Measuring the end of the European financial crisis

In 2013 it was declared that ‘the eurozone crisis is over’. However, in fact, the series of financial crises since 2008 may have interrupted the process of EMU enlargement, which in turn triggered a continuing crisis of confidence in the euro. In this paper we extend the sigma‐convergence test to provide a more precise understanding of real interest rate parity (RIP) convergence. On the basis of this, we predict the timing for eliminating the cost of economic asymmetric shocks. Our estimation indicates the RIP among EMU members and accessions were still valid after the disruptions of the 2008 financial crisis. However, the situation has been even worse since the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis, and ceteris paribus, symmetry cannot be achieved without further policy actions. This implies that the EMU authority must do its best to strengthen symmetry and thereby solidify the EMU, at which point it will be better able to re‐start the process of enlargement.     

Where does the risk lie? Systemic risk and tail risk networks in the Chinese financial market

This paper studies tail risk connectedness and systemic risk in the Chinese financial market in the post-crisis period of 2009–2017. We adopt the conditional value at risk (CoVaR) and complex theory to construct the tail risk connectedness network and identify the systemically important financial institutions during the Chinese financial turbulence. We precisely characterize the dynamic evolution of the tail risk connectedness at the institutional, sector and market levels. We find that, during normal times, the banking sector contributes the most tail risk to the market and that the real estate sector contributes the least. However, during the crisis period, the real estate sector played its role and became the most significant tail risk emitter. In addition, we identify the significant important financial institutions in the Chinese financial market, highlighting the fact that the four state-owned commercial banks and two largest insurance companies dominate. Our results are helpful to both regulators for developing macroprudential supervision policies and investors interested in the Chinese financial market for making risk management strategies.     

Globalization,Financial Liberalization and the Behavior of the Long Run Money Demand in the Bangladesh Economy

ABSTRACT

The paper estimates the long run demand for money function in the Bangladesh economy using cointegration and the Vector Error Correction Modeling (VECM) technique. The cointegration results suggest that although the process of globalization has shown no significant impact on money demand by the fact that the foreign interest rate is seen as statistically not significant, the financial liberalization has an important impact, reflected in the statistically significant role of domestic interest rate, in influencing both M1 and M2 money demand. An estimate of VECMs also reveals the fact that the short run speed of adjustment is moderately influenced by the financial reform measures to establish the long run relation between money balances, income and domestic interest rates. The phenomenon of credit constraint in the context of a developing country has shown no significant role in influencing money demand, which may imply that the stage of financial development is getting higher level in the Bangladesh economy. The existence of exchange rate depreciation in the cointegration relation with the expected sign suggests that currency substitution is now effective in the monetary sector and, therefore, its impact should be considered in the Bangladesh monetary policy matrix.     

Stochastic and structural fiscal policy in a monetary stationary economy

In the framework of a monetary asset pricing model which is simple enough to generate closed form formulae for equilibrium price functions the interactions between output, fiscal policy, and asset markets is investigated. With money yielding liquidity services in the exchange process real stock prices are negatively correlated with anticipated (stochastic) fiscal policy changes, while the impact of unanticipated (structural) fiscal policy on the stock market depends qualitatively on the ‘business cycle’ of the economy. It is shown that the monetary character of the economy, more precisely the role of money in the exchange process, is critical for the relationship between fiscal policy and real share prices. Moreover, while contingent fiscal policy measures may be successful in stabilizing the real interest rate on money they are incapable of achieving a stable term structure of the real rate on stocks. In contrast, uncontingently higher public expenditures generally promote the volatility of the real rates on financial assets.     

The hidden soul of financial innovation: An agent-based modelling of home mortgage securitization and the finance-growth nexus

This paper investigates the interaction between financial innovation and securitization. To this end, it introduces the rate of financial innovation (RoFIN) as an endogenous variable in an Agent-Based Model (ABM) set up and studies its interaction with the non-fixed fraction of securitized mortgage loans. RoFIN is able to capture financial agents’ business decisions on using financial innovation tools, processes and services, such as the home mortgage securitization process. In the aftermath of the 2007–2009 financial and economic crisis it has been argued that financial innovation and securitization have increased macro/finance systemic instability via, for example, non-linear two-way spillovers between the financial system and the macroeconomy. The ABM model proposed enables the capture of these dynamics. High values of RoFIN (i.e. exceeding the threshold of 50%) make financial innovation become harmful for the economic system, leading to a switch from a virtuous to an unvirtuous business cycle. When RoFIN reaches 90%, the numerical simulations come close to the macro/finance dynamics observed before and during the financial crisis. Given its potential role in triggering financial and economic instability, RoFIN is of interest for financial regulation and supervision. How this endogenous variable may be influenced by means of operational variables under the control of policymakers remains a subject for future research.     

Adjusting the model to adjust the world: constructive mechanisms in postwar general equilibrium theory

Economic methodologists most often study the relations between models and reality while focusing on the issues of the model's epistemic relevance in terms of its relation to the ‘real world’ and representing the real world in a model. We complement the discussion by bringing the model's constructive mechanisms or self-implementing technologies in play. By this, we mean the elements of the economic model that are aimed at ‘implementing’ it by envisaging the ways to change the reality in order to bring it more in line with the model. We are thus concerned mainly not with the ways to change the model to ‘fit’ the reality, but rather with the model's own armature that is supposed to transform the world along theoretical lines. The case we study is Arrow–Debreu–McKenzie general equilibrium model. In particular, we show the following: gradient methods and stability could be regarded as constructive mechanisms of general equilibrium modeling in the context of market socialism debates; the obsession of general equilibrium theorists with these concepts can be partly explained by the fact that they hoped not to be faithful to reality, but rather to adjust it to fit the theoretical model; mechanism design theory initiated by the stability theorist Leonid Hurwicz could be seen as a successor of this position. We conclude by showing the relevance of this analysis for epistemic culture of much of contemporary economics and hence, claim that it is an important complement to the traditional philosophy of economic modeling.     

Wage Flexibility and Unemployment: The Keynesian Perspective Revisited

Keynes' main concern in the General Theory is about the capacity of an economy to return to full employment equilibrium when subject to a (negative) demand shock. He maintains that money wages cuts may not help reabsorb unemployment, as they do not necessarily imply a fall in real wages. On the contrary, wage rigidity may be necessary for avoiding that a cumulative process propels the economy far away the full employment equilibrium. Co‐ordination failures in the investment‐saving market are behind this conclusion. However, the analysis is carried out within a static equilibrium framework. This paper is an attempt to focus on the problems of intertemporal co‐ordination arising within the context of a sequential economy. Our analysis of the out‐of‐equilibrium process of adjustment stirred by a shock allows to generalize the original Keynesian intuition. Unemployment emerges as the result of a lack of co‐ordination due to irreversibly constrained choices, and not only nominal but also real wage flexibility does not necessarily help to restore equilibrium. As a matter of fact, it may even be harmful, by triggering processes that make the economy diverge from equilibrium. Our analysis has important analytical implications as regards the role of market imperfections and the interpretation of the effects of monetary policy.     

影子银行规模变动的金融资产价格效应*

本文基于所构建的TVP VAR模型，检验了我国影子银行规模变动对金融资产价格的溢出效应。研究结果发现，影子银行规模的增加对商业银行同业拆放利率、房地产价格、股票市场价格指数和人民币实际有效汇率指数具有正向冲击。宏观经济政策调整使经济系统结构发生改变，从而导致金融资产价格对影子银行规模变动的冲击响应具有时变性。由于信息传导需要时间，因此影子银行规模变动的溢出效应具有时滞性。因此，应规范与引导影子银行的发展，在发挥其配置金融资源功能的同时提高资源配置效率，促进实体经济健康发展。     

The Interaction of Financial Fragility and the Business Cycle in Determining Banks’ Loan Losses: An Investigation of the Italian Case

The Basel II capital accord and the recent crises have fostered the debate over the financial stability of the aggregate banking sector. Because loan losses are an important factor for banking stability, this paper aims to gauge the impact of real and financial fragility on default losses of Italian banks. To this end the ratio of non‐performing loans to total loans is regressed on the business cycle and indebtedness. In addition, to capture the joint effect of real and financial fragility, the analysis considers an interaction term, which to our knowledge has never been applied before to Italian default data. Based on the interaction model, results show that the actual impact of financial fragility on default losses depends not only on the business cycle phase but also on the firm's size, whereby in adverse economic conditions, small firms are more significantly affected by financial fragility.     

AN AXIOMATIC APPROACH TO NATIONAL ACCOUNTING: AN OUTLINE

Reprinted from The Review of Income and Wealth 12: 179–189 (1966) This article deals in an axiomatic manner with problems of definition, classification, and measurement in the national accounts. It argues that the elementary units which must be classified in national accounting are economic objects (real and financial), rather than transactions. The article defines briefly a set of postulates, and shows that the structure of a simple system of national accounting can be derived from them. There are twenty postulates–certain of them establishing basic categories such as sector, time, economic object, value (price); others establishing relations between categories (for example the notion of ownership); and others describing operations in which economic objects can be involved, such as production, final consumption, change of ownership, and change of debtor and creditor (in the case of financial objects). It is shown that the system of postulates makes it possible to consider a large number of accounting concepts (flows or stocks) as classes (baskets) of real objects (e.g., exports, real capital) or financial objects (e.g., payments, total debt of a sector). These concepts can be defined without reference to prices, although prices are necessary to measure them. Other concepts cannot be defined in this way in this system of postulates, for example value added, foreign balance, saving, net worth. However, it is possible to define magnitudes of the latter type and measure them in terms of value: for example, value added can be defined as the difference between the value of receipts and the value of outlays of a sector. In this way it is possible to establish algebraic relations among the national accounting concepts. (This article is a summary of certain parts of the doctoral thesis of the author, published in Norwegian in 1955.)     

The economic implications of exaptation

Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation of technologies in the direction of customer needs and production efficiencies. However, non-adaptational bases for technological change are rarely highlighted, despite their pervasiveness in the history of technical and economic change. In this paper the concept of exaptation -a feature co-opted for its present role from some other origin - is proposed as a characteristic element of technological change, and an important mechanism by which new markets for products and services are created by entrepreneurs. Exaptation is a missing but central concept linking the evolution of technology with the entrepreneurial creation of new markets and the concept of Knightian uncertainty.JEL Classification: O3, M13, D8, D52Correspondence to: Nicholas DewThe authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Batten Institute of the Darden School of Business Administration, University of Virginia, for carrying out this research. We also wish to thank Rama Velamuri and an anonymous referee for their comments, which significantly improved this paper. All remaining faults are the sole responsibility of the authors.     

FDI,SECTORAL OUTPUT AND REAL EXCHANGE RATE DYNAMICS UNDER FINANCIAL OPENNESS

This paper adopts an alternative approach to the study of the impact of capital inflow on the real exchange rate by foremost, analysing the effect of FDI inflow on the ratio of tradables to nontradables, and then estimating the relationship between the tradable‐nontradable ratio and the real exchange rate, while accounting for the role of financial openness. Based on data for a group of developing countries, the findings show that an increase in FDI inflow is associated with a decrease in the tradable‐nontradable ratio, and that an increase in the tradable‐nontradable ratio leads to a depreciation of the real exchange rate; this effect being greater with an increase in financial openness. This suggests that an increase in FDI inflow could result in an expansion of the nontradable sector, which would be associated with a greater appreciation of the real exchange rate under a higher level of financial openness.     

Narrating Crisis,Constructing Policy: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in Syria

During crises, ideas play a decisive role in shaping radical paradigm shifts in economic governance. However, not all crises immediately produce such ‘great transformations’. Why do some ideas result in incremental rather than abrupt change after crisis? To identify mechanisms potentially explaining this variation, I conduct an exploratory process tracing of an understudied case of incremental institutional change: post-independence Syria. Competing political actors in Syria converged on identical policy responses to crisis despite their very different interpretations of its causes. Although power oscillated between these increasingly bitter rivals in the early 1950s, their ideational consensus on economic issues nevertheless led to a decade of steady institutional change that transformed previously fragile government institutions into powerful vehicles of statism. I derive from this analysis the potential causal significance of two new variables – crisis narrative and crisis response – and hypothesise that their configuration can explain variation in post-crisis patterns of institutional change. Ideas can explain not only the new direction of economic governance after crisis, but also the speed and scale of its movement.     

The impact of government debt on the long-run natural real interest rate – a quantitative evaluation

Persistently low natural real interest rates are a problem for monetary policy and financial stability. I analyse to what extent a permanent increase in government debt that is financed by higher taxes could raise the long-run natural real interest rate. As a measurement tool, I use an incomplete markets model with capital and government bonds. Increasing the public debt/GDP ratio by one percentage point raises the real interest rate by between 0.4 and 1.5 basis points, depending on the degree of inequality generated by the model and the tax instrument used to balance the government’s budget constraint. I also show that the interest rate effect of a change in public debt/GDP predicted by the model is significantly smaller than its empirical counterpart for the US, due to the fact that the model understates the empirical fraction of households that are constrained in their consumption decision.     

民营经济的金融困境与融资次序

民营经济的发展对中国的渐进改革与经济增长至关重要 ,但近年来却面临着严重的金融困境。作为渐进改革的一种内生现象 ,民营经济的金融困境源于国有金融体制对国有企业的金融支持和国有企业对这种支持的刚性依赖。民营经济一时无法在国家控制的金融体制中寻求到金融支持 ,其要害在于 ,它与国有金融体制处于不同的信用联系之中。国有银行向国有经济提供信贷的纵向信用逻辑也就不能套用于民营经济。从理论上讲 ,依托于国有银行的纵向金融支持固然可以实现民营经济的短期增长 ,但却要以损害其长期增长机制尤其是资本结构为代价 ,并由此影响整个经济的民营化与市场化进程。本文认为 ,解除民营经济金融困境的根本出路既不在于改变国有银行的信贷行为与资金投向 ,也不在于由政府出面发育多少外生性的中小金融机构 ,更不在于给其提供进入股票市场的方便 ,而在于营造内生性金融制度成长的外部环境 ;只有内生性金融制度的存在和发展才不至于损害民营经济可贵的内源融资基础。     

A variable P value rolling Grey forecasting model for Taiwan semiconductor industry production

The semiconductor industry plays an important role in Taiwan's economy. In this paper, we constructed a rolling Grey forecasting model (RGM) to predict Taiwan's annual semiconductor production. The univariate Grey forecasting model (GM) makes forecast of a time series of data without considering possible correlation with any leading indicators. Interestingly, within the RGM there is a constant, P value, which was customarily set to 0.5. We hypothesized that making the P value a variable of time could generate more accurate forecasts. It was expected that the annual semiconductor production in Taiwan should be closely tied with U.S. demand. Hence, we let the P value be determined by the yearly percent change in real gross domestic product (GDP) by U.S. manufacturing industry. This variable P value RGM generated better forecasts than the fixed P value RGM. Nevertheless, the yearly percent change in real GDP by U.S. manufacturing industry is reported after a year ends. It cannot serve as a leading indicator for the same year's U.S. demand. We found out that the correlation between the yearly survey of anticipated industrial production growth rates in Taiwan and the yearly percent changes in real GDP by U.S. manufacturing industry has a correlation coefficient of 0.96. Therefore, we used the former to determine the P value in the RGM, which generated very accurate forecasts.     

Financial deepening and income inequality: Is there any financial Kuznets curve in China? The political economy analysis

The interconnectedness of financial deepening and income inequality has been a highly controversial discussion which has not been concluded despite many empirical and theoretical studies up to date. One of the basic building blocks for many research designs is the reliance upon the Kuznets inverted U-shaped curve which postulates that in the first phase of economic growth income inequality increases, peaks and then decreases to a tolerable level in the later phase after a certain income level had been attained. The role of financial deepening in financing economic growth is an indispensable and necessary condition enabling us to easily draw an analogy between financial deepening and income inequality in a financial version of the Kuznets curve. In spite of 30 years of economic and financial reforms in China, which represents a fairly young history of economic growth and development, there are many indicators that Chinese experience significantly deviates from the presupposed inverted U-shaped curve trajectory and its final equalizing effect. This paper relies on financial deepening data measured by monetary aggregate M2/GDP and domestic banking credit/GDP ratios in its claim that they significantly correlate with rising income inequality. The author’s intention consists not in claiming that financial deepening per se causes income inequality, but provides a political economy analysis of the specific institutional and power configuration which leads to their positive relationship. This configuration is determined by the prevailing banking model, the hukou system, financial repression and the decentralized authoritarian system. On the other hand, the absence of inequality-narrowing institutitons further aggravate the problem. All the aforementioned factors are geared at avoiding mechanical and spurious claims that financial deepening increases or decreases income inequality across countries. A historical institutionalism approach to explain China’s path related to the Kuznets curve prediction shows the central validity of open and inclusive institutions in generating inequality-narrowing benefits of financial deepening.     

On real interest rate persistence: the role of breaks

The role of structural breaks in long spans of ex-post real interest rates for 10 industrialized countries is studied. First, the persistence of the real interest is assessed with newly proposed low-frequency tests of Müller and Watson (2008). Second, the test of Leybourne et al. (2007) for a change in persistence of a time series is applied to the real interest rate. The results show that real interest rates over the full sample period do not fit a covariance-stationary or unit-root model, nor a fractionally integrated, near-unit-root or local-level model. Instead, the persistence of real rates changes over time and there are periods when the real rate is covariance-stationary and other periods when it follows a unit-root process.     

On disequilibrium savings and public consumption

Conclusions A particular aspect of the present paper is the introduction of specific policy measures for the government, whose behavior on the goods market was described in earlier work as purely exogenous, like in Malinvaud. In our context, the government appears as an active economic agent, acting at absorbing any excess supply or reducing any excess demand on the goods market. Though this behavior may look somewhat arbitrary, it has the advantage to force the state of the economy towards a SME if combined with natural endogenous behavior of the other agents! Furthermore, it does not contradict observed policies through which governments stimulate or restrain economic activity via purchases or fiscal and monetary policies. Perhaps alternative policies, like direct actions on the labor market by supplying (non-productive) jobs or unemployment compensations, could have done as well: this remains an open door for further research. The preceding feature also contrasts with the recent work done by V. Böhm (1978) in a macroeconomic set up. In this paper, he studies the stability of stationary Keynesian unemployment or stationary repressed inflation states but without imposing a particular policy on the government. Comparing his work with ours, it is easily verified that if the government would keep its consumption at the levelg ^*, the SME would be stable if the economy starts out in Keynesian unemployment and unstable if the economy starts out in repressed inflation, confirming Böhm's result.Our analysis is related to an earlier work of Archibald and Lipsey (1958), dealing with the adjustment of the economy to a Stationary Equilibrium after a change in real balances. The Quantity Theory of Money postulates that along a SME, a change in the price and the wage rate from (p,w) to (p,w) leads to an adjustment in the level of stationary money holdings from m_i ^* to m_i ^*, m_i ^*=_i ^* (p,w). In this paper, Archibald and Lipsey suggest that the economy follows a sequence of temporary market equilibria: Starting from a change in real balances,prices adjust at each period through a tâtonnement process so as to match supply and demand. Our paper proposes an alternative path: At each period,quantities adjust through a tâtonnement process at constant prices.This paper is a revised version of CORE Discussion Paper 7701. We wish to thank Paul Champsaur, Jacques Drèze, Werner Hildenbrand and Reinhard John for stimulating discussions. We are grateful to Volker Böhm for valuable comments and criticisms.Research supported by the Fonds National Belge de la Recherche Scientifique.     

An empirical investigation into the impact of US federal government budget deficits on the real interest rate yield on intermediate-term treasury issues, 1972–2012

This study provides new empirical evidence on the impact of the federal budget deficit on the real interest rate yields on intermediate-term debt issues of the US Treasury, represented herein by the ex post real interest rate yields on 3-year Treasury notes and 7-year Treasury notes, two interest rate measures that have received essentially no attention in the economics and finance literature in recent years. This study is couched within a loanable funds model that includes two ex post real interest rate yields, the monetary base as a per cent of GDP, the change in per capita real GDP, net financial capital inflows as a per cent of GDP and the budget deficit as a per cent of GDP. This study uses annual data for the study period 1972 to 2012, a time period that includes ‘quantitative easing’ monetary policies by the Federal Reserve. Two-stage least squares estimations reveal that the federal budget deficit, expressed as a per cent of GDP, exercised a positive and statistically significant impact on the ex post real interest rate yields on both 3-year and 7-year Treasury notes, even after allowing for quantitative easing and other factors. The study also considers the time period 1980 to 2012 and offers simple robustness testing.