The demand for traded and non-traded goods in the U.S.

Annual postwar U.S. data are used to estimate the Rotterdam demand model for traded and non-traded goods. The estimated income elasticity is 1.51 for traded and 0.64 for non-traded goods, while the own-price elasticities are both between −0.3 and −0.2.     

Mexican real wages and the U.S. economy

This article examines real wage determinants from 1996 to 2014 across Mexican states. Real wages are determined in equilibrium by combining labor supply (years of education and population growth) and labor demand (mostly external factors) forces. Panel data models provide two main results. First, years of education and U.S. real GDP appear to be reliable predictors of wages in fixed effects models, with very marked changes after the U.S. 2008–2009 financial crisis and stronger effects on northern Mexican states. Second, dynamic panels confirm the role of foreign forces: positive from the U.S. economy and negative from the real exchange rate.     

美国经济面临考验

随着美国企业巨人世通、施乐等大型公司财务丑闻相继曝光，美国资本市场的两大指标———道·琼斯和纳斯达克股票指数应声而跌。全世界的目光重新聚焦于美国经济，舆论界和经济界开始有人悄声议论美国经济是否会二次触底。应该说，人们的担心不无道理。在笔者看来，美国经济麻烦不少，隐患深重，前景堪忧。新泡沫破灭与资本外流从1993年开始，美国经济步入了长达八年繁荣发展的增长期，特别是1999年，人们曾预计这一年经济增长率可达3.5—4%，可实际的增长率竟然高达5.5%，大大超出了最乐观的预期。1993至2000年是美国历史上罕见的经济繁荣…     

Why the U.S. economy is not depression-proof

Summary The U.S. economy has been remarkably resilient over the years. In the turbulent 1970s, it was able to rebound from the energy crises, food shortages, and double-digit inflation. In the disinflationary 1980s, it has had to overcome major credit crunches, volatile financial markets, and banking crises. In short, Armageddon has been postponed.Nevertheless, while the United States and other western countries may be depression-resistant, they are not depression-proof. They are highly susceptible to deep recessions from time to time. Governments have been remarkably successful in averting disaster over the past fifty years. One wonders if Armageddon can be postponed indefinitely. So far, the government forces of inflation have effectively beaten back the free-market forces of deflation. But while the government has won many battles, the war is not over. Macroeconomic imbalance is still very much in evidence; and it is, in fact, growing as monetary and fiscal policies become more and more precarious. As long as the financial-banking system is built on a volatile, destabilizing inflationary policy coupled with a fragile fractional reserve system, the possibility of financial chaos and a subsequent economic cataclysm should not be discounted.I would like to thank Kenna Taylor of Rollins College, Larry Wimmer of Brigham Young University, Murray Rothbard of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Walter Block of the Fraser Institute, and Harry Browne for their comments and suggestions. Special thanks go to Warren Heller of Veribanc, Inc., for providing bank data.     

Explaining the declining energy intensity of the U.S. economy

This paper reconciles conflicting explanations for the decline in U.S. energy intensity over the last 40 years of the 20th century. Decomposing changes in the energy–GDP ratio into shifts in the structure of sectoral composition and adjustments in the efficiency of energy use within individual industries reveals that while inter-industry structural change was the principal driver of the observed decline in aggregate energy intensity, intra-industry efficiency improvements played a more important role in the post-1980 period. Econometric results attribute this phenomenon to adjustments in quasi-fixed inputs—particularly vehicle stocks, and disembodied autonomous technological progress, and show that price-induced substitution of variable inputs generated transitory energy savings, while innovation induced by energy prices had only a minor impact.     

Immigration policy and the U.S. economy: an institutional perspective

The author examines some aspects of the current situation concerning immigration to the United States. He predicts that the 1990s will witness the largest flow of immigrants into the population and labor force of any decade in the country's history; furthermore, since there is no universally accepted right to immigrate, the adoption of migration policy is one area of economic policymaking that is not controlled by market forces. He also notes that while the country's need is for a highly skilled, motivated, and educated labor force, the majority of current immigrants have low skill levels and relatively little education. The need to develop and implement a migration policy that is in tune with the country's economic objectives is stressed. He concludes that "the resurrection of mass immigration from out of the nation's distant past was a political accident; its perpetuation in the 1990s is contrary to national interest. Immigration reform, therefore, needs to be [in] the forefront of the nation's economic policy agenda."     

A vertical social accounting matrix of the U.S. economy

Abstract

This article presents an adaptation of the square social accounting matrix used in economic planning and programming to the rectangular or vertical transaction matrix used in post Keynesian monetary economics. The objective is to obtain a simple and intuitive framework to organize macroeconomic data in terms of the main institutional sectors of the economy, showing how production, distribution, demand, and financing are inter-related. The article presents the social accounting matrix of the U.S. economy as an example and use it to analyze the trends in net lending and household net income since 1960.     

The Kuznets-Lewis process within the context of race and class in the U.S. economy

The Kuznets-Lewis process is a synthesis of Kuznets's inverted U-hypothesis and Lewis's sectoral terms of trade thesis. Thus, synthesis seeks to explain thePGNP inequality implications for the development transition, e.g., from manufacturing to services. This paper extends this theoretical synthesis a step further by incorporating both racial and class considerations. The paper's empirical findings indicate the transition from manufacturing to services in the U.S. has caused both aggregate class and within-race class inequality to increase. Although the income disparity across races is narrowing within the upper and middle classes, the income disparity within the lower class is, indeed, widening. This latter finding points to a widening of the racial income disparity given the economy's transition from a manufacturing to service sector emphasis.     

The political economy of trade and migration: Evidence from the U.S. Congress

We compare the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970s. Standard trade theory suggests that trade reforms that lower barriers to goods from less skilled‐labor abundant countries and migration reforms that lower barriers to low‐skilled migrants should have similar distributional effects, hurting low‐skilled U.S. workers while benefiting high‐skilled workers. In line with this prediction, we find that House members representing more skilled‐labor abundant districts are more likely to support trade and migration reforms that benefit high‐skilled workers. Still, important differences exist: Democrats are less supportive of trade reforms than Republicans, while the opposite is true for migration reforms; welfare state considerations and network effects shape votes on migration, but not on trade.     

Earmarking lottery proceeds for public goods: Empirical evidence from U.S. lotto expenditures

This study examines motives for lottery play using a state-level panel of lottery expenditures. We find that expenditures per capita are greater in states that earmark proceeds for public goods. Further, we find that casino gambling only impacts lotto play in general fund states.     

Probability forecast of downturn in U.S. economy using classical statistical decision theory

This paper presents a methodology for producing a probability forecast of a turning point in U.S. economy using Composite Leading Indicators. This methodology is based on classical statistical decision theory and uses information-theoretic measurement to produce a probability. The methodology is flexible using as many historical data points as desired. This methodology is applied to producing probability forecasts of a downturn in U.S. economy in the 1970–1990 period. Four probability forecasts are produced using different amounts of information. The performance of these forecasts is evaluated using the actual downturn points and the scores measuring accuracy, calibration, and resolution. An indirect comparison of these forecasts with Diebold and Rudebusch's sequential probability recursion is also presented. It is shown that the performances of our best two models are statistically different from the performance of the three-consecutive-month decline model and are the same as the one for the best probit model. The probit model, however, is more conservative in its predictions than our two models.     

Transportation capital and its effects on the U.S. economy: A general equilibrium approach

We analyze the effect of the US transportation system on economic activity by building a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model with a taxpayer-funded transportation capital stock. We highlight stark differences between the positive welfare effects of additional infrastructure spending in the long run, and its potentially negative effects when we account for the large transition (time and delay) costs to build. We also quantify large differences between the effects of additional infrastructure spending and efficient transportation policies, such as congestion pricing and eliminating laws that artificially inflate input prices, concluding that taxpayer-funded transportation improvements that increase GDP significantly may produce smaller welfare gains than efficient policies that increase GDP modestly.     

Temporal disaggregation of business dynamics: New evidence for U.S. economy

We provide new disaggregated data and stylized facts on firm dynamics of the U.S economy at establishment level by using a state-space method to transform Census yearly data of entry and exit from 1977 to 2013 into quarterly frequency. We select the most significant determinants of these variables by matching Census data with a new database by Federal Reserve Bank. These determinants are extrapolated by using an unobserved factor model whose loadings are estimated via Principal Component Analysis. Alternative sources and their data are also investigated and discussed. We find that (i) Entry is pro-cyclical, coincident and symmetric; (ii) Exit is lagging with a maximum positive correlation with RGDP at lag 5 and asymmetric along the business cycle; (iii) the standard macroeconometric models estimated on our disaggregated series support the recent theoretical literature.     

美元本位制、美元霸权与美国金融危机

美元本位制下,美元霸权表现为中心一外围框架体系.在该体系下,中心国美国与外围国家的权益和义务不对称,地位不对等,而且框架体系本身具有内在的不相容性,这些特征决定了美元本位制的内在脆弱性,由此也使美国落入美元本位制的陷阱,造成美国国内利率下降、消费信用过度扩张、制造业陷入衰退等经济失衡,最后当信用泡沫破灭时,金融危机爆发.     

直接投资引致的美中贸易逆差:经验研究

运用基于误差修正模型的格兰杰因果关系检验模型,在商品分类层面研究关中贸易逆差与关国对华直接投资的内在联系。结果显示：从长期和短期来看,中国制成品的出口都是关中贸易逆差的“因”,中国制成品的出口与关国对华直接投资之间具有显著的双向格兰杰因果关系,因此关国进入中国的FDI,尤其是进入制造业的FDI越多,美中贸易逆差就越大;美中贸易逆差是结构性的,它不仅不会在短期内消除,而且会随着美国劳动密集型产业向中国的进一步转移而加剧。     

U.S. farm dynamics and the distribution of U.S. agricultural subsidies

The persistent instability of the agricultural sector is the fundamental premise of most agricultural policy. Yet no research has ever quantified the aggregate dynamics of individual farms in the US. This article is the first to combine the US Census of Agriculture with the Agricultural Resource Management Survey to observe the dynamics of nearly 1.5 million farms. The data reveal substantial variation in farm size expansion and contraction. Most of this variation is unobservable in the sector totals reported by the US Department of Agriculture each year. The distribution of agricultural subsidies suggests that subsidies become more important as farms get smaller and may play a role in slowing farm size contraction.     

Exploring the finance-real economy link in U.S.: empirical evidence from panel unit root and cointegration analysis

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationships between common shocks affecting the real economy and those underlying co-fluctuations in U.S. financial markets. In order to do this, we test for links between these common factors and also use the econometric theory of non-stationary panel data to estimate the relationships. The estimates prove the existence of significant relationships between financial and macroeconomic factors. It is also shown that there are forces pulling U.S. financial markets to move with the real economy, as seen through nearly instantaneous adjustment to a new equilibrium.     

Presidential party affiliation and electoral cycles in the U.S. economy: Evidence from party changes in adjacent terms

Unique evidence presented in this study challenges previous findings about presidential politics and business cycles. Prior studies find strong evidence for a Democratic economic growth advantage of about 1.8% per year over the course of a term but only weak evidence for a pre- election surge in growth for incumbent Presidents of either party. This study finds a much smaller Democratic advantage and strong evidence for a pre-election growth surge for Republican Presidents relative to Democratic Presidents. The novelty of these results is attributable to the use of repeated party-change reversals in adjacent terms for identification in place of binary changes in isolated terms separated by as much as a half-century in prior studies. We find a strongly partisan Federal Reserve effect on growth as well. Results are insensitive to an extensive battery of robustness checks.     

The Japanese information economy: Its quantification and analysis in a macroeconomic framework (with comparisons to the U.S.)

Japan is one of the leading information societies and there is official policy promotion of its information economy image. In this study the information sector of Japan is measured and analysed within a macroeconomic framework, using input-output techniques. Important benchmark statistics on both the primary and secondary information sectors are derived and compared to those obtained in an earlier study of the U.S. The analysis reveals the high growth potential of both information sectors in the two economies. However, important inter-country differences also emerge, in particular in regard to the amount of resources devoted to the information task at the disaggregated sector level. This leads to a discussion of the relationship between investment in the information sector, organisational design, informational efficiency and productivity growth, which is seen to be of crucial importance for the future success or failure of the two economies. Limitations of the approach adopted in this study and areas for further research are indicated.