BUSINESS CYCLES AND ADMISSIONS TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT

We study the effect of business cycles on admissions to specialty substance abuse treatment using administrative data between 1992 and 2015. We proxy business cycles with the state unemployment rate and apply a panel fixed‐effects model. While previous economic research has shown that substance abuse is counter‐cyclical, we observe no change in the total number of admissions across the business cycle. However, focusing on average effects misses important heterogeneity. In substance‐specific regressions we find statistically significant evidence that heroin‐related admissions are counter‐cyclical while stimulant‐related admissions are procyclical. Our findings add to the literature on business cycles and health. (JEL I1, J2)     

Housing markets,monetary policy,and the international co‐movement of housing bubbles

We analyze whether there was co‐movement in bubbles at the international level from the mid‐1990s to 2018 using a data set of developed and emerging economies. We first identify the markets that were more prone to volatility and speculation before the crisis. Second, we determine and compare the responses of bubbles in housing markets to monetary policy in a Bayesian time‐varying framework. We then study the co‐movement of bubble responses to monetary shocks before and after the crisis using a dynamic factor model. This approach allows us to disentangle a common global factor from factors specific to high/low speculative housing markets.     

Do Business Cycles Cast Long Shadows? Short-Run Persistence and Economic Growth

Thisarticle explores the links between cyclical fluctuations andlong-run growth in the context of an endogenous growth modelwith aggregate demand externalities. In this model, aggregatedemand and growth rates are positively correlated. In the presenceof exogenous cyclical shocks, the model is able to generate persistentfluctuations through the effects that business cycles have onaggregate demand, profits and technological progress. Persistencebecomes a measure of the response to business cycles of growth-relatedvariables. Empirical evidence from a large sample of countriessuggests that there is indeed a correlation between how persistentfluctuations are and the long-term growth rates of GDP.     

HOW IMPORTANT ARE TERMS‐OF‐TRADE SHOCKS?

According to conventional wisdom, terms‐of‐trade shocks represent a major source of business cycles in emerging and poor countries. This view is largely based on the analysis of calibrated business‐cycle models. We argue that the view that emerges from empirical structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models is strikingly different. We estimate country‐specific SVARs using data from 38 countries and find that terms‐of‐trade shocks explain less than 10% of movements in aggregate activity. We then estimate key structural parameters of a three‐sector business‐cycle model country by country and find a disconnect between the importance assigned to terms‐of‐trade shocks by theoretical and SVAR models.     

Trend shocks and the countercyclical U.S. current account

From 1960 to 2009, the U.S. current account balance has tended to decline during expansions and improve in recessions. We argue that shocks to the trend growth rate of productivity can help explain the countercyclical U.S. current account. Our framework is a two‐country, two‐good business cycle model in which international asset trade is limited to a single, non‐contingent bond. We identify trend and transitory shocks to U.S. productivity using generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. The specification that best matches the data assigns a large role to trend shocks. The estimated model also captures key facts regarding international co‐movement.     

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.     

What goes up sometimes stays up: shocks and institutions as determinants of unemployment persistence

We analyse the determinants of unemployment persistence in four OECD countries by estimating a structural Bayesian VAR with an informative prior based on an insiders/outsiders model. We explicitly insert unemployment benefits and labour taxes so that our identification is not affected by the Faust and Leeper (1997) critique. We find widespread hysteresis: demand shocks play a dominant role in explaining unemployment also in the medium‐run. Moreover real wages have low sensitivity to cyclical fluctuations and to labour market disequilibria. Our results emphasise the real power of the unions and their interactions with structural shocks and other institutions as crucial determinants of hysteresis.     

STATE DEPENDENT PRICING AND BUSINESS CYCLE ASYMMETRIES*

We present a tractable, dynamic general equilibrium model of state‐dependent pricing and study the response of output and prices to monetary policy shocks. We find important nonlinearities in these responses. For empirically relevant shocks, this generates substantially different predictions from time‐dependent pricing. We also find a distinct asymmetry with state‐dependent pricing: Prices respond more to positive shocks than they do to negative shocks. This is due to a strategic linkage between firms in the incentive for price adjustment. Our state‐dependent model can account for business cycle asymmetries in output of the magnitude found in empirical studies.     

Asia's Decoupling: Fact,Fairytale or Forecast?

Standard measures of economic co‐movement between Asia‐Pacific economies and those elsewhere had been observed to follow a downward trend, leading some commentators to suggest that the region was decoupling. However, this process reversed in response to the 2008 international financial crisis, and co‐movement increased to historically high levels for some economies. We examine co‐movement patterns and show that these are very sensitive to changes in macroeconomic volatility over time. Controlling for this, however, co‐movement is closely linked to underlying trade and financial integration. If international links continue to strengthen in future, co‐movement will strengthen in tandem. Decoupling is more a fairytale than a fact or a forecast.     

The role of financial shocks in business cycles with a liability side financial friction

The paper investigates the role of investment specific technology shock within the particular type of financial friction of Gertler and Karadi (2011) and the impact of direct financial shock into this, such as a net worth shock, using US data. The paper explicitly shows how the bank balance sheet effect of counter cyclical movement of capital price attenuates such investment shocks and the extent depends on the type of financial shocks included in the model. Because of the construction of capital quality shock in such financial friction model, we need to incorporate a direct net worth shock while analysing the role of financial shock. This highlights finance sector as a fundamental source of shocks apart from amplifier of shocks originating in elsewhere of the economy.     

OUTPUT FLUCTUATIONS PERSISTENCE: DO CYCLICAL SHOCKS MATTER?

The aim of this paper is to identify the different sources of persistence of output fluctuations. We propose an unobserved components model that allows us to decompose GDP series into a trend component and a cyclical component. We let the drift of the trend component switch between different regimes according to a first‐order Markov process. To calculate an appropriate p‐value for a test of linearity we propose a bootstrap procedure, which allows for general forms of heteroscedasticity. The performance of the bootstrap is checked by means of a Monte Carlo simulation. Our study concerns the USA. We find that cyclical shocks appear to play an important role on the observed persistence of output.     

ENDOGENOUS CYCLES IN A SIMPLE MODEL WITH LAGGED EXTERNALITIES ON PRODUCTIVITY

This paper presents a simple model of endogenous cycles. In the model, working experience creates learning‐by‐doing externalities that improve labor productivity but it takes long time before the externalities come into effect. In addition, individuals have preferences with a subsistence consumption level. In the presence of the subsistence consumption requirement, a productivity increase generates the income effect that surpasses the substitution effect, and individuals choose to increase leisure time at the expense of supplying labor. The interactions between productivity changes through the lagged externalities and labor supply generate cycles endogenously. The model analysis shows that the dynamics exhibit cyclical fluctuations around a unique steady state.     

A business cycle model with variable capacity utilization and demand disturbances

We develop a dynamic general-equilibrium model with demand (preference) shocks, estimated using Hall's (J. Labour Economics 15 (1997) 223) residual, that replicates U.S. business cycles well, at least compared to the real business cycle models. The key factor is cyclical capital utilization, which is based on imperfect competition, slow adjustments in capital stock, and fixed requirement of labor input. We also demonstrate theoretically that a representative-agent economy with preference shocks could be viewed as the reduced form of a heterogeneous-agents economy with incomplete markets. Specifically, a heterogeneous-agents economy with incomplete markets is aggregated into a representative-agent economy with preference shocks. This result would provide a microeconomic foundation for preference shock models. It is also shown that a shock to marginal utility of consumption and a shock to marginal disutility of labor have different effects.     

Generalized long memory and mean reversion of the real exchange rate

Definitive evidence regarding a rapid mean reversion of the real exchange rate is not present when using standard linear methodology, including unit root tests and fractional integration. To consider the robustness of these results, we use an encompassing model, the Gegenbauer AutoRegressive Moving Average (GARMA) model, which nests as special cases the existing linear methods. The GARMA model accommodates a complete notion of persistence and allows shocks to dissipate slowly in a cyclical manner. We find evidence supporting a weak version of purchasing power parity, where equilibrium errors are long memory with strongly persistent cycles. However, this new form of cyclical mean reversion is likely too slow to be economically meaningful. The inability to find a strong equilibrium attractor process, using a very general encompassing linear methodology provides support for the recent models that allow for a nonlinear attraction process and for shifting real exchange rate equilibria.     

城乡居民生活水平差距的变化——基于经济周期视角分析

为探究周期性波动因素如何影响中国城乡居民生活水平差距变化,本文对新凯恩斯模型进行以下拓展:城乡二元经济体系,城乡居民不同金融参与程度,及城乡间劳力迁移。基于1996—2012年季度数据,由贝斯估计得到的本文模型可以很好地匹配主要宏观变量的数据特性。本文研究得到各种外生冲击对城乡居民收入与消费周期性变动的动态影响及解释力大小;并探明城乡生活水平周期性差距在2002—2004年间扩大及2011年之后减缓的影响主因;同时也发现短期宏观政策对城乡生活水平周期性差距具有不对称影响。     

BUSINESS CYCLES IN THE EQUILIBRIUM MODEL OF LABOR MARKET SEARCH AND SELF‐INSURANCE*

I introduce risk‐aversion, labor‐leisure choice, capital, individual productivity shocks, and market incompleteness to the standard model of labor search and matching and investigate the model’s cyclical properties. I find that the model can generate the observed large volatility of unemployment and vacancies with a reasonable replacement rate of unemployment insurance benefits of 64%. Labor‐leisure choice plays a crucial role through additional utility from leisure when unemployed and further amplification from adjustments of hours worked. On the other hand, the borrowing constraint or individual productivity shocks do not significantly affect the cyclical properties of unemployment and vacancies.     

Regional volatility in emerging countriesThe case of Russia1

An uneven distribution of natural resources and the Soviet legacy of artificial regional specialization expose Russia's regions to large income shocks. Using an unique regional dataset covering Russian regions between 1992 and 2003, we assess how these features influence the magnitude and persistence of regional income shocks. We propose a novel measure of regional exogenous shocks that we use to show that fiscal policy in Russia's regions has largely been pro‐cyclical, exacerbating rather than moderating regional exogenous shocks.     

BUSINESS CYCLES IN SINGAPORE: STYLIZED FACTS FOR A SMALL OPEN ECONOMY

This paper sets out to discover the salient characteristics of economic fluctuations in the small open economy of Singapore. To this end, band‐pass filters and unobserved components models are first used to extract the cyclical components in macroeconomic variables. The extent to which domestic business cycles are influenced by foreign economic cycles with regards to their persistence, comovement and volatility properties are then assessed using time‐series statistics. The paper also documents how shocks originating from abroad are propagated to the broader economy. Although it is found that idiosyncratic features are present in Singapore's macroeconomic fluctuations, there are also stylized business cycle facts to be learnt about small open economies in general.     

Dynamics of Business Cycles in Asia: Differences and Similarities

The paper documents the extent of similarities and differences of business cycle characteristics of the Asian countries and compares the cyclical regularities in this region with those of the G‐7 countries. The Asian economies are generally more volatile than the G‐7 countries, but the amplitude of economic fluctuations in the Asian countries tends to decrease over time. Comovement and persistence properties of business cycles in the Asian countries are very similar to those of the G‐7 economies. The authors find that while the patterns of business cycle fluctuations in the main macroeconomic aggregates display important similarities, the behavior of fiscal and monetary policy variables exhibits significant differences across the Asian countries. Moreover, there is a high degree of comovement between the individual country business cycles and different measures of the Asian business cycle, indicating that there is a regional business cycle specific to the Asian countries.     

Migration,Foreign Aid and the Welfare State

Aspects related to the links between international migration, foreign aid and the welfare state are highlighted in this paper. Migration is modeled as a costly movement from an aid‐recipient developing country with low income and no welfare state, towards a rich donor, developed country with a well‐developed welfare state. Within this model, it is found, among other things, that the best response of the developed donor country is to increase aid as the co‐financing rate by the recipient country increases. When the immigration cost decreases, e.g. as a result of greater economic integration between the two countries, it is beneficial for the donor country to increase aid and the recipient country to increase the co‐financing rate.