Impatience, pollution, and indeterminacy

This paper examines an equilibrium growth model in which production activities generate environmental pollution that has a negative welfare effect and in which individual households' subjective discount rate is a function of individual consumption, which is internal to each household, and of total pollution, which is an external factor to the individual agents. It is shown that there may exist multiple steady states and that the dynamic equilibrium may display indeterminacy, depending on the properties of the discount-rate function, the pollution-capital relationship in production technology, and the pollution-consumption relationship in instantaneous utility. The long-run effects of tighter environmental policy are subsequently examined, and the results are also found to be dependent on the above factors.     

Impatience and equilibrium indeterminacy

This paper extends the neoclassical one-sector optimal growth model by postulating that individual agents’ time preference (impatience) depends on the economy-wide average consumption and average income, which are social factors taken as external by individual agents. The paper shows that with the socially determined individual time preference local equilibrium indeterminacy can arise. Moreover, local indeterminacy can also be associated with global indeterminacy in many cases. The results hold in models with bounded and unbounded growth.     

Real indeterminacy of equilibria and manipulability

In this paper, we analyze the indeterminacy of equilibria in financial markets and propose a selection mechanism. We suggest that there is one equilibrium that prevails over the others, as a result of the market power of the agents that some states of nature become monopolists of certain commodities. Given a financial assets model, we define a price game and show the existence of mixed strategies equilibria. Then we purify these equilibria by considering a price game with incomplete information.     

Altruism, redistribution and social insurance

The paper examines the influence of altruism on voluntary transfers and government redistribution in a simple model: two jobs of different productivity are assigned by chance to two individuals. Ex ante the individuals are identical, ex post they have different incomes. The first part of the paper examines voluntary transfers determined ex post or agreed upon ex ante in the absence of altruism. In the second part, the influence of altruism is examined. Altruism is modelled as a pure public good: the minimum consumption (or income, since there is only one consumption good). Both individuals can contribute to its provision, one person by earning wage income, the other by voluntary transfers. The ex ante solutions generally lead to higher expected welfare but create several incentive problems. Only lump-sum transfers are considered. Received: 28 February 1997 / Accepted: 31 January 2000     

Determinacy,indeterminacy and dynamic misspecification in linear rational expectations models

This paper proposes a testing strategy for the null hypothesis that a multivariate linear rational expectations (LRE) model may have a unique stable solution (determinacy) against the alternative of multiple stable solutions (indeterminacy). The testing problem is addressed by a misspecification-type approach in which the overidentifying restrictions test obtained from the estimation of the system of Euler equations of the LRE model through the generalized method of moments is combined with a likelihood-based test for the cross-equation restrictions that the model places on its reduced form solution under determinacy. The resulting test has no power against a particular class of indeterminate equilibria, hence the non rejection of the null hypothesis can not be interpreted conclusively as evidence of determinacy. On the other hand, this test (i) circumvents the nonstandard inferential problem generated by the presence of the auxiliary parameters that appear under indeterminacy and that are not identifiable under determinacy, (ii) does not involve inequality parametric restrictions and hence the use of nonstandard inference, (iii) is consistent against the dynamic misspecification of the LRE model, and (iv) is computationally simple. Monte Carlo simulations show that the suggested testing strategy delivers reasonable size coverage and power against dynamic misspecification in finite samples. An empirical illustration focuses on the determinacy/indeterminacy of a New Keynesian monetary business cycle model of the US economy.     

Linear production function,externalities and indeterminacy in a capital-resource growth model

This paper investigates the equilibrium growth dynamics of an economy whose production is based on natural resources and which seeks to maximize welfare to the local community. This involves determining the optimal trajectories of consumption in the local area and the use of the environmental resource. Economic dynamics are affected by negative environmental externalities which are explicitly included as unfavourable effects in a linear production function. The analysis shows the existence of local and global indeterminacy.     

Capital–labor substitution and equilibrium indeterminacy

This paper examines the quantitative relationship between the elasticity of capital–labor substitution in production and the conditions needed for equilibrium indeterminacy (and belief-driven fluctuations) in a one-sector growth model. With variable capital utilization, the substitution elasticity has little quantitative impact on the minimum degree of increasing returns needed for indeterminacy. However, when capital utilization is constant, a below-unity substitution elasticity sharply raises the minimum degree of increasing returns because it imposes a higher effective adjustment cost on labor hours. Overall, our results show that empirically-plausible departures from the Cobb–Douglas production specification can make indeterminacy more difficult to achieve.     

Robust inflation-forecast-based rules to shield against indeterminacy

This paper provides a first attempt to quantify and at the same time utilize estimated measures of uncertainty for the design of robust interest rate rules. We estimate several variants of a linearized form of a New Keynesian model using quarterly US data. Both our theoretical and numerical results indicate that inflation-forecast-based (IFB) rules are increasingly prone to the problem of indeterminacy as the forward horizon increases. As a consequence the stabilization performance of optimized rules of this type worsens too. Robust IFB rules can be designed to avoid indeterminacy in an uncertain environment, but at an increasing utility loss as rules become more forward-looking.     

Local and global indeterminacy in two-sector models of endogenous growth

We consider a two-sector endogenous growth model where the productions of the final good and human capital require economy-wide external effects. Assuming constant returns to scale at the private and social levels, we show that local and global indeterminacy of equilibrium paths are compatible with any values for the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption and any sign for the capital intensity difference across the two sectors. We also show that for any value of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption, poverty traps may occur when the final good sector is capital intensive in human capital.     

生产效应、贸易效应与中欧贸易流量分析——基于Michaely指数的面板数据协整分析

欧盟是中国的主要贸易伙伴,欧盟的不断扩大与深化不仅会影响成员国的内部贸易,也将影响中欧贸易.本文从欧洲经济一体化对成员国的生产和贸易结构造成的影响入手,在引力模型框架下使用面板协整与误差修正模型研究中欧贸易的影响因素与作用机制.结果显示:从长期来看,贸易效应、生产效应、经济规模及汇率因素对均衡的中欧贸易流量有不同程度的影响;短期在生产效应和贸易效应共同作用下,中欧贸易顺差有扩大趋势.     

Bilateral redistribution

We explore the implications of three basic and intuitive axioms for income redistribution problems: continuity, no transfer paradox and stability. The combination of the three axioms characterizes in the two-agent case a large family of rules, which we call threshold rules. For each level of total income in society, a threshold is considered for each agent. It is impossible for both agents to be below their respective thresholds. If an agent’s income is below the threshold, the difference is redistributed from the other agent; otherwise, the rule imposes laissez-faire.     

Can indeterminacy resolve the cross-country correlation puzzle?

Are productivity shocks the only driving force of international business fluctuations? In this paper I argue that another source of uncertainty—changes in market expectations or ‘sunspots’ – is also important. One major shortcoming of existing IRBC models is the ‘cross-country correlation puzzle’: models tend to generate cross-country consumption correlations that are too high and output, investment and employment correlations that are too low when compared to the data. I show that with empirically supported level of increasing returns, an otherwise standard model possesses multiple, indeterminate convergent paths to the steady state, which allow for sunspots to influence the economy. The model displays time series properties that in many ways match the data better than the conventional model. It is especially successful in generating realistic consumption and output correlations.     

传统贸易、增加值贸易与国际经济周期联动

随着国际分工格局发生了从产业间分工到产业内分工再到全球价值链分工的重大转型,增加值贸易相较于传统贸易在经济周期传导中的作用得到显著提升。本文首先基于国际经济周期理论,在两国和三国框架下从理论上分析增加值贸易和传统贸易在传导经济周期中的异质性作用,然后基于国家层面采用2000—2014年的世界投入产出数据进行实证检验。研究结果表明,增加值贸易对经济周期联动性具有显著且稳健的正向影响,而传统贸易的作用并不显著。这一结论印证了理论分析结果,即随着全球价值链分工模式的不断深入,增加值贸易逐渐替代传统贸易成为国际经济周期传导的核心贸易渠道。这为中国应对贸易保护和规避国际经济周期波动的传导风险,构建新发展格局,实现中国经济稳态发展提供了重要的政策参考。     

Migration patterns and population redistribution

This paper is a broad overview of recent research on the multiregional analysis of migration patterns and redistributional dynamics. Fundamental concepts regarding problems of migration measurement are set out, and several multiregional demographic models dealing with the spatial dynamics of national populations are outlined.     

Congestible public goods and local indeterminacy: A two-sector endogenous growth model

This paper shows that the congestible public goods can generate local indeterminacy in a two-sector, constant-return human capital enhanced growth model. While the productive public good exerts positive sector-specific externalities, the congestion effect generates negative aggregate externalities. The sector-specific externalities alone arising from productive public goods cannot establish local indeterminacy without the combination of negative externality in a model with social constant return technology. Congestible public good generates local indeterminacy if the degree of productive public good externality and the degree of congestion effect are large enough. The condition for indeterminacy is independent of the factor intensity rankings. The conditions are quantitatively assessed and the required parameter values for the degrees of public good externality and congestion are consistent with the estimated values in existing literature.     

Trade, migration and regional unemployment

A by now large literature in regional economics has greatly improved our understanding of the determinants of the observed spatial disparities in productivity. However, this literature neglects what seems to be a robust and persistent fact accompanying regional productivity differences: high productivity regions also have lower unemployment than low productivity regions. In this paper, we set out a model in the New Economic Geography (NEG)/job search tradition to explore the theoretical determinants of this fact. We find that the same forces producing regional agglomeration and productivity differences also generate persistent unemployment disparities. Moreover, we highlight a contrast between the short-run and long-run effects of migration on regional unemployment. In particular, migration from the periphery to the core may reduce unemployment disparities in the short-run, but exacerbates them in the long-run.     

Tariffs and location specific income redistribution

Distributional impacts of a specific tariff are examined when domestic consumers are spatially distributed, domestic and foreign transportation costs are significant, and spatial discrimination is practiced by oligopolistically interdependent domestic and foreign producers. Perhaps the most significant implication of the model is that the degree to which freight absorption occurs is an important consideration in the evaluation of protection. Whether firms adopt L.o.b or discriminatory charges for shipments critically affects the distributional outcome of commercial policy. In fact, freight absorption proves to be qualitatively as important as demand function shapes and sellers' conjectural variations to the results.     

Some comments on the possibility of “Methodological indeterminacy”

This article is an attempt to analyze the implications for research in the human sciences of the topic of “indeterminacy”. Reviewing an aspect of the issue from the philosophy of social science, the author argues that the debates at the philosophical level often overlook or underestimate the importance of methodological approaches. While the philosophical issue of indeterminacy remains a vexing problem in the social sciences since it was raised by Quine, the article argues that at least a partial resolution of the issue is possible if it is viewed within the context if differing methodological approaches.