Is East Asia an optimum currency area?

This paper assesses the empirical desirability of the East Asian economies to an alternative exchange rate arrangement (a monetary union) that can potentially enhance the exchange rate stability and credibility in the region. Specifically, the symmetry in macroeconomic disturbances of the East Asian economies is examined as satisfying one of the preconditions for forming an Optimum Currency Area (OCA). We extend the existing literature by improving the methodology of assessing the symmetry shocks in evaluating the suitability of a common currency area in the East Asian economies employing the Bayesian State-Space Based approach. We consider a model of an economy in which the output is influenced by global, regional and country-specific shocks. The importance of a common regional shock would provide a case for a regional common currency. This model allows us to examine regional and country-specific cycles simultaneously with the world business cycle. The importance of the shocks decomposition is that studying a subset of countries can lead one to believe that observed co-movement is particular to that subset of countries when it in fact is common to a much larger group of countries. In addition, the understanding of the sources of international economic fluctuations is important for making policy decisions. The falling share of country specific factor and the rising role of region factor indicate that East Asia has become increasingly favorable for a monetary union. However, the share of country-specific factor that is still significant implies that it could be costly to renounce individual currencies to advance into a monetary union in East Asia.     

Business cycles in EU new member states: How and why are they different?

This paper uses the business cycle accounting framework to investigate the differences between economic fluctuations in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and the euro area. We decompose output movements into the contributions of four economic wedges, affecting the production technology, the agents’ intra- and intertemporal choices, and the aggregate resource constraint. We next analyze the observed cross-country differences in business cycles with respect to these four identified wedges. Our results indicate that business cycles in the CEE countries do differ from those observed in the euro area, even though substantial convergence has been achieved after the eastern EU enlargement. The major differences concern the importance of the intra- and intertemporal wedges, which account for a larger proportion of output fluctuations in the CEE region and also exhibit relatively little comovement with their euro area counterparts.     

Macroeconomic surprises and short-term behaviour in bond futures

This paper analyses the effect of macroeconomic news on the price of the ten year Treasure bond future. We consider 15 fundamentals and we analyse the effect of their forecasting errors conditional upon their sign and the momentum of the business cycle. To obtain a smooth effect of the news arrival we estimate a Polynomial Distributed Lag model. Using 10 minutes sampled data for 9 years, we conclude that 1) releases affect the bond future for only few hours, 2) their effect depends on the sign of the forecast error, 3) their effect also depends on the business cycle and 4) the timeliness of the releases is significant.     

Enlarging the EMU to the east: what effects on trade?

The purpose of this article is to assess the implications of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) accession of eight Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) on their share of EMU-12 imports. Overcoming biases related to endogeneity, omitted variables and sample selection, our results indicate that the common currency has boosted intra-EMU imports by 7%. Under the assumption that the same relationship between the explanatory variables and imports will hold for EMU-CEEC trade, we intend to predict the future impact of the Euro. Our findings suggest that except for the least integrated countries, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, all CEECs can expect increases in the EMU-12 import share.

Macroeconomic effects of Slovenia’s integration in the Euro Area

On 1 January 2007, Slovenia entered the Euro Area as the first of the ten new EU member states. By means of simulations with SLOPOL6, a macroeconometric model of the Slovene economy, this paper examines which macroeconomic effects can be expected from this event. It is shown that Euro Area accession brings about temporarily higher real GDP growth, a permanently higher GDP level, more employment, temporarily lower inflation and a permanently lower price level. On the other hand, both public finances and the current account deteriorate.      

Macroeconomic Consequences of the Adoption of the Euro: The Case of Slovenia

On 1 January 2007, Slovenia adopted the euro as the first of the ten new EU member states. By means of simulations with SLOPOL6, a macroeconometric model of the Slovene economy, this paper examines the macroeconomic consequences that can be expected from this event. It is shown that after a short period of minor turbulences related to the introduction of the euro, the adoption of the euro brings about higher real GDP growth, a higher GDP level, more employment, lower inflation, a lower price level and improved public finances in the medium run. On the other hand, the current account deteriorates. Financial support from the Province of Carinthia, Klagenfurt University and the Jubilaeumsfonds of the Austrian National Bank (project no. 12166) is gratefully acknowledged. The opinions presented need not be those of the Austrian National Bank.     

FINANCIAL MARKET INTEGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLE VOLATILITY IN A MONETARY UNION

This paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium two‐country sticky‐price model to analyze the implications of financial market integration for the propagation of asymmetric productivity and government spending shocks in a monetary union. Financial market integration has a small effect on the propagation of these shocks if households can only trade in risk‐free bonds. However, financial market integration has a more substantial effect on the propagation of these shocks in a monetary union with a complete market for state‐contingent claims. This result indicates that it may be important to account for threshold effects in empirical analyses of the impact of financial market integration on business cycle volatility in a monetary union.     

USA,Japan and the Euro Area: Comparing Business‐Cycle Features

There has been much discussion of the differences in macroeconomic performance and prospects between the USA, Japan and the Euro area. Using Markov‐switching techniques, we identify and compare specifically their major business‐cycle features and examine the case for a common business cycle, asymmetries in the national cycles and, using a number of algorithms, date business‐cycle turning points. Despite a high degree of trade and financial linkages, the cyclical features of USA, Japan and the Euro area appear quite distinct. Documenting and comparing such international business‐cycle features can, for example, aid the development of business‐cycle models and inform policy making.     

Austrian business cycle theory: Empirical evidence

The Austrian approach to business cycles has been seldom examined in econometric terms. This paper first reviews the essentials of that approach and the recent application of the Austrian business cycle theory in the economics literature. Quarterly data for Germany, USA, England and France, 1980:1 through 2006:1, are used to explore business cycle facts and relations between terms structure of interest rates, relative prices, composition of aggregate expenditure and real GDP. Results are consistent with the hypothesis of the Austrian business cycle theory that monetary policy shocks explain cycles. The changes in term structure of interest rates and composition of aggregate expenditure are large enough to explain changes in aggregate economic activity.

中国电力周期与经济周期的协同性——基于Markov区制转移模型

采用1978—2015年中国电力消费和国内生产总值的年度数据,基于"三区制"马尔科夫区制转移模型,研究了电力消费和经济增长的动态转变过程,识别和划分了改革开放后中国电力周期和经济周期的阶段,并分析了两者在不同阶段的协同性。结果表明:电力周期和经济周期均具有低速增长期、稳定增长期和高速增长期三个区制转移特征;电力消费在低速增长期和高速增长期的波动性明显高于GDP,而在稳定增长期的波动性则显著小于GDP;20世纪80年代中期以前,是电力周期和经济周期的静态协同期;20世纪80年代中后期,两者处于非协同期;之后,两者处于显著的跨区制动态协同期,且处于协同期的电力周期与经济周期在时间上表现出较高的一致性。