Immiserizing Growth and the Metzler Paradox in the Ricardian Model

Conditions for the occurrence of immiserizing growth and the Metzler paradox are analysed in the Ricardian model when consumers in the foreign country have Leontief preferences while consumers in the home country have Cobb-Douglas preferences. By using specific functional forms, the conditions for the occurrence of the two paradoxes are defined in terms of the exogenous parameters of the model rather than endogenous variables such as the foreign import demand elasticity in the conditions of Bhagwati (1958) Bhagwati, J. N. 1958. Immiserizing growth: a geometrical note. Review of Economic Studies, 25: 201–205. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] and Metzler (1949a Metzler, L. A. 1949a. Tariffs, the terms of trade and the distribution of national income. Journal of Political Economy, 57: 1–29. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], b Metzler, L. A. 1949b. Tariffs, international demand, and domestic prices. Journal of Political Economy, 57: 345–351. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). It is shown that the simultaneous occurrence of both paradoxical results is possible for some parameter values.     

Estimation of SEs for heteroscedastic and cross-sectionally correlated data

This study develops SE estimators for heteroscedastic and cross-sectionally correlated data. The new estimators are a cross-sectional version of the White and Domowitz (1984 White, H and Domowitz, I. 1984. Nonlinear regression with dependent observations. Econometrica, 52: 143–61. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Newey and West (1987 Newey, W and West, K. 1987. A simple positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix. Econometrica, 55: 703–8. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) estimators, and therefore, consistent in the presence of heteroscedasticity and cross correlation of unknown form. Unlike the estimators in the literature, these estimators can control for cross correlation even for single-period cross-sectional data.     

A nonparametric revealed preference test of optimal intra-firm resource allocation

The collective rationality hypothesis initiated by Chiappori (1988a Chiappori, PA. 1988a. Rational household labor supply. Econometrica, 56: 63–89. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and applied by Seaton (1997 Seaton, JS. 1997. Neoclassical and collective rationality in household labour supply. Applied Economics Letters, 4: 529–33. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2001) for a two-person household is used to distinguish the organizational behaviour of firms. Firms produce satisfaction to groups as traditional managerial and early behavioural theories of the firm of Williamson, Baumol and Marris suggest, as well as more modern principle agent models. Under certain conditions, intra-firm bargaining leads to a Pareto optimal outcome. What makes this work an important contribution is that it identifies a set of nonvacuous testable restrictions to empirically detect if firm-level data satisfy Pareto optimal behaviour for the main decision makers in the organization.     

Financial development and economic growth nexus: a time-series evidence from India

This study examines the relationship between financial development and economic growth in India for the period 1951–52 to 1995–96. The long-run equilibrium and short-run dynamic models are estimated using financial interrelations ratio and new issue ratio as the measures of financial development, a la Goldsmith (1969 Goldsmith, RW. 1969. Financial Structure and Development, New Haven: Yale University Press.  [Google Scholar]). The Johansen (1991 Johansen, S. 1991. Estimation and hypothesis testing of cointegration vectors in Gaussian vector autoregressive models’. Econometrica, 59: 1551–80. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) estimator rejects the null of zero cointegrating vector and shows the presence of long-run equilibrium relationship between financial development and economic growth. The error correction model, impulse response and variance decomposition analyses (Sims, 1980 Sims, CA. 1980. Macroeconomics and reality. Econometrica, 48: 1–48. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the Toda and Yamamoto (1995 Toda, HY and Yamamoto, T. 1995. Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated processes. Journal of Econometrics, 66: 225–50. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) estimator show the presence of bidirectional Granger-causality between financial development and economic growth. The presence of bidirectional Granger-causality suggested by these estimators points towards the possible problem of endogeneity and simultaneity bias in the growth models that examine the contemporaneous effect of financial development on economic growth. The economic reforms that started since July 1991 emphasized on the liberalization and development of financial sector to supplement the efforts aimed at achieving high economic growth in India.     

Unit roots and purchasing power parity: another kick at the can

Lopez et al. (2005 Lopez, C, Murray, C and Papell, D. 2005. State of the art unit root tests and purchasing power parity. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 37: 361–9. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) demonstrated that single-equation unit-root tests cannot provide conclusive evidence of whether real exchange rates are stationary because inference depends critically on the lag-lengths used to construct the test statistics, a result reinforced by a recent work by Sweeney (2006 Sweeney, D. 2006. Mean reversion in nominal G-10 exchange rates. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 41: 685–708. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The purpose of this article is to revisit the issue, first demonstrating the necessary conditions under which this approach of testing for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is appropriate.     

Labour values and energy values: some developments on the common substance of value since 1867

Abstract

Marx’s Das Kapital (1867) singled out labour as the common substance of value in all commodities. Costanza (1980 Costanza, Robert. 1980. “Embodied Energy and Economic Valuation.” Science 210 (4475): 1219–1224. doi:10.1126/science.210.4475.1219[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in Science chose energy and propagated energy values (a century after Engels criticised Podolinsky on energy). Mainstream economists quickly questioned Marx’s logic. Pareto advocated simultaneous equations, unaware of their use by Mühlpfordt and Dmitriev. Contributions by Charasoff and Potron were also overlooked. Already in 1927, Leontief and Sraffa knew how to replace labour values by other commodity values. Generalising Sraffa’s subsystems and using “percentage formulas” for price-value deviations, I discuss some empirical results for labour or energy theories of value.     

Long-run validity of purchasing power parity and rank tests for cointegration for Central Asian countries

This study finds that Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) holds in the long-run for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, based on Breitung's (2001 Breitung, J. 2001. Rank tests for nonlinear cointegration. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 19: 331–40. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) rank tests for cointegration. Results from further analysis indicates that nominal exchange rates and relative prices are nonlinearly interrelated. Trade barriers, transportation costs and government intervention in the pricing system in these countries may have resulted in the establishment of the above-mentioned nonlinear relationship.     

Globalization and the effects of changes in functional income distribution on aggregate demand in Germany

Germany has experienced a period of extreme nominal and real wage moderation since the mid‐1990s. Contrary to the expectations of liberal economists, this has failed to improve Germany’s mediocre economic performance. However, Germany is now running substantial current account surpluses. One possible explanation for Germany’s disappointing performance is found in Kaleckian theory, which highlights that the domestic demand effect of a decline in the wage share will typically be contractionary, whereas net exports will increase (Blecker 1989 Blecker, R. 1989. International competition, income distribution and economic growth. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 13: 395–412. [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]). The size of the foreign demand effect will critically depend on the degree of openness of the economy. This paper aims at estimating empirically the demand side of a Bhaduri and Marglin (1990 Bhaduri, A. and Marglin, S. 1990. Unemployment and the real wage: The economic basis for contesting political ideologies. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 14: 375–93. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) type model for Germany. The paper builds on the estimation strategy of Stockhammer, Onaran, and Ederer (2009 Stockhammer, E., Onaran, Ö. and Ederer, S. 2009. Functional income distribution and aggregate demand in the Euro area. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 33(1): 139–59. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) and Hein and Vogel (2008 Hein, E. and Vogel, L. 2008. Distribution and growth reconsidered – empirical results for six OECD countries. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 32: 479–511. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar], 2009 Hein, E. and Vogel, L. 2009. Distribution and growth in France and Germany – single equation estimations and model simulations based on the Bhaduri/Marglin‐model. Review of Political Economy, 21(2): 245–72. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]). The main contribution lies in a careful analysis of the effects of globalization. Since Germany is a large open economy by now it is a particularly interesting case study.     

Nonlinearity as an explanation of the forward exchange rate anomaly

This article shows that nonlinearity can provide an explanation for the forward exchange rate anomaly (Fama, 1984 Fama, E. 1984. Forward and spot exchange rates. Journal of Monetary Economics, 14: 319–38. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Using sterling-Canadian dollar data and modelling nonlinearity of unspecified form by means of a random field, we find strong evidence of time-wise nonlinearity and, significantly, obtain parameter estimates that conform with theory to a high degree of precision.     

Long-run purchasing power parity and asymmetric adjustment in BRICs

The primary aim of this study is an attempt to determine whether the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis holds for those countries that have collectively come to be known as ‘BRICs’, namely, Brazil, Russia, India and China. We use the momentum threshold cointegration tests (advanced by Enders and Siklos, 2001 Enders, W. and Siklos, P. L. 2001. Cointegration and threshold adjustment. Journal of Business Economics and Statistics, 19: 166–76. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to investigate whether any asymmetric adjustment is discernible for BRICs, and show that whilst the Engle–Granger test (which assumes only symmetric adjustment) fails to reveal any cointegrational relationship for BRICs, the threshold cointegration test (with asymmetric adjustment) provides clear evidence of long-run PPP for BRICs, with the notable exception of China. We conclude that asymmetric adjustment of nominal exchange rates plays an important role in eliminating deviations from long-run PPP.     

What (if any) are the returns to computer use?

Using North American data, we revisit the question first broached by Krueger (1993 Krueger, AB. 1993. How computers have changed the wage structure: evidence from microdata. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108: 33–60. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and re-examined by DiNardo and Pischke (1997 DiNardo, JE and Pischke, J-S. 1997. The returns to computer use revisited: have pencils changed the wage structure too?. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112: 291–303. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) of whether there exists a real wage differential associated with computer use. Employing a mixed effects model with matched employer–employee data to correct for the fact that workers and workplaces that use computers are self-selected, we find that computer users enjoy an almost 4% wage premium over nonusers. Failure to correct for worker and workplace selection effect leads to a more than twofold overestimate of this premium.     

Exchange Rate Regimes and Inflation: Evidence from India

Abstract

Exchange rate stability is crucial for inflation management as a stable rate is expected to reduce domestic inflation pressures through a ‘policy discipline effect’ – restricting money supply growth, and a ‘credibility effect’ – inducing higher money demand and reduced velocity of money. Alternatively, the ‘impossibility trillema’ of Mundell (1961a Mundell, R. A. (1961a). Capital mobility and stabilization policy under fixed and flexible exchange rates. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 29, 475–485. doi: 10.2307/139336[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1961b Mundell, R. A. (1961b). Flexible exchange rates and employment policy. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 27, 509–517. doi: 10.2307/139437[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) predicts that in the presence of an open capital account, a stable exchange rate may lead to lack of control on monetary policy and, hence, higher inflation. Using a monetary model of Inflation, this paper investigates the impact of the ‘empirically-claimed’ de facto stable exchange rate regime on inflation in India during different sub-periods of exchange rate stability. The results show that the impact of exchange rate regime on inflation is not visible in the Indian case, which could be because of the offsetting sterilization policy undertaken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during expansionary money supply growth resulting from its large-scale intervention to even out exchange rate volatility.     

Interest rate pass-through and illiquidity shocks in the US

This study examines the US interest rate pass-through mechanism and considers the illiquidity shocks upon retail interest rate correlations caused by financial crises between 1986 and 2011. We estimate a bi-variable EGARCH model using a dynamic conditional correlation model developed by Engle (2002 Engle, R. F. 2002. Dynamic Conditional Correlation: A Simple Class of Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity Models. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 20: 339–350. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in order to analyze how asymmetric monetary policy influences interest rate pass-through. We test the risks to the dynamic condition and changes in the correlation coefficient. The main empirical results are as follows. First, the long-run interest rate pass-through mechanism is unstable in the US. Second, expected monetary policy impulses are greater than the unexpected ones in the short-run. Finally, according to the one-step and N-step forecast tests, the illiquidity shocks caused by financial crises demonstrate a significant change in retail interest rate risks, but not in correlations between retail interest rates. We conclude that when the interest rate pass-through mechanism is unstable, banks may stop helping each other and will not provide loans to firms and consumers, thereby exhausting the capital of all economic systems. The characteristics of illiquidity enter into the interest rate pass-through mechanism; therefore, the relationship between illiquidity and the interest rate pass-through needs to be investigated.     

Modelling the dynamics of EU economic sentiment indicators: an interaction-based approach

This article estimates a simple univariate model of expectation or opinion formation in continuous time adapting a ‘canonical’ stochastic model of collective opinion dynamics (Weidlich and Haag, 1983 Weidlich, W, and Haag, G, 1983. Concepts and Models of a Quantitative Sociology. Berlin: Springer; 1983.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Lux, 1995 Lux, T, 1995. Herd behavior, bubbles and crashes, The Economic Journal 105 (1995), pp. 881–96.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2009a Lux, T, 2009a. Rational forecasts or social opinion dynamics? Identification of interaction effects in a business climate survey, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 72 (2009a), pp. 638–55.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This framework is applied to a selected data set on survey-based expectations from the rich EU business and consumer survey database for 12 European countries. The model parameters are estimated through Maximum Likelihood (ML) and numerical solution of the transient probability density functions for the resulting stochastic process. The model's success is assessed with respect to its out-of-sample forecasting performance relative to univariate Time Series (TS) models of the Autoregressive Moving Average model, ARMA(p,?q) and Autoregressive Fractionally Integrated Moving Average, ARFIMA(p,?d,?q) varieties. These tests speak for a slight superiority of the canonical opinion dynamics model over the alternatives in the majority of cases.     

Monetary policy and country risk

This article develops an econometric model in order to study country risk behaviour for six emerging economies (Argentina, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Korea and Indonesia), by expanding the country beta risk model of Harvey and Zhou (1993 Harvey, CR and Zhou, G. 1993. International asset pricing with alternative distributional specifications. Journal of Empirical Finance, 1: 107–31. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Erb et al . (1996a, b) and Gangemi et al . (2000). Towards this end, we have analysed the impact of macroeconomic variables, especially monetary policy, upon country risk, by way of a time-varying parameter approach. The results indicate an unstable effect of monetary policy upon country risk in periods of crisis. However, this effect is stable in other periods, and the Favero–Giavazzi effect is not verified for all economies, with an opposite effect being observed in many cases.     

Purchasing power parity for East-Asia countries: further evidence based on panel stationary test with multiple structural breaks

In this article, we re-investigate the validity of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for a sample of 10 East-Asia countries over the period of January 1987 to June 2005, using a recently developed econometric technique of the panel stationary test with multiple structural breaks, proposed by Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. (2005 Carrion-i-Silvestre, JL, Del Barrio, T and López-Bazo, E. 2005. Breaking the panels: an application to the GDP per capita. Econometrics Journal, 8: 159–75. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This test considers multiple structural breaks positioned at different unknown dates and a different number of breaks for each individual. Empirical evidence shows that the PPP holds true for half of 10 East-Asia countries during the research period. Our results have important policy implications for these 10 East-Asia countries under study.     

Price transmission,foreign exchange rate risks and global diversification of ADRs

The purposes of this article are to reinvestigate how returns of major American depository receipts (ADRs) from different countries are related to the underlying stock returns and to identify the determinants of ADR risk premiums. We use different types of error-correcting terms in vector error correction models to examine information flows between ADRs and the underlying foreign stocks. General method of moments estimation of conditional international asset pricing model of Dumas and Solnik (1995 Dumas, B and Solnik, B. 1995. The world price of foreign exchange risk. Journal of Finance, 50: 445–79. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is applied to investigate ADR return premiums. We find that stock returns are more affected by disequilibrium between ADR and stock prices in an inefficient way. For US investors, foreign exchange rate risk premiums and world market risk premium (beyond US index) are priced in ADRs returns ex ante. Surprisingly, it is shown that the exchange rate of New Taiwan dollar and the interest rates of Brazil and Taiwan play important roles in determining ADR risk premiums across countries.     

Ownership herding and informational herding

This article takes as its point of departure the herding model of Bikhchandani et al. (1992 Bikhchandani, S., Hirshleifer, D. and Welch, I. 1992. A theory of fads, fashion, custom, and cultural change as informational cascades. Journal of Political Economy, 100: 992–1026. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We extend earlier experimental evidence to distinguish between informational herding, as in the model, and ownership herding, an alternative explanation for observed behaviour.     

Effects of trade openness on the steady-state growth rates of selected Asian countries with an extended exogenous growth model

The Solow (1956 Solow, R. 1956. A contribution to the theory of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 70: 65–94. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) growth model is extended with an endogenous growth framework to estimate the effects of trade openness on the Steady State Growth Rate (SSGR). Estimates of the augmented production functions are used to compute the SSGRs for Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India and Thailand. Good policies that increase the growth effects of openness is also tested with an interactive term. Our results show that Singapore has the highest SSGR of 2.75%, followed by Hong Kong and Thailand with 2.5%. India and Malaysia have lower SSGRs of 1.7% and 0.5%, respectively.     

Spanish stock market sensitivity to real interest and inflation rates: an extension of the Stone two-factor model with factors of the Fama and French three-factor model

This study is focussed on estimating the real interest and inflation sensitivity in Spanish market, proposing an extension of the Stone (1974 Stone, BK. 1974. Systematic interest-rate risk in a two-index model of returns. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 9: 709–21. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) two-factor model and controlling for size and growth of the companies [Fama and French (1993) three-factor model], because of its importance in the stock sensitivity shown by previous literature. I also study the classical explanatory factors of the stock sensitivity: leverage and liquidity level of the firms. The Spanish stock response is similar to the response in other markets, and the ‘size’ is higher than ‘growth’ effect.