英国经济的现实困境与复苏前景

文章综合GDP增长、主权债务占比、银行业风险及房地产市场调整等多方面的情况,分析了当前英国经济面临的现实困境,指出英国经济的复苏,需要扭转过度依赖金融业发展的局面,需要政府部门在谨慎把握货币宽松与通货膨胀、财政紧缩与经济增长之间平衡的条件下积极推进经济结构调整。尽管复苏前景不甚明朗,但是由于英镑与欧元截然不同的货币体制以及英、美微妙的同盟关系,英国料将不会成为下一个希腊。     

经济复苏堪忧 宽松政策重启

鉴于近期的经济形势,即最近产出复苏及就业改善的速度均在减缓,美联储下调了其对经济增长的预期,并重启宽松的政策,力图三管齐下来促进经济的复苏和物价稳定。     

2013美国经济:低速复苏

尽管美国经济基本面正在稳固过程中,但在温和增长的经济背后,受财政紧缩政策影响的美国经济在2013年仍难以摆脱低速复苏的趋势2012年美国实现了2.2%的适度增长。2013年一季度维持温和增长势头,第一季度GDP增长折年率终值为1.8%,低于此前估测的2.4%,但高于上季度的0.4%。有迹象表明     

撒切尔夫人拯救英国经济的一大秘诀

撒切尔夫人的逝世带走了一个时代,我常在思索,为什么撒切尔夫人总是充满着传奇色彩呢?仅仅因为她是个女首相吗?仅仅因为她外交上的强硬作风吗?实际上这些都是表面,撒切尔的最大成果是她的经济成就,是当时英国经济的特殊时期造就了撒切尔夫人。经济学界把这种特殊时期称为英国病,这在当时的英国被称为绝症,而撒切尔的经济政策起到了妙手回春的作用。     

“双赤字”对英国及世界经济的影响

最近一段时间，美国财政和贸易的“双赤字”问题成了大家关注的热门话题。     

欧债危机以来意大利经济改革措施

欧债危机以来,为了摆脱困境,意大利实施了一系列经济改革措施。文章从实施财政紧缩政策和经济结构性改革两个方面对意大利近年来经济改革措施进行了梳理,并对意大利债务形势和经济前景进行了展望。     

英国全力建设经济

随着失业率的上升。预算赤字也在与之激增．到2020年,英国将会成为G20中拥有最大赤字的成员。根据这一惨痛的实事,英国能否超过其第一世界的竞争对手将备受质疑。     

越南经济堪忧 政府谋求改革

<正>越南打算向更多外国证券公司开放市场。这项计划是进一步扩大国营企业私有化,鼓励外国投资努力的一部分。但是对许多越南百姓来说,一连串引人注目的贪污案件以及对物价高涨的担心,才是他们的关切所在。在经过10年的高速增长后,越南的经济前景在最近几年变得暗淡。身陷债务泥沼的银行,经营不善、贪污横行的国有企业和居高不下的通货膨胀,最终使越南经济付出了代价。由于小企业获得贷款不易,加上有越来越多的人失去工作,越南领导人已     

The economic costs and benefits of UK defence exports

This study examines the economic costs and benefits to the UK of a 50 per cent cut in UK defence exports from the average level of 1998 and 1999. The net impact on the government budget is estimated to be an ongoing loss of between around £40 million and £100 million a year: around 0.2–0.4 per cent of the total UK defence budget. In addition, there is estimated to be a one‐off net adjustment cost, spread over five years, of between £0.9 billion and £1.4 billion. A further more speculative adjustment cost (estimated at around £1.1 billion) could result if the loss of income associated with the ‘terms‐of‐trade£ effect were also included. In terms of the wider debate about defence exports, the results of this study suggest first that the economic effects of the reduction in defence exports are relatively small and largely one‐off, and secondly that the balance of arguments about UK defence exports should be determined mainly by non‐economic factors.     

Identifying sources of macroeconomic and exchange rate fluctuations in the UK

Using quarterly data for the period 1985:1–2011:1, this paper uses a stylised, open economy, structural VAR model to identify the types of shocks responsible for macroeconomic fluctuations in the UK economy. The stylised model implies a set of short-run restrictions that allow for the identification of the shocks. The importance of each shock is determined by examining forecast-error variance decompositions, impulse response functions, and implied long-run (or permanent) effects. The results presented here imply that two shocks (called the technology and IS shocks) are relatively more important than other shocks. Monetary shocks do exhibit long-run monetary neutrality, but clearly monetary policy is not responsible for a meaningful share of output and employment fluctuations during the sample period. The estimated VAR and structural disturbances imply that the model accurately reflects the UK economy. There is little evidence of a price puzzle or an exchange rate puzzle (evidence against uncovered interest rate parity) in response to an unexpected monetary policy tightening.     

Sub-sovereign bond buyback: a way forward for debt-laden regions in austerity

ABSTRACT

Previous academic literature has criticised bond buyback as a ‘”boondoggle” benefiting a country’s creditors’—meaning that buybacks are a wasteful use of public money. This paper challenges the narrow financial–economic perspective behind that statement by adopting a broader socio-political framework that includes the potential benefits of buyback for citizens, not just financial market costs. In particular, buyback does not necessarily require a budget surplus via higher local taxes and/or increased austerity measures.     

On the Asymmetric U‐Shaped Relationship between Inflation,Inflation Uncertainty,and Relative Price Skewness in the UK

We investigate the asymmetric relationships between aggregate inflation and the second and third moments of the cross‐sectional distribution of relative prices using a modified Calvo pricing model with regime‐dependent price rigidities. Calibration experiments reveal that the inflation‐standard deviation and inflation‐skewness relationships exhibit U‐shaped asymmetries around the historical mean inflation rate. UK sectoral data support our results. We conclude that monetary policy should target an inflation rate proximate to the (common) minima of these nonlinear relationships and that core inflation measures should not be used for policy purposes as they exclude much of the information contained in the higher moments.     

Long‐Term Effects of Fiscal Policy on the Size and Distribution of the Pie in the UK*

This paper provides a joint analysis of the output and distributional long‐term effects of various fiscal policies in the UK, using a vector autoregression (VAR) approach. Our findings suggest that the long‐term impact on GDP of increasing public spending and taxes is negative, and especially strong in the case of current expenditure. We also find significant distributional effects associated with fiscal policies, indicating that an increase in public spending reduces inequality while a rise in indirect taxes increases income inequality.     

Asset price dynamics,inflation and sectoral composition of output: a dependent economy model

This article develops a dependent economy model that focuses on the interactions between inflation and asset price dynamics under a flexible exchange rate and rational expectation. We assume that money wage adjusts instantaneously to clear the labour market. The asset prices are represented by the Tobin’s q and exchange rate. Using this framework, we will examine implications of monetary policy, fiscal policy, tariff liberalization and exogenous capital flows for inflation and asset prices, which in turn determine the allocation of labour and the sectoral composition of output. The effects of different exogenous and policy-induced shocks critically depend on the difference in the speeds of adjustment in commodity price and asset prices and multiple cross effects generated by changes in these prices.     

Inflation volatility and economic growth in Bolivia: a regional analysis

This paper analyses the effects of inflation and its volatility on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita for the regions of Bolivia over the period 1989–2011. Results show the existence of a positive relationship with inflation but a negative one with respect to volatility. Moreover, we identify a threshold for volatility and inflation. Our conclusions imply that economic agents are more tolerant to relatively high levels of inflation than to high inflation volatility.     

Internal financial constraints,external financial constraints,and investment choice: Evidence from a panel of UK firms

This paper uses a panel of 24,184 UK firms over the period 1993–2003 to study the extent to which the sensitivity of investment to cash flow differs at firms facing different degrees of internal and external financial constraints. Our results suggest that when the sample is split on the basis of the level of internal funds available to the firms, the relationship between investment and cash flow is U-shaped. On the other hand, the sensitivity of investment to cash flow tends to increase monotonically with the degree of external financial constraints faced by firms. Combining the internal with the external financial constraints, we find that the dependence of investment on cash flow is strongest for those externally financially constrained firms that have a relatively high level of internal funds.     

UK interim and final dividend reductions: a note on price reaction

Price reactions to interim and final dividend reductions are found to be significantly negative and stronger for interim dividend reductions. Although the market reacted negatively around final dividend reduction announcements it bounced back to its prior level within one month of the announcements. The magnitude of price reactions to dividend reductions is found to be statistically related to the size of the dividend reduction, the post-announcement effect from day 2 to day 20, the pre-announcement effect from day ?20 to day ?2, the gearing ratio and the dummy variable interim versus final dividend reduction.