Convergence clustering in the Chinese provinces: New evidence from several macroeconomic indicators

In this paper, the convergence clustering in 31 Chinese provinces regarding several important economic indicators over the period 1952 to 2016 was empirically investigated. Several provincial clusters were identified in the per capita (real) gross domestic product (GDP), consumption–income ratio, retail price, and consumer price inflation rates, using a club convergence and clustering procedure. The empirical findings are as follows. First, it was found that all series of the original data contain a significant nonlinear component. Second, it was observed that there are five significant clusters for the per capita income in China. Third, it was found that there are four significant clusters for the consumption–income ratio. Fourth, it was observed that there are four significant clusters for the retail inflation rates and two significant clusters for the consumer inflation rates in China. These results will enable local and central planners to implement economic growth, savings and price adjustment policies for different groups of provinces.     

Exchange rate regimes and inflation: only hard pegs make a difference

Abstract.  Using data from a large sample of developing countries from 1985 to 2001, we confirm that hard pegs (currency boards or a shared currency) reduce inflation and money growth. There is no evidence that soft pegs confer any monetary discipline, after other factors are controlled for. Inflation triggers regime switches. Under hard pegs, monetary growth is unaffected by fiscal deficits or by inflation shocks. Under soft pegs, as under floats, increased fiscal deficits and positive inflation shocks are associated with higher monetary growth. The apparently slower per capita output growth under hard pegs is explained by their geographical distribution. JEL classification: F41     

Long-Run Links among Money, Prices and Output: Worldwide Evidence

Abstract. Starting from the quantity theory of money we analyse the dynamic relationships between money, real output and prices for an unbalanced panel of 110 economies. Complementary to trivariate analyses we also adopt a P-star model explaining inflation via an equilibrium price level (P-star), which in turn depends on potential output and money. A key issue of the paper is the cross-sectional stability of estimation and inference results. We find cointegration among the considered variables. Particularly for high inflation countries homogeneity between prices and money cannot be rejected. Given homogeneity we find evidence for an error-correction mechanism linking current price changes and the lagged price gap. Parameter estimates indicating the adjustment towards the price equilibrium are larger in absolute value for high inflation countries. The latter results indicate that central banks, even in high inflation countries, can improve price stability by controlling monetary growth.     

Exchange rate,price, and output inter-relationships in Ghana: evidence from vector autoregressions

This paper explores the dynamic inter-relationships among the currency exchange rate, consumer price inflation, and real output growth, as well as the roles of money and interest rates in output and price determination. Time series data and vector autoregression models are used. Results suggest that there are significant inter-relationships between the exchange rate and inflation, monetary shocks matter only when explaining money itself and the price level, and interest rate-dependent monetary policies in the absence of financial modernization are ineffective     

Does money have a role in the inflation process? Evidence from Australia

Inflation, defined as a sustained increase in the price level, is considered a monetary phenomenon, as it can be explained within the framework of money‐demand and money‐supply relationships. In the extant literature, money growth is shown to remain causally related to inflation across countries and over time, irrespective of the exchange rate regime and stability of the money‐demand function. Nevertheless, emerging literature suggests a diminishing role of money in the conduct of monetary policy for price stability, especially under inflation targeting. Monetary policy in Australia under inflation targeting since 1993 is an example of policy that denies a relationship between money growth and inflation. The proposition that money does not matter insofar as inflation is concerned seems odd in both theory and the best‐practice monetary policy for price stability. This paper uses annual data for the period 1970–2017 and quarterly data for the period 1970Q1–2015Q1. It deploys both the Johansen cointegration approach and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration approach to investigate for Australia whether money, real output, prices and the exchange rate (non‐stationary variables) maintain the long‐run price‐level relationship that the classical monetary theory suggests in the presence of such stationary variables as the domestic and foreign interest rates. As expected, the empirical findings for Australia are consistent with the classical long‐run price‐level relationship between money, real output, prices and the exchange rate. The error‐correction model of inflation confirms the presence of a cointegral relationship among these variables; it also provides strong evidence of a short‐run causal relationship between money supply growth and inflation. On the basis of a priori theoretical predictions and empirical findings, the paper draws the conclusion that the monetary aggregate and its growth rate matter insofar as inflation is concerned, irrespective of the strategy of monetary policy for price stability.     

The effect of inflation on growth

The paper examines the effect of inflation on growth in transition countries. It presents panel data evidence for 13 transition countries over the 1990–2003 period; it uses a fixed effects panel approach to account for possible bias from correlations among the unobserved effects and the observed country heterogeneity. The results find a strong, robust, negative effect on growth of inflation or its standard deviation, and one that appears to decline in magnitude as the inflation rate increases, as seen for OECD countries. And the results include a role for a normalized money demand in affecting growth, as well as for a convergence variable, a trade variable and a government share variable. Robustness of the baseline single‐equation model is examined by expanding this into a three‐equation simultaneous system of output growth, inflation and money demand that allows for possible simultaneity bias in the baseline model.     

Does Africa grow slower than Asia,Latin America and the Middle East? Evidence from a new data-based classification method

We address the question whether sub-Saharan African countries have lower average growth rates in real GDP per capita than countries in Asia, Latin and Middle America and the Middle East. In contrast to previous studies, countries are no a priori assigned to clusters based on geographical location. Instead, we propose a latent-class panel time series model, which allows a data-based classification of countries into clusters such that within a cluster countries have the same average growth rate. Our empirical results suggest that three clusters are sufficient to describe the different growth paths. Twenty-six African countries belong to the low growth cluster, but 8 African countries show growth rates comparable with many countries in Asia, Latin and Middle America and the Middle East.     

SOCIAL STATUS AND THE GROWTH EFFECT OF MONEY*

It has been shown that in a standard one‐sector AK model of endogenous growth with wealth induced preferences for social status, the economy's growth rates of real output and nominal money supply are positively related when the cash in advance constraint is applied solely to the household's consumption purchases. However, a positive output growth effect of money/inflation is not consistent with the existing empirical evidence. We show that when gross investment must be financed by real money balances as well, this result is overturned, i.e. higher inflation is detrimental to economic growth, because of a dominating portfolio substitution effect.     

An empirical evaluation of China’s monetary policies

This paper investigates the responsiveness of the Chinese government’s monetary policies in terms of the money supply and interest rates to economic conditions and the effectiveness of these policies in achieving the goals of stimulating economic growth and controlling inflation. We analyze the responsiveness and effectiveness by estimating the Taylor rule, the McCallum rule, and a vector autoregressive model using quarterly data in the period of 1992-2009. The results show that, overall, the monetary policy variables respond to economic growth and the inflation rate, but the magnitudes of the responses are much weaker than those observed in market economies. Money supply responded actively to both the inflation rate and the real output and had certain effects on the future inflation rates and real output. The official interest rates, on the other hand, responded passively to the inflation rate and did not respond to the real output. They do not have any effect on future inflation rates and real output either.     

Inflation,money, interest rate,exchange rate,and casuality: the case of Egypt,Morocco, and Tunisia

This study provides further evidence of the inflationary efects of the rates of growth of money supply, gross domestic product, efective exchange rate, and imported inflation for Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia using quarterly data from 1964 to 1990. In addition, it examines the Granger causality between inflation and money supply as well as between inflation and the real exchange rate in the countries under consideration. Most of the results are consistent with extant theory and empirical evidence.     

Fixed exchange rates,independent central banks and price stability in postcommunist countries: Conservatism and credibility

Central bank independence (CBI) and fixed exchange rates are used by governments to achieve stable prices. This article analyzes the mechanisms through which the two monetary institutions could work: Indirectly via a disciplinary effect on money growth rates or via an additional credibility effect on inflation expectations and the cost of capital. I further explain how both discipline and credibility are affected by the distinct flaws of independent central banks and fixed exchange rates: central banks lack transparency and fixed exchange rates take many shapes and are routinely devalued. The argument is tested with quarterly data from postcommunist countries for years 1991 to 2007. The findings show a strong disciplinary effect of monetary institutions on rates of M2 change and an effect on inflation controlling for money growth, but credibility does not extend to lower real short‐term market interest rates. Political institutions do condition the effect of central bank independence, while the types of fixed exchange rates affect money growth rates and inflation to different degrees.     

Money, endogenous fertility and economic growth

This paper analyzes the issue of money superneutrality through an intertemporal optimizing model of capital accumulation with endogenous fertility, i.e. endogenous population growth. Two elements of this setup invalidate money superneutrality: (i) a demand for fertility that depends on real money balances, and (ii) an inverse relation between capital–labor ratio and population growth. Higher monetary growth increases fertility, since it reduces its opportunity cost, and hence diminishes capital intensity, and per capita output. This reverse Tobin effect is matched by an increase in aggregate capital and output growth rates. In this framework, the optimal monetary growth rule is a “distorted Friedman rule”.     

Modelling real exchange rate effects on output performance in Latin America

This article empirically analyses real per capita GDP growth for six Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, Venezuela) in terms of real exchange rate depreciations, inflation and US interest rates, focussing on the role of the real exchange rate. We find evidence of nonlinearity in this relationship, which we capture through a smooth transition regression model. With the exception of Mexico, nonlinearity in economic growth is associated with changes in the real exchange rate, with depreciations leading to different relationships compared with appreciations. Regimes for Mexico are associated with the past growth rates, with effectively symmetric effects of real exchange rate changes. Although our results are in accord with other recent literature in that depreciations may have negative effects for growth, the asymmetries we uncover indicate that these effects depend on the conditioning state.     

Liquidity risk, economic development, and the effects of monetary policy

Empirical evidence indicates that monetary policy is not super-neutral in many countries. In particular, in high inflation economies, inflation is negatively related to economic activity. By comparison, inflation may be positively correlated with output in low inflation countries. We present a neoclassical growth model with money in which the incidence of liquidity risk is inversely related to aggregate capital formation. Interestingly, there may be multiple monetary steady-states where the effects of monetary policy vary. In poor economies, the financial system is highly distorted and higher rates of money growth are associated with less capital formation. In contrast, in advanced economies, a Tobin effect is observed. Since inflation exacerbates distortions from a coordination failure in the low-capital steady-state, individuals become much more exposed to liquidity risk. Consequently, optimal monetary policy depends on the level of development.     

Price and liquidity puzzles of a monetary shock: Evidence from indebted African economies

Price and liquidity puzzles have been identified as two major counterintuitive findings arising from monetary shocks. We investigate their presence in eleven African countries, using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model designed for indebted small open-economies. Our simulations reveal that the majority of African countries report a price puzzle whereas only three countries exhibit liquidity effect. In many of the sampled countries, a positive money growth shock drives interest rates up, but consumption and output fall in contrast to the conventional view. External debt increases in response to money growth shock, exchange rate appreciates and inflation falls. Money growth shocks are transmitted to the economy through the exchange rate channel when uncovered interest rate parity condition holds. Our findings therefore appear to suggest that monetary policy in Africa should prioritize foreign debt stabilization by reacting more to output gap than to inflation.     

货币政策对物价稳定和经济增长的效应——中国与巴基斯坦的比较研究

本文采用自回归分布滞后模型对中国和巴基斯坦两国货币政策、通货膨胀与经济增长之间的长期关系进行了比较研究,由此得出如下几点结论:第一,两国的经验数据都印证了经济学家们普遍接受的通货膨胀是一种货币现象的推论;第二,货币非中性假说在两国的经验数据中均无法被拒绝;第三,在中国存在货币数量论所描述的货币供给与通货膨胀同步增长的预测关系,而这种关系在巴基斯坦却不存在;第四,两国若想实现较高的经济增长都必须在长期内降低通货膨胀率。     

Demand for money in Bangladesh: a cointegration analysis

The aim of this study is to estimate the demand for real broad (M2) money in Bangladesh using the most recently developed autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration analyses. The empirical results show that there is a unique cointegrated and stable long-run relationship among real per capita broad money demand, real per capita income, domestic interest rates and unofficial exchange rate (UM) premiums which act as a surrogate for foreign interest rates. With money as the dependent variable, the results show that the income and interest elasticities are positive while the UM premium elasticity is negative. These results suggest that distortions in the financial and foreign exchange markets should be reduced in order to increase financial saving or monetary accumulation. Our results also reveal that the demand for money in Bangladesh is stable despite the changes in financial and exchange rate policies between 1975 and 1995.     

On the monetary-macro dynamics of Colombia and Mexico

This paper investigates the dynamic interrelationship among money growth, inflation, and output growth for Colombia and Mexico on the basis of implementation of a vector autoregression methodology. The evidence for Colombia generally shows autonomous output growth and money growth behavior, and an important role for money shocks in accounting for variations in inflations. A different pattern of results emerged for Mexico: there are strong two-way feedbacks among money growth and inflation, and a less autonomous output growth behavior than in Colombia.     

通货膨胀与“中等收入陷阱”： 家庭福利损失的视角

本文以经典的经济增长理论为基础,结合中等收入国家的特点,提出如下理论假设：通胀所造成的家庭福利损失会影响中等收入国家宏观经济的发展,进而推动相关国家陷入“中等收入陷阱”。而后通过FGLS、差分GMM,以及系统GMM的方法对陷入“中等收入陷阱”的典型国家进行回归分析。分析结果表明,在控制了基础设施、债务水平、技术创新以及储蓄率这些影响因素之后,通胀对上述国家人均GDP增长率均有显著的负向影响,即使是在年均通胀率只有514%的东亚国家组,通胀对人均GDP增长率的平均影响也达到了123个百分点～221个百分点,影响比重达到了27%～48%。所以,我们应该加强对通胀的调控,以确保我国经济能够持续健康地发展。     

Is Inflation Always and Everywhere a Monetary Phenomenon?*

Using a sample of about 160 countries over the last 30 years, we test for the quantity theory relationship between money and inflation. When analysing the full sample of countries, we find a strong positive relation between long‐run inflation and the money growth rate. The relation is not proportional, however. The strong link between inflation and money growth is almost wholly due to the presence of high‐(or hyper‐) inflation countries in the sample. The relationship between inflation and money growth for low‐inflation countries (on average less than 10% per annum over the last 30 years) is weak.