A consistent model of the expectations augmented Phillips curve and inflation

The usual version of the expectations-augmented Phillips curve is shown to contain several inconsistencies. In particular, it does not take account of the dependence of labor demand and supply on the real wage, nor does it treat the goods and labor markets symmetrically. When the model is revised to meet these points, it is found that standard accelerationist results are largely unaffected. However, the important issue as to whether inflation accelerates depends not on wage but on price behavior. A unit coefficient on the expectations variable in the wage equation is seen to be irrelevant to this question.     

An evaluation of excess demand,actual cost and normal cost pricing hypotheses using non-nested tests

This paper has emperically analyzed three versions(zero lag,geometric lag and almon lag) of three price change hypotheses – namely the excess demand, actual cost and the normal cost hypothesis – the goal being to select the hypothesis that describes the underlying price dynamics for manufactured goods. The rival models are specified as non-nested alternatives and each version is estimated by using an efficient estimator. The traditional discrimination criteria which clearly reject the zero lag version, are found to be impotent in discriminating between the dynamic versions of the models. A sequential cross-evaluation of the two dynamic versions using both pairwise and multiple non-nested hypothesis tests proposed by Davidson and MacKinnon reveals a systematic domination by the almon version of normal cost pricing over both the excess demand and the actual cost pricing mechanisms in the Canadian manufacturing sector during the period 1961:1–87:4. This result is robust under alternative specifications of the desired stock of inventories for the excess demand model. The finding implies that short–run variations in demand conditions or in actual unit costs arising from temperoary changes in productivity may not paly a significant role in manufactured goods pricing decisions.     

The welfare implications of exchange rate choices in developing agricultural economies

This paper analyzes the appropriate choice of an exchange rate regime in agricultural commodity-exporting economies. In an estimated open economy model that incorporates key structural characteristics of agricultural commodity exporters including dual labor markets and imperfect asset markets, the benefits of exchange rate flexibility are shown to depend on the extent of labor and product market development. With developed markets, flexible exchange rates are preferred as they allow for greater relative price fluctuations, which amplify the transmission mechanism of labor re-allocation upon commodity price volatility. When labor and product markets are not well-developed, however, international relative price adjustments exacerbate currency and factor misalignments. A nominal exchange rate peg, by mitigating relative wage and price fluctuations, increases welfare relative to a float. Given the current low level of labor and product market development across most agricultural commodity exporters, the study provides a novel rationale as to why exchange rate targeting is implemented in many developing agricultural economies.     

Rigid wage-setting and the effect of a supply shock,fiscal and monetary policies on Chinese economy by a CGE analysis

The purpose of this paper is to present a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Chinese economy which includes rigid wage-setting and integration of real and financial sectors, and to apply it to a quantitative evaluation of the oil price changes and the fiscal and monetary policies. The policy simulation shows whether the wage rate is flexible or rigid is crucial for the evaluation of various policy measures. Furthermore, the fields of application of the model are extended from the industry-related problems to the macroscopic ones such as inflation, stabilization policies and so on.     

Price Limits, Information Acquisition, and Bid–ask Spreads: Theory and Evidence

A number of futures markets use price limits which, in effect, preclude trade from occurring at prices outside certain exogenous bounds. Noting that such markets are characterized by heterogeneously informed traders, whereas previous work on price limits assumes symmetrically informed traders, we examine the effects of price limits in a setting where market participants are asymmetrically informed. We find that imposing price limits generally lowers the quality of information acquired in equilibrium, but lowers bid–ask spreads as well. Thus, depending on the relative weights placed by society on liquidity versus price efficiency, there may exist a set of price limits that are most efficient in achieving a trade-off between liquidity and informational efficiency. We perform empirical tests of some implications of the model using cross-sectional data on price limits. We find that price limits are strongly negatively related to both price volatility and trading volume. Though other explanations for our empirical findings cannot be ruled out, these results are not inconsistent with the model's implication that price limits should be tighter for contracts which offer greater profit potential for informed traders.     

Equity home bias,incomplete financial markets,and nominal rigidities

Abstract This paper analyzes optimal portfolio decisions in a monetary open‐economy framework. It is found that market completeness and the specific form of nominal rigidities, namely, nominal price vs. nominal wage rigidities, matter for justifying the observed structure of equity holdings. When markets are complete, sticky prices generate a negative correlation between the non‐diversifiable labour income and the profit of domestic firms with respect to the productivity shocks, which explains why households invest little abroad. In contrast, when markets are incomplete, rigidities in goods prices result in a counterfactual ‘super home bias’, because domestic equities provide a good hedge against not only the labour income risk but also the relative price risk. Wage rigidities, however, have the opposite effect. Therefore, nominal rigidities in both goods prices and wage rates are needed to address the empirical composition of gross equity positions under incomplete markets.     

On the impact of public policies and wage formation on business investment in research and development

Against the backdrop of mediocre growth prospects in many countries, governments should do more to promote private investment in research and development (R&D). Public fiscal policies and the characteristics of wage formation are key as they affect both the incentives that firms face and their resources. This paper studies their impact at the macro level in a panel of 14 OECD countries since 1981, while we also account for the impact of unobserved common factors like the world level of knowledge. Tax incentives, government intramural expenditures on R&D, public R&D subsidies (if they are not too low nor too high) and especially investment in tertiary education, encourage business R&D investment. Wage moderation may also contribute to innovation, but only in fairly closed economies and in economies with flexible labour markets. In highly open economies with rigid labour markets, high wage pressure promotes investment in R&D. Innovation may then be the only competitive strategy for firms.     

International capital and nontraded goods in the long run

The present paper develops the comparative static properties of a small open economy which produces both traded goods and nontraded goods, and is a price taker in the international market for productive capital. Assumptions of full employment, competitive markets, and international mobility of productive cap ital input capture a long run horizon. Comparative static results associated with the wage, labor, and the price of the nontraded good are independent of factor intensity, factor substitution, and demand for the nontraded good. A tax on the traded good and a capital subsidy together raise national income and the real wage.     

Wage and price controls in the equilibrium sequential search model

In this paper, we study the effects of wage and price controls on employment, output, and welfare in a simplified version of the Bénabou (J. Econom. Theory 60 (1993) 140) equilibrium sequential search model with bilateral heterogeneity. We show that a price ceiling increases output but the change in welfare depends on three effects: the reduction in aggregate search costs, the increase in surplus due to increased output, and the transfer of production to the least efficient firm. The model is formally identical to a standard equilibrium search model of the labor market so analogous results hold for the minimum wage.     

Does Price Stability Exacerbate Labour Market Rigidities in the EMU?

How will the commitment to price stability affect labour market rigidities in the European Monetary Union? I explore a model where firms choose between fixed wage contracts (where the employer cannot lay off the worker, and the wage can only be changed by mutual consent), or contracts where employment is at will, so that either party may terminate employment (with strong similarities to temporary jobs). A fixed wage contract provides better incentives for investment and training, while employment at will facilitates efficient mobility. Inflation erodes the real value of a fixed contract wage over time, and badly matched workers are more likely to quit for other jobs. Disinflation has opposing effects on labour market rigidity: fixed wage contracts become more rigid in real terms, but fewer firms will choose fixed wage contracts.     

Nominal Wage Flexibility and Economic Performance: Evidence and Implications Across Industrial Countries

By considering the theoretical connection between labour and product markets, the paper evaluates the economic relationship of these markets within the contractual wage rigidity New Keynesian explanation of business cycles. The empirical analysis focuses on the short‐run cyclical behaviour of real output, prices and wages for 19 industrial countries. Time‐series and cross‐sectional regressions are estimated. Cross‐sectional cyclical correlations in the labour and goods markets are also evaluated across countries. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, aggregate uncertainty is an important factor in increasing the flexibility of the nominal wage in response to aggregate demand shocks. Wage flexibility accelerates price inflation and moderates the response of real output growth to aggregate demand shocks. Wage flexibility does not appear to be an important factor in differentiating the real and inflationary effects of energy price shocks across countries. Finally, aggregate uncertainty increases the responsiveness of output and price to productivity shocks.     

Textbook Treatments of the Financial Market in the IS-LM Model

Intermediate macroeconomics textbooks introduce financial markets into the IS-LM analysis but typically as a beginning-of-period consideration. Here the financial market is introduced in an end-of-period model.     

The Doctoral Origins of Economics Faculty and the Education of New Economics Doctorates

For the open economy, the workhorse model in intermediate textbooks still is the Mundell-Fleming model, which basically extends the investment and savings, liquidity preference and money supply (IS-LM) model to open economy problems. The authors present a simple New Keynesian model of the open economy that introduces open economy considerations into the closed economy consensus version and that still allows for a simple and comprehensible analytical and graphical treatment. Above all, their model provides an efficient tool kit for the discussion of the costs and benefits of fixed and flexible exchange rates, which also was at the core of the Mundell-Fleming model.     

The failure of the monetary model of exchange rate determination

In this article, we test three popular versions of the monetary model (flexible price, forward-looking and real interest differential models) for the OECD member countries by applying Johansen cointegration technique. Based on country-by-country analysis, we conclude that monetary models do not provide the expected results. We reveal several shortcomings of the models and examine the building blocks of the fundamental version. Although researchers always blame the deviations from purchasing power parity as the reason for the failure of the monetary model, our analysis indicates that invalidity of Keynesian money demand function is also responsible for unfavourable results.     

Wage and price determination in a labour-exporting economy: The case of Ireland

A model designed to incorporate external influences through the labour and goods markets on the rates of domestic wage and price inflation is specified and estimated from postwar Irish data. It consists of equations explaining the rate of change of prices, migration, the supply of labour, the rate of change of wages and three identities. The model is both simultaneous and nonlinear, and an appropriate modification of the two-stage least-squares estimation technique is used. The estimated equations explain between 71 percent and 84 percent of the variance in the dependent variables. Since two of these are proportionate first differences, the remaining two a ratio and a first difference, this might be deemed satisfactory. However, some of the individual coefficient estimates are not.     

Exchange rate and wage-price dynamics: A theoretical analysis and an econometric investigation

This paper is an attempt to analyze inflation dynamics in a small open economy as the result of the interaction between wage and price determination behaviors and the interest rate-exchange rate feedback in the context of Dornbusch's model. An extended version of this model is specified and analyzed formally. Then the model is estimated for five OECD countries using a full information maximum likelihood technique. Finally, simulations of the effect of monetary shocks are presented for four countries.     

Countercyclical or procyclical real wages? A disaggregate explanation of aggregate asymmetry

The time-series analysis of disaggregated data for a sample of 28 private industries verifies the prevalence and sources of asymmetry in aggregate data. The evidence indicates that asymmetry in the cyclical behavior of the real wage is widespread across the U.S. economy. The reduction in the real wage during recessions appears pronouncedly larger compared to the increase in the real wage during expansions in many industries. Across industries, price inflation increases faster compared to nominal wage inflation in the face of higher demand variability. Price flexibility moderates the increase in the real wage and output growth during expansions. In contrast, prices appear more downwardly rigid compared to the nominal wage in the face of demand variability. Price rigidity exacerbates the reduction in the real wage and output contraction during recessions. The combined evidence supports the implications of the sticky-price explanation of business cycles.First version received: June 2003/Final version received: June 2004The author thanks an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be interpreted as those of the International Monetary Fund.     

Rational expectations macro models with possible steady-state inflation andunemployment

Consider an economy exhibiting the conventional IS-LM relationships, Phillips curve type price adjustment equations, and rational inflationary expectations. We demonstrate that starting from the disequilibrium situation of either the Keynesian unemployment or the demand inflation type in which money is nonneutral, the economy converges to an equilibrium situation in which all markets clear. On the other hand, starting from the disequilibrium situation of the classical unemployment type in which money is nonneutral, the economy converges to a state of rest in which the goods and the labor markets remain out of equilibrium. However, money is neutral at this state of rest.     

Comparing new Keynesian models in the Euro area: a Bayesian approach

This paper estimates and compares four versions of the sticky price New Keynesian model for the Euro area using a Bayesian approach. We find that the average duration of price contracts is between two and four quarters, while the average duration of wage contracts is estimated to be below two quarters. Both mechanisms of price and wage indexation are not important when autocorrelated price markup shocks are introduced in the model. These results are in stark contrast to Smets and Wouters (2003): when we use their priors, our estimated posterior distributions are similar to theirs, but the models’ fit to the data is worse. We are thankful to the Econometric Modelling Unit at the European Central Bank for providing us with the Euro area data. We also thank two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona (“la Caixa”).     

The Choice of Structural Model in Trade–Wages Decompositions

This paper uses a calibrated general equilibrium model to decompose observed wage changes from trade and technology shocks into portions attributable to each source. It highlights some difficulties with the numerical performance of widely used theoretical trade structures. For small economies, the Heckscher–Ohlin model reveals specialization problems unless the price changes accompanying trade shocks are small. It can also yield strikingly different decompositions of the same wage change. A differentiated-goods model removes specialization problems and accommodates large price changes, but introduces demand-side responses greatly reducing the effect of trade on wages, and performs implausibly with sector-biased technical change.