Fiscal Dominance and Inflation Targeting: Lessons from Turkey

In the aftermath of the 2000-2001 crisis in Turkey, the banking sector was in turbulence, requiring immediate action. The rescue operation significantly increased the public debt ratio with respect to gross domestic product. At the beginning of 2002, the central bank of Turkey announced that it was going to implement an implicit inflation-targeting regime. The fiscal dominance caused by the high debt ratio severely constrained the conduct of monetary policy. Other obstacles to the conduct of monetary policy included a high level of exchange rate pass-through, inflation inertia, and a weak banking sector. This paper offers an account of the monetary policy experience of Turkey in the postcrisis period and provides lessons for policymakers in other emerging markets.     

Time Variation in the Inflation Passthrough of Energy Prices

From Bayesian estimates of a vector autoregression that allows for both coefficient drift and stochastic volatility, we obtain the following three results. First, beginning in approximately 1975, the responsiveness of core inflation to changes in energy prices in the United States fell rapidly and remains muted. Second, this decline in the passthrough of energy inflation to core prices has been sustained through a recent period of markedly higher volatility of shocks to energy inflation. Finally, reduced energy inflation passthrough has persisted in the face of monetary policy that became less responsive to energy inflation starting around 1985.     

Oil price shocks on Indian economy: evidence from Toda Yamamoto and Markov regime-switching VAR

The study investigates the dynamic impact of linear and non-linear specifications of oil price shocks on macroeconomic fundamentals for an oil-importing emerging economy – India – during the period March 1991 to January 2009. The paper deploys extended vector autoregressive (VAR) model of possibly integrated processes proposed by Toda and Yamamoto, which has its advantage of application irrespective of the variables being stationary or cointegrated. The study further estimates two-state Markov regime-switch VAR model to examine regime shift behaviour of the underlying variables and its relationship. The study finds that inflation and foreign exchange reserve are greatly impacted by oil price shocks. The study also confirms that the movement in oil price is exogenous with respect to the movement of India’s macroeconomic variables and the impact of oil price shocks are asymmetric in nature with negative price shocks having more pronounced effect than positive shocks.     

汇率价格传递效应理论的发展

传统的汇率价格传递效应理论是建立在一价定律基础上的,认为汇率变动会对进出口价格产生完全的传递效应。但是,大量的实证研究表明,汇率变动引致的进出口价格相应的变动往往是不完全的。关于汇率变动对进出口价格的不完全传递效应,多数学者从微观经济学的视角展开研究,如不完全竞争、价格歧视、沉淀成本、厂商定价策略等;近年来也有一些学者试图从宏观经济学的视角进行解释,如一国通货膨胀环境、货币政策稳定性等。     

Oil Risk Exposure: The Case of the U.S. Oil and Gas Sector

We estimate oil price risk exposures of the U.S. oil and gas sector using the Fama‐French‐Carhart's four‐factor asset pricing model augmented with oil price and interest rate factors. Results show that the market, book‐to‐market, and size factors, as well as momentum characteristics of stocks and changes in oil prices are significant determinants of returns for the sector. Oil price risk exposures of U.S. oil and gas companies in the oil and gas sector are generally positive and significant. Our study also finds that oil price risk exposures vary considerably over time, and across firms and industry subsectors.     

The non-linear response of US state-level tradable and non-tradable inflation to oil shocks: The role of oil-dependence

This paper investigates the effects of oil supply, oil-specific consumption demand, oil inventory demand shocks, and global economic activity shocks on state-level tradable and non-tradable inflation in the US. We use oil shock data following the work of Baumeister and Hamilton (2019) and estimate both linear and non-linear impulse responses using a lag-augmented local projections model in a panel context. Our results from a linear model show that both supply and demand-side oil shocks have a statistically significant impact on both types of inflation. While supply, global economic activity, and demand shocks have a greater impact on tradable inflation, non-tradable inflation responds more strongly to inventory shocks. Further, the non-linear model results provide evidence of heterogeneity in the magnitude and persistence of impact between high- and low-oil dependence regimes. Non-tradable inflation is more sensitive to nearly all components of oil price shocks in the high-oil dependence regime.     

Declining Effects of Oil Price Shocks

In recent years, output responses to oil price shocks have not only been weaker, but have also reached their trough earlier. This paper builds a model that incorporates a realistic structure of U.S. petroleum consumption and explores three possible explanations for the changes. The possible factors considered are (i) deregulation in the transportation industry, (ii) improved energy efficiency, and (iii) a lower degree of persistence of oil price shocks. Under realistic parameter values, the three factors play an important role quantitatively, accounting for half of the reduction in the largest impact on output of an oil price shock over time.     

The Effects of Oil Price on the Korean Economy: A Global VAR Approach

This article empirically explores the effects of oil price on the Korean economy using a Global VAR model. First, we evaluate the average connectedness of oil price with the Korean domestic variables over the precrisis period. We then investigate the time-varying contribution of oil price to the Korean financial and real sectors during and after the global financial crisis through recursive estimation. It is found that the contribution of oil price becomes very large in the case of real exports, equity prices, and real output, but plays a much less prevalent role in the remaining cases. In the meantime, the time-varying contribution of oil price to the Korean economy has not changed during and after the global financial crisis. Interestingly, we find that the Korean economy is affected mostly by overseas financial conditions in the short-term but it becomes more susceptible to oil price fluctuations in the long run, suggesting that Korea’s reliance on energy imports leaves the economy exposed to volatility in energy prices.     

人民币汇率及其对日本美国进口价格的传递效应

本文估计了人民币汇率变化对美国和日本从中国进口商品价格的传递效应。实证结果表明,人民币名义升值1%,将导致美国的进口价格短期上涨0.23%,长期上涨0.47%。日本从中国的进口价格对人民币和日元双边汇率的变化更为敏感。如果人民币兑日元名义汇率上升1%,日本的进口价格短期提高0.55%,长期则提高0.99%,具有完全的传递效应。这种高传递效应在食品、原材料、服装、制造和机械等不同类别的进口商品中也存在。但是,进一步分析表明:日本的高传递效应主要归因于中国钉住美元的汇率政策,而美元是中国对日本出口贸易的主要计价货币。在控制了计价货币因素后,自2005年7月以来人民币的累计升值并未传递到日本的总体进口价格或分类商品进口价格上。人民币汇率的这种低传递效应表明,人民币适度升值对中国的贸易顺差影响甚微。     

Exchange Rate Pass-Through in an Emerging Market: The Case of the Czech Republic

We examine exchange rate pass-through, or how domestic prices respond to exchange rate shocks, in the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2013 by employing vector autoregression models. Using the aggregate consumer price index and its subcomponents, we find that the peak response occurs between nine and thirteen months after the exchange rate shock. The average pass-through at the monetary policy horizon is approximately 20 percent at the aggregate level. Regarding the subcomponents, the degree of pass-through is greatest for food prices.     

The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks under Measurement Error: A Proxy SVAR Approach

A growing literature considers the impact of uncertainty using SVAR models that include proxies for uncertainty shocks as endogenous variables. In this paper, we consider the impact of measurement error in these proxies on the estimated impulse responses. We show via a Monte Carlo experiment that measurement error can result in attenuation bias in impulse responses. In contrast, the proxy SVAR that uses the uncertainty shock proxy as an instrument does not suffer from this bias. Applying this latter method to the Bloom (2009) data set results in impulse responses to uncertainty shocks that are larger in magnitude and more persistent than those obtained from a recursive SVAR.     

国际原油价格波动对中国物价水平的影响

本文在多变量VAR模型的基础上,分别采用协整检验、脉冲响应和方差分解方法分析了国际原油价格对中国物价水平的影响.结果显示：国际石油价格冲击对中国物价水平的影响是显著的,对中国生产者物价水平的影响速度大于对消费者物价水平的影响,对中国生产者物价水平的影响程度大于对消费者物价水平的影响.     

Menu costs and Markov inflation: A theoretical revision with new evidence

We revisit a foundational theoretical paper in the menu-cost literature, Sheshinski and Weiss [1983. Optimum pricing policy under stochastic inflation. Review of Economic Studies 50(3), 513-529], one of the few to treat stochastic inflation with persistent deviations from trend. In contrast to the original finding, we show that optimal pricing in this environment entails using different (s,S) bands in high-inflation and low-inflation states of the world. The low-inflation band is strictly contained within the high-inflation band. This revised solution has very different implications from the original one. Firms are generally risk loving, not risk averse, with respect to inflation. An increase in the variance of inflation increases price dispersion when inflation is high and decreases price dispersion when inflation is low. On an aggregate level, this optimal pricing would lead to bunching of prices and non-neutrality of money in the setting of Caplin and Spulber [1987. Menu costs and the neutrality of money. Quarterly Journal of Economics 102(4), 703-725]. To test the main finding, we construct an establishment-level dataset from the months surrounding Mexico's “tequila crisis” in 1995. In the high-inflation state, price increases are larger and establishments allow their prices to vary more widely around their respective long-run mean relative prices. Cross-establishment price dispersion is lower, but this result seems due to decreased establishment heterogeneity rather than narrower (s,S) bands. Overall, the evidence suggests that establishments employ wider (s,S) bands in the high-inflation state.     

Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks on Farm Prices and Exchange Rates in Korea

The effects of monetary policy shocks on farm prices and exchange rates in Korea are empirically investigated by using vector auto-regression models with sign restrictions on impulse responses. The main empirical results are as follows. First, (contractionary) monetary policy shocks have significantly negative effects on real farm prices. Second, the SR effect on farm prices is significant but short-lived. The dynamic response of farm prices is consistent with the predictions of the “overshooting” model. Third, the effects of monetary policy shocks on farm prices are more significant than the effects of monetary policy shocks on exchange rates.     

Estimating Volatility Persistence in Oil Prices Under Structural Breaks

Policy makers and financial market participants are interested in knowing how shocks affect the volatility of oil prices over time. We accurately compute the volatility persistence by incorporating endogenously determined structural breaks into a GARCH model. Contrary to previous findings, we find that oil shocks dissipate very quickly but have a strong initial impact. Understanding this behavior is not only important for derivative valuation and hedging decisions but for broader financial markets and the overall economy, for which there are significant consequences.     

Oil Prices and Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets: Structural Shifts in Causal Linkages

This study tests the causal relationships between oil prices and monetary policy for the emerging markets (Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey). In particular, we explore the role of exchange rates, inflation, and interest rates. First, we utilize the commonly used Toda–Yamamoto causality framework and later augment the model to account for structural shifts—including gradual/smooth shifts. The empirical findings show that (i) accounting for gradual structural shifts matter for the causal linkages between oil prices and the monetary policy variables and (ii) employing a bivariate or multivariate frameworks is not important (with few exceptions) as much as controlling for structural breaks in these causal linkages.     

Determinants of House Prices: A Quantile Regression Approach

OLS regression has typically been used in housing research to determine the relationship of a particular housing characteristic with selling price. Results differ across studies, not only in terms of size of OLS coefficients and statistical significance, but sometimes in direction of effect. This study suggests that some of the observed variation in the estimated prices of housing characteristics may reflect the fact that characteristics are not priced the same across a given distribution of house prices. To examine this issue, this study uses quantile regression, with and without accounting for spatial autocorrecation, to identify the coefficients of a large set of diverse variables across different quantiles. The results show that purchasers of higher-priced homes value certain housing characteristics such as square footage and the number of bathrooms differently from buyers of lower-priced homes. Other variables such as age are also shown to vary across the distribution of house prices.

Foreign Property Shocks and the Impact on Domestic Securitized Real Estate Markets: An Unobserved Components Approach

As the globalization of world financial markets continues unabated the issue of benefits arising from international diversification becomes increasingly important. Due to the fixed geographical nature of the underlying product, securitized property might be considered immune from the effects of globalization, and to this extent researchers have considered the issue of international property market interdependence using a variety of statistical procedures. In this paper the question of interdependence across securitized property markets is examined by combining the Inoue (1999) cointegration methodology with the structural time series procedure of Harvey (1989). In the event of commonality of movement across property markets, this approach permits the researcher to isolate and visualize common movement, an operation that may be helpful to a portfolio manager trying to understand cross market activity. The results indicate that there is some unifying force across international property markets and that this unifying force may stem from the United States. The results also suggest that, at least to some extent, shocks to securitized property markets produce a similar response to stock market shocks.     

Changing Impact of Shocks: A Time-Varying Proxy SVAR Approach

In this paper, we extend the Bayesian Proxy vector autoregression (VAR) model to incorporate time variation in the parameters. A novel Metropolis-within-Gibbs sampling algorithm is provided to approximate the posterior distributions of the model's parameters. Using the proposed algorithm, we estimate the time-varying effects of taxation shocks in the United States and the United Kingdom and find evidence for a decline in the impact of these shocks on output growth.     

Monetary Pressures and Inflation Dynamics in Turkey: Evidence from P-Star Model

This paper uses the P-star model to explain inflation dynamics in Turkey. In P-star models, money determines the price gap, which is postulated to measure the pressure on prices in an economy. This pressure emerges when output is above the potential, the interest rate is lower than the natural rate, or there is pure excess money in the economy. The estimation results with the Turkish data show that the price gap contains considerable information for explaining inflation dynamics. Moreover, the model selection criterion that compares the empirical performance of the P-star model with the new classical Phillips curve relation favors the P-star model over the Phillips curve relationship. We conclude that money is efficacious in predicting risk in price stability in Turkey.