Monetary equilibrium and price stickiness reconsidered: A reply to Bagus and Howden

Bagus and Howden (Review of Austrian Economics 24(4): 383?C402, 2011) argue that price stickiness is a poor justification for advocating a flexible money supply through the issuing of fiduciary media under central or free banking. They view the contraction in output following an exogenous increase in money demand as an optimal response, worry about redistribution effects from the issuance of fiduciary media, and claim a changing money supply complicates economic calculation. Accepting their view that the contraction in output is an optimal response to an exogenous change in money demand, we still find a potentially beneficial role for monetary policy (under central banking) or fractional reserve note issue (under free banking). We show that even if all prices were perfectly flexible, changes in the money supply to offset changes in money demand might still be desirable. We point out several errors and mischaracterizations in their article, justify our decision to disregard wealth transfers, and discuss how a flexible money supply might facilitate economic calculation.     

Global financial crisis as a phenomenon of stock market overshooting

Inspired by Dornbusch’s model of exchange rate overshooting we develop a theory of stock market behaviour and its impact on the real economy. The idea is that stock market prices overshoot and undershoot their long-run equilibrium values which are determined by the development in the real economy. The overshooting is triggered primarily by a loose monetary policy. With our model we explain the genesis of the global financial crisis (GFC) 2008/2009 primarily as the result of a loose monetary policy in the USA. Following the overshooting and crash in the stock market the real economy dropped into a recession. After modelling the interaction of three markets with different speed of adjustment—money, stocks and goods—for a closed economy we expand it to an open economy and lastly study the spillovers of a financial market crisis between countries (from a large to a small country) by introducing the transmission channels of external trade or cross-border financial transactions. A long-lasting monetary easing as exhibiting by the Fed and the ECB since 2007 and 2008, respectively could—according to our model—generate another boom-bust cycle.     

In defense of fiduciary media—or,we arenot devo(lutionists), we are Misesians!

Conclusion Fiduciary media are not fiat money. A monetary system with a commodity standard, competitive banking, and the freedom to use fiduciary media among consenting transactors is consistent with justice, efficiency, and economic stability. It is preferable on these scores both to a system (like today's) where the law has forced money-users to give up gold and gold-redeemable fiduciary media in favor of fiat money, and to a system (like those proposed by 100-percent-reserve advocates) where the law restricts money-users from holding any or some types of fiduciary media.With apologies to Devo, the '80s rock band who used the slogan Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!     

Solving coordination failure with “all-or-none” group-level incentives

Coordinating activity among members is an important problem faced by organizations. When firms, or units within firms, are stuck in bad equilibria, managers may turn to the temporary use of simple incentives—flat punishments or rewards—in an attempt to transition the firm or unit to a more efficient equilibrium. We investigate the use of incentives in the context of the “minimum-effort,” or “weak-link,” coordination game. We allow groups to reach the inefficient equilibrium and then implement temporary, flat, “all-or-none” incentives to encourage coordination on more efficient equilibria. We vary whether incentives are positive (rewards) or negative (penalties), whether they have substantial or nominal monetary value, and whether they are targeted to a specific outcome (the efficient equilibrium) or untargeted (apply to more than one outcome). Overall, incentives of all kinds are effective at improving coordination while they are in place, but there is little long-term persistent benefit of incentives—once incentives are removed, groups tend to return to the inefficient outcome. We find some differences between different kinds of incentives. Finally, we contrast our results to other recent work demonstrating greater long-term effectiveness of temporary incentives.      

Equilibrium in a Market Game

This paper studies the equilibrium of an exchange economy with the same number of agents and commodities. It is shown that under rather mild conditions on demand the market have a price equilibrium—independently of the divisibility of the commodities. The result extends Gale’s equilibrium theorem for indivisible commodities to the case where some commodities are perfectly divisible. The proof is based on a topological lemma contained in previous paper of one of the authors.     

货币政策与金融资产价格

( 1 )货币政策对金融资产价格 (特别是股票价格 )有影响 ,当投资的上升引起原材料和劳动力价格上涨时 ,扩张性货币政策的长期结果是同时引起商品物价水平和股票价格的上升 ;当投资具有规模经济效应或可以使劳动生产率显著提高时 ,扩张性货币政策的长期结果是股价的上升和物价水平的下降。因此 ,货币数量与通货膨胀的关系不仅取决于商品和服务的价格 ,而且在一定意义上取决于股市。 ( 2 )无论股市财富效应大小 ,通过货币政策刺激股票市场拉动需求的做法在长期都是不可靠的。当股市价格偏离稳态已经越来越远时 ,经济运行将是不安全的。     

Speculative dynamics

We develop a method for solving for equilibrium outcomes in stationary strategic settings in which speculators are informationally large and understand how their actions affect the information content of prices. This allows us to characterize speculation by institutional investors who receive private long-lived information on a recurring basis, and trade strategically. When the underlying asset value process has a stationary autoregressive structure, we develop a contraction mapping argument to solve for the stationary linear equilibrium. We derive analytically and numerically how the characteristics of private information—its quantity, persistence and correlation, and division among speculators—affect trading profits, pricing and trading strategies. Our central finding is that what matters for equilibrium outcomes are the most recent signals that speculators receive. Speculators trade so much more aggressively on new information than old that the bulk of their profits come from their two or three most recent private signals. Trading on past prices drops off faster yet; effectively only the most recent price matters.     

The Bank Lending Channel and Monetary Policy Rules: Evidence from European Banks

There exist two main channels of the monetary transmission mechanism: the interest rate and the bank lending channel. This paper focuses on the latter, which is based on the central bank’s actions that affect loan supply and real spending. The supply of loans depends on the monetary policy indicator, which, in most studies, is the real short-term interest rate. The question investigated in this paper is how the operation of the bank lending channel changes when this short-term indicator is allowed to be endogenously determined by the target rate the central bank sets through a monetary rule. We examine the effect that a rule has on the bank lending channel in European banking institutions spanning the period 1999–2009. The expectations concerning inflation and output affect the decision of the central bank for the target rate, which, in turn, affect private sector’s expectations —commercial banks— by altering their loan supply.     

General equilibrium and the new neoclassical synthesis

We present a general equilibrium model of the new neoclassical synthesis that has the same level of generality as the Arrow–Debreu model. This involves a stochastic multi-period economy with a monetary sector and sticky commodity prices. We formulate the notion of a sticky price equilibrium where all agents form rational expectations on prices for commodities and assets, interest rates, and rationing. We present a general result showing that monetary policy imposes no restrictions whatsoever on nominal equilibrium price levels and that the set of sticky price equilibria has a dimension equal to the number of terminal date-events. Stickiness of prices implies that this indeterminacy is real.     

Inflation bias and markup shocks in a LAMP model with strategic interaction of monetary and fiscal policy

This paper investigates the effects generated by limited asset market participation on optimal monetary and fiscal policy, where monetary and fiscal authorities are independent and play strategically. It shows that: (i) both the long run and the short run equilibrium require a departure from zero inflation rate; (ii) in response to a markup shock, fiscal policy becomes more aggressive as the fraction of liquidity constrained agents increases and price stability is no longer optimal even under Ramsey; (iii) overall, optimal discretionary policies imply welfare losses for Ricardians, while liquidity constrained consumers experience welfare gains with respect to Ramsey.     

宏观共同因子、特质因子以及货币政策对中国各线城市房价的影响——基于FAVAR模型

运用FAVAR模型,将中国各线城市房价分离出宏观共同因子和特质因子部分,研究了各因子及货币政策对房价的影响。研究发现:大城市的房价更易受宏观共同因子和地区特质因子的影响,且变动的持续性更大;共同因子可在很大程度上解释房价变动的持续性和波动性;共同因子对房价的影响较为持久,而地区特质因子只在短期内影响房价;利率和货币供应量可以有效地影响房价;相比利率,货币供应量对一线和二线城市房价水平的影响更大,对各线城市房价波动的影响更为持久;一线城市的房价水平及其波动对货币政策冲击的敏感度较高,二线城市的敏感度居中,三线城市的敏感度较低;未发现货币政策的"价格之谜"现象,表明本文模型设定的合理性较强。     

价格型与数量型货币政策工具比较——基于包含时变通胀目标的DSGE模型

建立包含时变通胀目标的新凯恩斯DSGE模型,研究在分别使用数量型和价格型的货币政策工具的情况下通胀目标变动冲击对中国经济波动的影响。结果显示:在两种情况下,通胀目标变动冲击对通货膨胀和利率的波动均产生重要影响;当使用数量型货币政策工具时,通胀目标变动冲击是导致产出波动的主要因素;整体而言,价格型货币政策工具的调控效果要优于数量型货币政策工具。提出:我国央行应保持货币政策的连续性和稳定性,形成长期稳定的通胀目标,并使货币政策调控模式逐步向价格型调控模式转移。     

The impact of Chinese monetary policy shocks on East and South‐East Asia1

We study the effects of Chinese monetary policy shocks on China's major trading partners in East and South‐East Asia by estimating structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) models for six economies in the region. We find that a monetary expansion in Mainland China leads to an increase in real GDP (temporary) and the price level (permanent) in a number of economies in our sample, most notably in Hong Kong and the Philippines. The impact could result from intertemporal substitution present in a general equilibrium framework, which allows for positive domestic impacts of foreign monetary expansions. Our results emphasize the growing importance of China for its neighbouring economies and the significance of Chinese shocks for the design of monetary policy in Asian economies.     

How useful is the concept of the natural real rate of interest for monetary policy?

The natural rate of interest plays a key role in Wicksell's‘cumulative process’ as well as in modern monetaryequilibrium models of the business cycle. It constitutes a usefulconcept for the theoretical analysis of the interdependenceof monetary policy and economic fluctuations. However, the usefulnessof this concept for the practice of monetary policy is limited—especiallyowing to the fact that the natural real rate of interest andits law of motion cannot be measured with satisfying precision.     

Macrodynamics of debt regimes, financial instability and growth

This paper develops a post-Keynesian dynamic model of capacityutilisation and growth, in which the supply of credit-moneyis endogenous and firms' debt position—and thus the financialfragility of the economy à la Hyman Minsky—is explicitlymodelled. The interest rate is set by banks as a markup overa base rate exogenously determined by the monetary authority.The banking markup varies with changes in capacity utilisation,while the debt ratio varies with changes in the rates of interest,capital accumulation and growth. Regarding dynamics, it is shownthe possibility of relating the stability properties of a systemwith the interest rate and the debt ratio as state variablesto the prevailing Minskyan regime—hedge, speculative orPonzi.     

Harvesting in an integrated general equilibrium model

Harvesting of prey biomass is analyzed in an integrated ecological-economic system whose submodels, a predator–prey ecosystem and a simple economy, are microfounded dynamic general equilibrium models. These submodels are interdependent because the ecosystem responds to harvesting—through the reactions of optimizing individual organisms—by changing the provision of public ecosystem services to consumers. General analytical results are derived regarding the impact of harvesting policies on short-run equilibria of both submodels, on population dynamics, and on stationary states of the integrated model. A key insight is that prey biomass carries a positive ecosystem price which needs to be added as a tax mark-up to the economic price of harvested biomass to attain allocative efficiency. Further information on the dynamics is gained by resorting to numerical analysis of the policy regimes of zero harvesting, laissez-faire harvesting and efficient harvesting.

It “... is a matter of weighing costs and benefits of taking action, whether the action is the “inert” one of leaving resources alone in order to conserve them, or whether it involves exploiting a resource ... for so-called material ends”. Pearce (1976, p. 320)

Helpful comments from an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. Remaining errors are the authors’ sole responsibility.     

中国货币政策对资产价格波动反应的模拟分析

利用包含汇率波动和通胀预期的IS-Philips模型推导考虑资产价格的货币政策反应函数。在此基础上,分别以股价和房价作为资产价格的代理变量,模拟分析了资产价格波动对中国经济的影响。研究结果表明:考虑资产价格的货币政策在平抑产出和物价波动方面具有显著作用,但会增大利率波动幅度;考虑房价波动的货币政策比考虑股价波动的货币政策在平抑产出和物价波动方面具有更好的效果;与考虑股价波动的货币政策相比,考虑房价波动的货币政策对利率的冲击更小。     

A note on external habits and efficiency in the AK model

This paper examines the implications for equilibrium efficiency of alternative formulations of habit formation in the AK model with external habits. Agent’s utility depends on how her current consumption compares to a reference consumption level—the habits stock—determined by average past consumption in the economy. We first prove that perfect substitutability between consumption and habits along the equilibrium path is necessary and sufficient for efficiency. Then, we prove that the competitive equilibrium is efficient if and only if habits enter utility in a subtractive form.     

Analysing shock transmission in a data-rich environment: a large BVAR for New Zealand

We analyse a large Bayesian Vector Autoregression (BVAR) containing almost 100 New Zealand macroeconomic time series. Methods for allowing multiple blocks of equations with block-specific Bayesian priors are described, and forecasting results show that our model compares favourably to a range of other time series models. Examining the impulse responses to a monetary policy shock and to two less conventional shocks—net migration and the climate—we highlight the usefulness of the large BVAR in analysing shock transmission.