Dependent and Accountable: Evidence from the Modern Theory of Central Banking

In this paper we take another look at the literature on central bank independence. We show that the representative-agent approach to monetary policy is seriously flawed and does not provide a sound basis for deriving institutional solutions to the inflationary-bias. We then argue that the political approach to monetary policy provides a better account of the inflationary-bias and that this has important implications for the set-up of institutional arrangements, like central-bank independence, and the role of contractual arrangements, like indexation. Central bank independence, if appropriately modeled, can fail to reduce inflationary pressures in plausible circumstances. We then identify some issues in the theory of central banking that have not been clearly resolved and we offer some intuition as to the way they could be studied. We conclude by showing some potentially worrisome implications for the future of the European Monetary Union.     

Monetary Policy Rules, Policy Preferences, and Uncertainty: Recent Empirical Evidence

We survey recent empirical evidence on monetary policy rules, and find that the emphasis in the political economy literature on institutional design (e.g. central bank independence and inflation targeting) is exaggerated. Formal institutional reform seems neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the observation of shifts in monetary policy rules. However, there is no doubt that in some cases (e.g. the UK following the start of inflation targeting in 1992, and Bank of England Independence in 1997), a major shift in monetary policy conduct is detectable. We also highlight the problems in explicitly testing the predictions of the political economy literature. Semi-structural modelling approaches, such as time-varying VAR models may be more useful in understanding policy rules, and the interaction between policy shifts and changes in the transmission mechanism.     

Central bank’s forecasts and lack of transparency: An assessment of the effect on private expectations in a large emerging economy

We analyze whether the Central Bank of Brazil’s Inflation Reports projections influences the private’s inflation expectations. Specifically, we investigate how the central bank’s inflation forecasts affect the private sector’s inflation expectations through a qualitative and quantitative examination of the disagreement measure between them. Furthermore, we appraise if the lack of transparency resulting from the difference between the central bank’s inflation forecasts and the realized inflation affects the private’s inflation expectations. Although the findings confirm the previous studies that point out that the central bank transparency can affect the readjustment of market expectations, the results do not rule out the possibility of the central bank’s forecast and private’s inflation expectations being affected reciprocally.     

The Independence of the Bank Of England: an Update

In this article, Stephen Hall and Brian Henry reconsider the arguments for further coordination of fiscal and monetary policy in the UK. The recent inflation-unemployment performance in the UK has been good, but it appears mainly the result of beneficial developments in the world economy. Further improvement in the policy-making framework in the UK is called for. Many of the present drawbacks could be dealt with by treating fiscal policy on a par with monetary policy. There are arguments that further cooperation is not needed but these are unpersuasive. They recommend the setting up of an independent committee charged with reviewing fiscal decisions, and coordinating these with monetary decisions by the MPC.     

Bank shareholding and corporate cash management: Evidence from China

We study the effect of bank shareholding on corporate cash management in China. We document that for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with some of their shares owned by banks, the market value of cash holdings is less, and the overinvestment of free cash flow is more than those SOEs without bank shareholding. For non-SOEs, we do not find such an adverse impact. We also find that the adverse impact of bank shareholding is confined to state-owned banks owning SOE shares and stronger for pyramidal structure than those of non-pyramidal structure SOEs. The Chinese environment offers lessons that can help other emerging markets to review their bank shareholding regulations.     

The design and communication of systematic monetary policy strategies

The efficacy of central bank communications is inextricably linked to the characteristics of the monetary policy framework. Therefore, this paper presents a set of fundamental principles regarding the joint design of monetary policy strategy and communications. The practical implications of these principles are illustrated by considering a number of significant policy challenges faced by central banks in the advanced economies.     

价值工程理论在银行负债业务中的应用

价值工程理论在我国的工程建设、产品制造等领域应用较广,效果明显,但在金融服务等领域应用偏少。文章通过引入价值工程的概念和方法,结合银行负债业务改进的具体事例,从不同的视角,探索一条加快银行负债业务发展的全新途径。     

The effectiveness of non-standard monetary policy in addressing liquidity risk during the financial crisis: The experiences of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank

A number of studies sought to measure the effects of non-standard policy on bank funding markets. This paper carries those estimates a step further by looking at the effects of bank funding market stress on the volume of bank lending. By separately modeling loan supply and demand, we determine how non-standard central bank measures affected bank lending by reducing stress in bank funding markets. Our results suggest that non-standard policy measures lowered bank funding volatility in the US and the Euro Area. Lower bank funding volatility in turn increased loan supply in both regions, contributing to sustained lending activity.     

Central bank independence and economic performance in eastern Europe

Following the breakdown of central planning by the early 1990s, transition economies faced varying measures of the need for economic restructuring and stabilisation. This paper examines both the trends in economic performance in eight eastern European countries and the degree of central bank independence (CBI) granted after reforms. The evidence of the paper indicates that both the measures of CBI and the measures of financial market development (FMD) show significant association with macroeconomic variables. Also, the sample exhibits positive association between CBI and measures of FMD.     

Managerial markets in transition in Central and Eastern Europe: a field study and implications

In this paper, we report findings from the first comprehensive study of managerial labour markets in Central and Eastern Europe, drawing on field data from 157 firms in six countries. Results indicated widespread and deep changes occurring in the region’s managerial markets. Despite differences among countries in reform and economic performance, we found these particular changes to be surprisingly common across the countries studied. They included rapid rises in salary and benefit levels, narrowing of some skill gaps, shifts to more sophisticated methods of recruitment and an overall move towards Western management practices. The study also revealed severe shortages of qualified managers in all the countries studied. The resulting tightness in the managerial labour markets was reducing only modestly, despite other improvements. Foreign and joint-venture firms were relying disproportionately on expatriate managers, and may not have been sufficiently developing locals. We argue that, partly because of this, the distortions in pay, promotions and performance resulting from these tight markets are likely to persist for some time.     

A New Index of Independence of 12 European National Central Banks

Abstract

Many countries have recently strengthened the autonomy of their central banks in the effort to protect central bankers from government influences. This article reviews and extends the relevant literature to propose a new ranking of central bank independence in contrast to those originated by Bade and Parking, and Cukierman. The analysis shows a bivariate relationship between independence and inflation rates in 12 European Union countries in the EMS era. However, neither inflation nor its standard deviation had any statistical significance effect on real GDP growth. The procedure reveals that findings are, sometimes, index-specific.     

Bank failures caused by Large withdrawals: An explanation based purely on liquidity

In a version of the Diamond and Dybvig [Diamond, D., Dybvig, P., 1983. Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity. Journal of Political Economy 91, 401–419.] model with aggregate uncertainty, we show that there exists an equilibrium with the following properties: all consumers deposit at the bank, all patient consumers wait for the last period to withdraw, and the bank fails with strictly positive probability. Furthermore, we show that the probability of a bank failure remains bounded away from zero as the number of consumers increases.This equilibrium explains bank failures driven by extreme withdrawals solely on liquidity since they happen because both banks and depositors are illiquid. Furthermore, it does not require much of the elements typically emphasized, including: consumers well informed about the true state of nature, a non-zero consumption after a crisis, consumers’ panic and sunspots. We therefore think that aggregate risk in Diamond-Dybvig-like environments can be an important element to explain bank crises.     

基础货币、货币乘数与货币当局资产负债结构的关系研究——基于中国1994～2006年季度数据的实证分析

本文提出货币当局的资产负债结构对基础货币和货币乘数产生重要影响,这种影响是通过改变公众的现金持有偏好和商业银行的准备金需求来间接实现的。对我国1994～2006年季度数据实证研究,单位根检验、Johansen协整分析及误差修正模型显示存在货币当局资产负债结构影响现金持有偏好与准备金需求的长期协整关系和短期波动规律,以国外净资产比重持续上升、商业银行再贷款比重不断下降及央行票据比重陡然上升为主要特征的货币当局资产负债结构调整,导致我国基础货币过快增加和货币乘数持续上升。     

关于几个条件独立性检验统计量的构造与比较分析

变量间的条件独立性可视为在概率空间上对其因果关系的一种描述,因而可以通过检验变量之间的条件独立性来检验因果关系。文章详细介绍了几个条件独立性检验统计量的构造方法和基本原理,包括线性模型假设下的Fisher-z检验统计量和在非线性模型下或无法确定变量之间的模型时使用的3个非参数的条件独立性检验统计量,并对这几个不同的条件独立性检验统计量的检验效率进行了对比分析。     

Dynamics of Trade Integration and Technological Convergence

The issue of the impact of trade on economic performance and labour markets has been intensively discussed in recent literature on trade liberalization and globalization, where the debate was mainly about identifying the relative impact of trade and technology. The bulk of the existing literature in this area employs, almost without exception, a static Heckscher-Ohlin framework that seems not to be a suitable tool for analysing the ongoing dynamics. This paper presents a dynamic multi-sectoral framework with heterogenous labour to explore the issue of trade liberalization and sectoral catching-up in productivity levels. The model is basically an input-output framework with Schumpeterian features; the latter are modelled as the impact of transitory rents that result from uneven productivity growth and technological catching-up upon the price and quantity systems of the trading economies. Relative productivity and wage rate dynamics across sectors determine the comparative costs and the dynamics of trade specialization. In the Appendix, the equilibrium solutions of the model are derived.     

谈银行网点布局选址项目理论要素

银行网点的经营与管理者的意识、能力以及员工的服务有很大关系,但银行网点布局与选址项目的操作不合理也是一个非常重要的原因。随着市场经济的深化,银行之间的竞争日趋激烈,特别是加入WTO以后,外资银行已逐步进入,如何科学地分析研究银行网点布局与选址项目操作,无疑是提高市场竞争力所面临的迫在眉睫的问题。     

通货膨胀国际间传导对我国影响的实证检验

本文运用时间序列分析方法,实证检验了欧盟和美国的价格冲击向我国传导的总体效应.实证结果表明,各国物价存在明显的协整关系,脉冲响应分析和方差分解的结论进一步刻画了外国通胀冲击的特征.协整变结构检验证实了近年来通货膨胀国际传导效应显著增强.本文还利用格兰杰因果检验,考察了通货膨胀的各条跨国传导路径,研究发现,消费品和原材料价格传导路径非常通畅,而通过国际储备影响货币供应量的传导渠道,以及总供给-总需求传导渠道不能得到实证支持.     

Bank efficiency and access to credit: International evidence

This paper examines the impact of bank efficiency on access to credit. We test the hypothesis that higher bank efficiency, meaning a better ability of banks to operate at lower costs, favors access to credit for firms. To this end, we perform a cross-country analysis with firm-level data on access to credit and bank-level data to compute bank efficiency, using a sample of about 54,000 firms from 76 countries. We find that greater bank efficiency improves access to credit for firms. The beneficial impact of bank efficiency to alleviate credit constraints takes place through the demand channel by reducing borrower discouragement to apply for a loan. Whereas the positive impact of bank efficiency on credit access is observed for firms of all sizes, the effect tends to be more pronounced in countries with a better economic and institutional framework. Our results therefore support policies favouring bank efficiency to enhance access to credit.     

物权行为独立性：表达与实践——以房屋登记为中心

总体而言，《物权法》规定的基于法律行为的不动产物权变动模式采取了登记要件主义为原则、登记对抗为例外的规定，物权变动与债权变动划清了界限，合意加登记始生不动产物权变动，但此合意单指债权合意还是包含物权合意并不明确，《物权法》中的相关法条对物权行为独立性理论是一种模糊表达。而（谤屋登记办法》中的相关法条能够符合逻辑地解释出物权行为独立性理论，同时，房屋登记中广泛使用的申请表及登记交易实践也支持这种理论。