Heckscher-Ohlin framework, the income of non-emigrants may also decline if one of the goods is non-traded.     

‘Towards improved monetary policy in Indonesia’: a comment

This comment argues that inflation-focused policy is appropriate for Indonesia but that it should be directed at underlying inflation over the medium term. It contends that McLeod's monetarist explanation of inflation in Indonesia is unsatisfactory in theory and is not consistent with the evidence: traded goods prices rose before, and substantially more than, non-traded goods prices during the crisis of 1997–98, which is not consistent with the monetarist view that inflation was caused by excessive base money growth.     

Exchange Rate Regimes: Middling Through

Abstract

The appropriate exchange rate regime, in the context of integration of currency markets with financial markets and of large international capital flows, continues to be a policy dilemma. It is found that the majority of countries are moving towards somewhat higher exchange and lower interest rate volatility. Features of foreign exchange (forex) markets could be partly motivating these choices. A model with noise trading, non-traded goods and price rigidities shows that bounds on the volatility of the exchange rate can lower noise trading in forex markets; decrease fundamental variance and improve real fundamentals in an emerging market economy (EME); and give more monetary policy autonomy. Central banks prefer secret interventions where they have an information advantage or fear destabilizing speculation. But in the model discussed in this article, short-term pre-announced interventions can control exchange rate volatility, pre-empt deviations in prices and real exchange rates, and allow markets to help central banks achieve their targets. The long-term crawl need not be announced. In conclusion, the regime's applicability to an EME is explored.     

Unanticipated vs. Anticipated Tax Reforms in a Two-Sector Open Economy

We use a two-sector neoclassical open economy model with traded and non-traded goods to investigate the effects of unanticipated and anticipated tax reforms. First, an unanticipated tax reform produces an expansion of GDP, labor, and investment, while an anticipated tax reform has opposite effects before the implementation of the labor tax cut. Quantitatively, if the traded sector is more capital intensive, GDP increases by 1.6 percentage points or declines by 2.7 percentage points after three years, depending on whether the tax cut is unanticipated or anticipated. Second, we find that GDP change masks a wide dispersion in sectoral output responses. As long as investment is both traded and non traded, a tax reform substantially raises the relative size of the non-traded sector after three years while traded output always drops. Third, a tax reform improves welfare in all scenarios, more so if the markup is endogenous, but less so if the shock is anticipated. Importantly, we find that welfare gains in a two-sector economy with capital accumulation and perfect access to external borrowing are between 39 % and 89 % higher than those in an economy without physical capital.     

价格非平衡变化的机理：一个新凯恩斯主义的解释

本文构建了一个具有粘性价格的一般均衡模型，分析不同商品价格非平衡变化的现象。分析表明，当经济中不同商品的价格调整具有异质性时，货币冲击将导致灵活价格产品的价格水平变化超过货币增长率，表现为不同的商品价格调节快慢不同。货币冲击将拉动粘性价格产品的产出增加，表现为货币非中性。相对价格的变化使得消费支出发生结构性转移，导致灵活价格产品的需求下降。财政冲击也具有类似的效应，它将拉动价格不平衡上涨，并带动产出上升，同时会挤出消费。这种价格非平衡变化的机制很好的解释了我国2007—08年发生的所谓的“结构性通货膨胀”现象。     

补贴资源性产业的扭曲效应研究——基于开放经济下的经济增长视角

本文在索洛—斯旺模型的基本框架下引入了资源中间品部门和资源中间品的国际贸易,构建了一个开放的经济增长模型。在此基础上进一步分析了补贴资源中间品部门引发的市场扭曲及其福利效应。本文的研究指出,在开放经济中,资源中间品的国际价格水平会影响经济增长的模式。当资源中间品的国际价格低于某一临界值时,经济增长是可持续的,否则经济增长将进入稳定状态。补贴资源中间品部门所产生的扭曲效应会受到资源中间品国际价格水平的影响,资源中间品的国际价格越高,补贴的福利损失越大。     

Price dispersion across and within countries: The case of Japan and Korea

This paper analyzes the price difference between Japan and Korea by using goods-level consumer price data. The national border has a large effect on price dispersion in both time-series volatility analysis and cross-sectional difference analysis. By categorizing goods by their perishability, I find that absolute purchasing power parity (PPP) applies to a greater extent for durable goods. Although perishables deviate more from absolute PPP, the difference is due to distance. This implies that the source of price dispersion depends on the characteristics of goods. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (2) (2007) 237–259.     

人民币内部真实汇率的测算及汇率失调分析——基于巴拉萨-萨缪尔森效应

本文将我国的经济数据按贸易部门和非贸易部门进行分类,在测算出内部真实汇率的基础上,分析了人民币内部真实汇率的决定因素和人民币汇率失调情况。结果表明:贸易部门与非贸易部门之间的相对劳动生产率和我国的开放程度是影响人民币真实汇率最主要的因素,从而印证了巴拉萨-萨缪尔森效应适合我国的实际情况,同时2002年之后人民币处于被低估区间。本文认为,提高非贸易部门劳动生产率、控制热钱流入以及提高贸易部门工资增长率可以在一定程度上缓解当前人民币升值压力。     

Tariff pass‐through in the middle products model

I use the middle products model of Sanyal and Jones to study the pass‐through of a tariff on the price of non‐traded final goods. I extend their analysis by comparing the short‐run effect of the tariff, when all factors are immobile, with the effects when labor is mobile between all sectors. It is shown that the short‐run pass‐through may vary from zero to a magnified effect on the price of the final product, depending on the elasticities of substitution in consumption and production. The relative magnitude of these elasticities determines whether the pass‐through with labor mobility is greater or less than the short‐run pass‐through.     

Non-traded goods,firm dynamics and wages in a service economy

By considering the term-of-trade and volume-of-trade effects, Jones (2012) examines the distributive effect in a competitive economy with non-traded goods. This paper reexamines the effect in an imperfectively competitive economy with firm dynamics. A rise in foreign demand can generate revenue and also mitigate market distortion, whereas skilled-unskilled wage inequality can be magnified or mitigated via the effect on firm entry or exit. Thus, how to achieve the trade-off among growth, inequality and the environment becomes an important task for government decision-makers, especially so during the pandemic of Covid-19.     

Measuring misalignments in the Korean exchange rate

This paper measures to what extent the real effective exchange rate of the Korean won is misaligned from its equilibrium value by estimating the equilibrium value using the behavioral equilibrium exchange rate (BEER) approach. The economic fundamentals such as the terms of trade, the relative price of non-traded to traded goods, net foreign assets and real interest rate differentials are employed to assess the equilibrium exchange rate. Considering the drastic changes in Korea's trade pattern, the trade partner weights, which are used to compute the real effective exchange rate, are not fixed, but variable. The estimation results using the quarterly data from 1982Q1 to 2009Q4 indicate that the actual exchange rate of the Korean won was substantially overvalued for the period from 2005Q1 to 2007Q4, and substantially undervalued for the period from 2008Q2 to 2009Q3. The actual exchange rate deviates from the BEER and from the long-run equilibrium (or sustainable value) of the BEER by 32% and by 24% respectively in 2008Q4.