中国是否存在最优通货膨胀区间——通货膨胀和经济增长关系实证研究

利用门限回归模型(threshold regression model)分析中国通货膨胀与经济增长之间的关系,实证研究发现中国通货膨胀对经济增长的影响不是单一形态,而是具有非线性特征。中国经济存在最优通货膨胀区间1.4%～5.1%,而当通货膨胀高于5.1%或低于1.4%时,通货膨胀(通过影响生产要素)对经济增长有负的影响。     

资本账户开放、系统性金融风险与经济高质量发展

扩大资本账户开放是中国完善社会主义市场经济体制的重要举措。资本账户开放不仅对经济高质量发展存在直接传导渠道,亦可通过“撬动”金融稳定导致系统性金融风险,进而对经济高质量发展产生影响。那么,资本账户开放影响经济高质量发展的传导效应究竟如何？本文运用具备随机波动率特征的时变参数结构向量自回归模型动态识别资本账户开放、系统性金融风险及经济高质量发展的时变特征,并通过资本账户开放关键时点的选择,详细刻画资本账户开放的传导渠道。实证结果表明：一方面,“资本账户开放—经济高质量发展”直接传导渠道显示资本账户开放短期对经济高质量发展有显著的、波动性的影响,但中长期传导效应并不明确;另一方面,“资本账户开放—系统性金融风险—经济高质量发展”间接传导渠道表明,资本账户开放短期稳健抑制了系统性金融风险增长,但中长期易受国内外经济形势波动影响出现抑制弱化,增强系统性金融风险对经济高质量发展的负向影响,推进资本账户开放的积极作用不能通过金融渠道长期有效地传导至社会经济发展中。因此,中国应遵循自身发展实际,渐进、审慎地推进资本账户开放,在防范系统性金融风险的前提下,疏通金融支持经济高质量发展的渠道。     

Factors influencing bank risk in Europe: Evidence from the financial crisis

We use a dynamic panel data model to analyze bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants of bank risk for a large sample of commercial banks operating in the euro area. The selected time span, from 2001 to 2012, considers the impact of the on-going financial and economic crisis on the Eurozone banking system. Our results indicate that capitalization, profitability, efficiency and liquidity are inversely and significantly related to bank risk. However, the recourse to wholesale funding by banks seems to increase their risk. We also find that less-concentrated markets, lower interest rates, higher inflation rates and a context of economic crisis (with a falling GDP) increase bank risk.     

Can Germany save itself from negative rates?

• German inflation looks set to rise in response to diminishing slack in the economy. But this will be a mixed blessing for those in Germany hit by negative policy rates and ECB asset purchases. Higher German inflation may eliminate the need for further ECB policy action, but it is unlikely to trigger imminent rate hikes. As a result, the rise in inflation will merely lower real interest rates for German savers.
• Structural cross‐country differences mean that the ECB is better able to hit its inflation target when the peripheral economies rather than Germany are the region's growth engine. A key reason for this is that the German Phillips curve is flat by Eurozone standards, meaning that policymakers need to work hard to generate sufficient inflation in Germany to offset sustained weakness elsewhere.
• Despite this, there is evidence to suggest that the tightening labour market is beginning to push German wage growth higher. And if productivity growth remains subdued, this will lead to faster unit labour cost growth.
• While firms could respond by lowering their margins, the strength of household spending suggests that firms may be more inclined than in the past to pass on higher costs to consumers.
• In all, we expect German inflation to rise more sharply than elsewhere to around 2% in 2017, meaning that the ECB will not unveil further unconventional policy support. But it would take much sharper rises in German wage growth and inflation than in our baseline forecast to prompt the ECB to bring forward interest rate rises.

     

Forecasting CPI inflation components with Hierarchical Recurrent Neural Networks

We present a hierarchical architecture based on recurrent neural networks for predicting disaggregated inflation components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). While the majority of existing research is focused on predicting headline inflation, many economic and financial institutions are interested in its partial disaggregated components. To this end, we developed the novel Hierarchical Recurrent Neural Network (HRNN) model, which utilizes information from higher levels in the CPI hierarchy to improve predictions at the more volatile lower levels. Based on a large dataset from the US CPI-U index, our evaluations indicate that the HRNN model significantly outperforms a vast array of well-known inflation prediction baselines. Our methodology and results provide additional forecasting measures and possibilities to policy and market makers on sectoral and component-specific price changes.     

World Economic Prospects Monthly

Overview: Financial turmoil will not derail expansion

• ? The further run of broadly positive economic news has been overshadowed by the recent financial market turmoil. We do not expect the latter to be the catalyst for any notable economic slowdown and have left our world GDP growth forecast for 2018 unchanged at 3.2%, which would be the strongest result since 2011, up from an estimated 3.0% in 2017.
• ? January survey data continued to strike a positive tone. Indeed, the global composite PMI rose to its highest level during the current upswing and points to a further acceleration in global GDP growth. Meanwhile, less timely world trade data showed strong growth in November after a weaker performance in September and October.
• ? Of course, these developments predate recent financial market developments. The key issue is whether the equity market sell‐off triggers significant spillovers to the wider economy. If the market reversal is to have notable repercussions, it will need to morph from a tantrum into a full‐blown crisis. For now, we still expect interest rates generally to edge higher, with three rate hikes still seen in the US this year.
• ? Despite the recent fall, equity prices are still up sharply compared with a few months ago and earnings growth remains solid. Against this backdrop, further weakness would probably require an additional trigger, such as a sustained rise in bond yields in response to a reassessment of the inflation and monetary policy outlook. Although inflation concerns have risen recently, our view remains that price pressures will rise only gradually in the advanced economies and that the upside risks to both inflation and bond yields remain well contained.
• ? The upshot is that recent events have not prompted us to reassess the outlook for this year or beyond. We continue to expect world GDP growth to pick up to 3.2% this year, reflecting strong growth in both the advanced economies and the emerging markets. And our forecast for 2019 is also unchanged at 2.9%. In turn, world trade growth remains quite strong, helped by the weaker US$, but is seen slowing to 5% this year from just over 6% in 2017, with a further modest easing to 4.3% in 2019.

     

Money,random matching and endogenous growth: A quantitative analysis

In this study, we develop a search-and-matching monetary growth model to analyze the effects of inflation on economic growth and social welfare by introducing endogenous economic growth via capital externality into a two-sector search-and-matching model. We find that the channel through which inflation affects economic growth in the search-and-matching model is different from the traditional cash-in-advance model. To facilitate the calibration, we obtain an empirical estimate of the effects of inflation on economic growth using panel regressions. In the simulation analysis, we quantitatively evaluate the welfare effect of inflation in the search-and-matching endogenous growth model and compare it to a search-and-matching exogenous growth model. We find that the welfare effect of inflation is nonlinear in the endogenous growth model whereas it is linear in the exogenous growth model. Furthermore, we find that the welfare cost of inflation under endogenous growth is up to four times as large as the welfare cost of inflation under exogenous growth.     

Trend growth and learning about monetary policy rules

The paper examines the effect of trend productivity growth on the determinacy and learnability of equilibria under alternative monetary policy rules. Under zero trend inflation we show that the economic structure is isomorphic to that of Bullard and Mitra (2002) and show that under a policy rule that responds to current period inflation and output a higher trend growth rate relaxes the conditions for determinacy and learnability. Results are mixed for other policy rules. Under the expectations-based rule, trend growth tightens the conditions for determinacy but it relaxes the conditions for learnability. Under the lagged-data-based rule, trend growth tightens the conditions for determinacy and learnability. Our analysis shows that lower (higher) trend growth has similar effects as higher (lower) trend inflation in the sense of making inflation more (less) forward-looking. Thus, our results complement previous studies on the role of high trend inflation as a cause of macroeconomic volatility in the U.S. in the 1970s, as this period was also characterized by productivity growth slowdown.     

我国灵活动态金融状况指数构建与应用研究

鉴于目前研究缺乏灵活动态性,本文从通胀控制目标出发,引进MI-TVP-SV-VAR模型,选取5个金融变量,估计其每一期的灵活动态权重,构建我国灵活动态金融状况指数,并分析它对通胀率的预测能力。经验分析结果表明利率和房价的权重相对较大,反映出货币政策依然倚重于价格型传导渠道;FCI与通货膨胀有很高的相关性,且领先通胀1~7个月,能够很好地预测通胀。建议政府定期构建我国灵活动态金融状况指数并应用于通货膨胀预测。     

通货膨胀、财富波动对利润率的影响——利润率是上升还是下降？

从价格角度构建利润率公式,并证明了通货膨胀可以提高利润率。进一步分析发现,通货膨胀是资本保持与提高剩余价值的重要方式,然而利润率的实现并不容易,金融创新通过债务创造的模式改善了利润率的实现路径,减缓了利润率的下降,维持了经济繁荣。但这会推动企业与私人的债务相对过量,金融创新在推动财富（债务）增长的同时,也扩大了贫富差距。而财富的增长又需要更高的利润率支撑,这就减缓了资本的积累,强化了财富与利润率的双向波动,使得经济与金融危机更容易发生。另外,利润率也可以作为解释各种类型通货膨胀的基础理论。     

中国输入型通货膨胀特征研究:程度、来源及渠道

在经济转轨与产业升级的历史进程中通货膨胀一直是焦点问题。本文将中国分别纳入与代表性发达经济体和发展中经济体构成的经济系统,提炼双向通胀溢出特征,认知中国输入型通胀的程度、来源和主要传导渠道。实证结果表明：中国受到来自发达经济体和发展中经济体两个方面的通胀影响,与内源性形成四六开格局;输入型通胀的影响在三个季度到一年的时间段尤为突出;并且来自贸易渠道的影响强于来自外国直接投资的影响。     

The monetary policy dilemma: Will interest rates have to rise?

UK interest rates are now at their lowest level for more than two decades, and the government is hoping that interest rates can be kept at a low and sustainable level comparable to the 1960s. Indeed, some commentators are calling for still lower interest rates to offset the risk that the £12bn tax increases and cuts in government spending that will come into effect in the next financial year will lead to stagnant consumer spending and a stalled recovery. Against this must be weighed the risk that the recent very good run of inflation figures will prove temporary. Both headline and underlying inflation will be pushed up by indirect tax increases and there is the possibility that wages will follow too, as employees seek to maintain their living standards in a tightening labour market. That risk would point to a much more cautious monetary policy stance and the possibility that the government may need to raise rates from their present level if it is to achieve its inflation objective. The Chancellor faces a clear dilemma. In this Viewpoint, we assess the evidence available to guide him in his decisions and draw out the implications for the future path of interest rates.     

The London Business School with Gower Publishing

The current economic outlook is dominated by fears of continued industrial unrest and uncertainty regarding wage increases. The key issues for output and expenditure will be the outcome of the almost inevitable conflict between the monetary objectives and wage inflation. The most recent indicators provide some evidence of the type of problems the economy will face during 1979. The figures for industrial output and consumption suggest that, by end of 1978, the growth of output was slowing down and the figures for wholesale and retail prices suggest that inflation was picking up. Adherence to the monetary targets is already, on a short-term basis, requiring little or no growth in the real money supply and accompanying high interest rates. The latest official longer-term indicators also point to a slowdown in domestic demand.
Inflation would probably have increased by now had it not been for the recent tight monetary policy and the resulting stability of the exchange rate. We have earlier argued that earnings increases of about 12% will be consistent with the current financial background. But earnings increases of 15% or more will put extreme pressure on the company sector and would bring into sharp focus the choice between finanacing wage increases and letting the exchange rate fall with resulting higher inflation rates: or holding the monetary targets and accepting the short-term consequences for output and unemployment.     

Evaluating inflation targeting based on the distribution of inflation and inflation volatility

In this paper the Financial Development Index (FDI) is used to rank 57 of the world's leading financial systems. Its calculation is based on the following 7 economic pillars: (1) Institutional environment, (2) Business environment, (3) Financial stability, (4) Banking financial services, (5) Non-banking financial services, (6) Financial markets, and (7) Financial access. Pillar (4) is constructed from bond markets, stock markets, foreign exchange markets, and derivative markets. Pillar (5) includes a country's IPO activity, namely the IPO market share, IPO proceeds amount, and IPOs share of world IPOs. The stock market index provides a short-term account of financial activities, whereas the FDI provides a long-term broader account of the financial structure and health of an economy. As the performance and success of a given monetary policy would less likely be judged on short-term dynamics, it seems sensible to use the annual FDI as one of several economic and country attributes in a policy evaluation of Inflation Targeting. The paper offers a potential outcomes analysis of the impact of inflation targeting on inflation and inflation volatility, and focuses on advanced economies that adopt ⿿inflation targeting⿿ as a formal monetary policy. In order to deal with the counterfactual question, namely what would be the inflation rate for an adopting country had it not adopted this policy, the paper offers a new matching technique that subsumes the traditional propensity scores methods as a special case. The paper has different proposals for assessing ⿿matching⿿ based on the whole distribution of any ⿿scores⿿. Additionally, the paper goes beyond the Average Treatment Effect (ATE) and examines the entire distribution of inflation and its ⿿variability⿿. It is found that the adoption of inflation targeting has helped lower inflation (not just the mean) for the targeting countries. However, it is shown that exact numerical quantification of this policy effect is as highly subjective as choosing ideal social welfare functions. The paper also finds no evidence of a larger gain for ⿿late adopters⿿ of inflation targeting. As for inflation variability, there is some robust evidence of small and often statistically insignificant reduction in variability due to targeting.     

家庭保险理财之浅见

随着我国经济的不断增长和居民储蓄余额的不断攀升,加之保险制度的不断完善,保险作为理财的一个重要组成部分在社会和经济发展过程中发挥着越来越重要的作用。文章通过对保险理财的介绍,使人们更充分的认识保险理财的功能;并在分析保险理财现状的基础上,指出存在的问题和不足,使人们合理安排和规划,防范和避免因疾病或灾难而带来的财务困难,同时又可以使资产获得理想的保值和增值。     

The asymmetric effects of uncertainty on inflation and output growth

We study the effects of growth volatility and inflation volatility on average rates of output growth and inflation for post‐war US data. Our results suggest that increased growth uncertainty is associated with significantly lower average growth, while higher inflation uncertainty is significantly negatively correlated with lower output growth and lower average inflation. Both inflation and growth display evidence of significant asymmetric response to positive and negative shocks of equal magnitude. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inflation tax in the lab: a theoretical and experimental study of competitive search equilibrium with inflation

In this paper we measure the effect of the inflation tax on economic activity and welfare within a controlled setting. To do so, we develop a model of price posting and monetary exchange with inflation and finite populations. The model, which provides a game–theoretic foundation to Rocheteau and Wright (2005)׳s competitive search monetary equilibrium, is used to derive theoretical propositions regarding the effects of inflation in this environment, which we test with a laboratory experiment that closely implements the theoretical framework. We find that the inflation tax is harmful – with cash holdings, production and welfare all falling as inflation rises – and that its effect is relatively larger at low inflation rates than at higher rates. For instance, for inflation rates between 0% and 5%, welfare in the two markets we consider (2[seller]×2[buyer] and 3×2) falls by roughly 1 percent for each percentage–point rise in inflation, compared with 0.4 percent over the range from 5% to 30%. Our findings lead us to conclude that the impact of the inflation tax should not be underestimated, even under low inflation.     

Economic growth,volatility and their interaction: What’s the role of finance?

This paper examines the relation between financial depth and the interaction of economic growth and its volatility. We use a sample of 52 countries for the period 1980–2011, and our main finding is that, at moderate levels of financial depth, further deepening increases the ratio of average growth to volatility; however, as financial depth increases, this relation reverts, and the rise in volatility overcomes that of economic growth. This result is obtained both in the medium and long run; however, the peak of the relation seems to be lower in the medium run (around 40%–55% of domestic credit/GDP) than in the long run (around 75%–99%). This suggests that increasing the level of domestic credit may intensify relative volatility in the medium term, but still raise relative long-term growth before the long-run threshold is achieved.     

Forecasting macroeconomic risks

We construct risks around consensus forecasts of real GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation. We find that risks are time-varying, asymmetric, and partly predictable. Tight financial conditions forecast downside growth risk, upside unemployment risk, and increased uncertainty around the inflation forecast. Growth vulnerability arises as the conditional mean and conditional variance of GDP growth are negatively correlated: downside risks are driven by lower mean and higher variance when financial conditions tighten. Similarly, employment vulnerability arises as the conditional mean and conditional variance of unemployment are positively correlated, with tighter financial conditions corresponding to higher forecasted unemployment and higher variance around the consensus forecast.     

Overlapping portfolios,contagion, and financial stability

We study the problem of interacting channels of contagion in financial networks. The first channel of contagion is counterparty failure risk; this is captured empirically using data for the Austrian interbank network. The second channel of contagion is overlapping portfolio exposures; this is studied using a stylized model. We perform stress tests according to different protocols. For the parameters we study neither channel of contagion results in large effects on its own. In contrast, when both channels are active at once, bankruptcies are much more common and have large systemic effects.