The implications of financial frictions and imperfect knowledge in the estimated DSGE model of the U.S. economy

In this paper, I study how alternative assumptions about expectation formation can modify the implications of financial frictions for the real economy. I incorporate a financial accelerator mechanism into a version of the Smets and Wouters (2007) DSGE framework and explore the properties of the model assuming, on the one hand, complete rationality of expectations and, alternatively, several learning algorithms that differ in terms of the information set used by agents to produce the forecasts. I show that the implications of the financial accelerator for the business cycle may vary depending on the approach to modeling the expectations. The results suggest that the learning scheme based on small forecasting functions is able to amplify the effects of financial frictions relative to the model with Rational Expectations. Specifically, I show that the dynamics of real variables under learning is driven to a significant extent by the time variation of agents’ beliefs about financial sector variables. During periods when agents perceive asset prices as being relatively more persistent, financial shocks lead to more pronounced macroeconomic outcomes. The amplification effect rises as financial frictions become more severe. At the same time, a learning specification in which agents use more information to generate predictions produces very different asset price and investment dynamics. In such a framework, learning cannot significantly alter the real effects of financial frictions implied by the Rational Expectations model.     

Cross-listing in the home market after going public in the U.S.

This study analyzes the impact of cross-listing on the abnormal returns of a unique sample of 34 Israeli stocks that went public in the U.S. and then cross-listed in their home market, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). The behavior of abnormal returns around cross-listing date implies that cross-listing in TASE is an effective mechanism in reducing market segmentation between the U.S. and the Israeli capital markets. Risk assessment following cross-listing suggests a decline in the risk exposure, which further supports a higher degree of integration between the two markets due to cross-listing.     

A commodity hierarchy model of the rental housing market

This paper presents and analyzes a theoretical model of the rental housing market which addresses the durable-good nature and the heterogeneous nature of housing, while focusing on the quality distribution of housing units. Units of different qualities are viewed as distinct substitute commodities. New construction rates, deterioration rates, rental prices, and stocks are considered to be endogenous. Equilibrium concepts are introduced; both the long-run and short-run equilibria are shown to exist and to be unique. Comparative static results are established. The model's utility is demonstrated by its application to the analysis of several housing market programs.     

Racial prejudice in a search model of the urban housing market

A simple model of buyer search in an urban housing market is employed to demonstrate that if some whites are unwilling to sell housing to blacks competitive equilibria in which blacks pay more for housing than whites are sustainable. The model is also used to consider a number of issues in the literature on housing discrimination. Most important, it is shown that in equilibrium the housing market will be racially segmented under a wide variety of conditions.     

Performance pay and changes in U.S. labor market dynamics

A shift in the design of labor compensation occurred at around the mid-1980s in the U.S. and deals with an increased role of performance pay in driving the cyclical movements of wages. Using a DSGE model we show that this structural change accounts at least qualitatively for many observed changes in the U.S. labor market dynamics. It generates the disappearance of the procyclical response of labor productivity to non-technology shocks and the reduction of the contractionary effects of technology shocks on hours. Moreover, it is conducive to a drop in the volatility of output, a parallel increase in the volatility of wages and to changes in unconditional correlations consistent with what documented in the U.S. between the pre- and post-1984 periods.     

A linear programming model of housing market equilibrium

This paper reviews Wheaton's assertion that the Herbert-Stevens Linear Programming Model produces solutions which do not meet Alonso's criteria for market equilibrium. It demonstrates that, although Wheaton's criticism is valid in general, under certain conditions an alternative specification of the objective function coefficients and the dual variables in the linear program produces a model whose solutions satisfy Alonso's criteria. Finally, this paper shows that the NBER model is an application in which a linear programming problem computes market equilibria.     

Interrelations in market fears of U.S. and European equity markets

We examine interdependence between the implied volatilities of U.S. and five European markets in an integrated multivariate system that allows interactions in the first and second moments of volatility processes. Our results find significant interactions in the variance-covariance matrix of VIX and European volatilities which persist and facilitate risk transmission. Changes in U.S. and Eurozone volatilities are important drivers of risk shocks in European markets. VIX and European volatilities have predictive ability for each other. Further, VIX shocks contribute significantly to the prediction error of European risk shocks, but not vice versa. Risk transmission from U.K. markets to U.S. and European markets intensified around the Brexit vote. Also, VIX shocks added significantly more to European risks during the global financial crisis. Our results highlight the potential weakness of risk transmission models that ignore the second-moment risk transmission channel and have implications for volatility trades, portfolio diversification strategies, and hedging the cross-market risks.     

从农田到市场——美国食品经销业扫描

简要介绍了美国食品的经销过程，即从农田到加工，从食品配送到超级市场，运用各类交通工具非常迅速的到达消费者手中。     

Japanese and U.S. interventions in the yen/U.S. dollar market: estimating the monetary authorities’ reaction functions

This paper uses recently released official data on the foreign exchange market interventions of the Japanese monetary authorities in the yen/U.S. dollar market during the period 1991–2001 to examine the motivation for the intervention policy. We also compare the Japanese intervention policy with the U.S. intervention policy. Our results suggest that the Japanese authorities regularly responded to deviations of the yen/U.S. dollar exchange rate from a short-term and a long-term exchange rate target. By contrast, the U.S. authorities intervened only occasionally and seemed to have merely reinforced Japanese interventions.     

震动楼市

汶川大地震对房地产市场产生了哪些方面的影响?影响究竟会有多大?它给市场带来了什么样的变数?未来的走势和格局又将如何?通过深度观察可知,地震给楼市带来的影响即使不是直接的破坏,也必将是深层次的调整     

A probability model of the housing market based on quasi-classical considerations

This paper sets out a simple probability model for explaining locational patterns and trip-making in urban housing markets. As a prerequisite to formulating the model, the classical theory of residential location based on consumer theory is briefly outlined, and the difficulties of using such theory in an operational context are discussed. A more flexible approach, based on certain classical considerations involving rents, travel costs, and incomes is introduced and a model of the housing market is formulated using a probability-maximizing method. The model is then applied to residential location in the Reading sub-region, and tests of the model reveal that its performance in statistical terms is reasonable. In conclusion, certain possibilities for embedding the model into a more comprehensive modelling framework are explored.     

Dynamics of the housing market

This paper deals with the derivation of the rent values of the standing stock of the housing market with a continuous vintage approach, under malleable stock and homogeneous population assumptions, and under dynamic conditions: population and income growth, technological obsolesence, and a continuous upward shift and elasticity change in the supply function. The core of the model is a Volterra nonlinear integral equation of the second kind, and results are shown in relation to existence, uniqueness and stability. Finally, a spatial-dynamic model is specified by a Fredholm-Volterra nonlinear integral equation, framing the analysis of the housing filtering process with the Burgess-Hoyt concept of directional growth in urban development.     

A longitudinal analysis of search frictions and matching in the U.S. labor market

This paper takes a partial equilibrium on-the-job search model to a decade (1996–2006) of repeated cross-sections from the U.S. Current Population Survey. Each month, a set of parameters ruling worker mobility between labor market states and along the wage ladder is estimated using wage distributions and individual transitions. In particular, job-to-job mobility is decomposed into a voluntary component (on-the-job search) and an involuntary one (job reallocation). The resulting time series of transition parameters are first used in a longitudinal analysis of labor turnover and search frictions. Job reallocations are shown to be key in the acyclical behavior of the job separation rate, and in the procyclical behavior of the probability of changing job. Moreover, an index of search frictions is computed and shown to follow no cyclical pattern. The paper then turns to an estimation of the matching function with both unemployed and employed job seekers. The transition parameters from the job search model are used as weights in an aggregate indicator of labor supply. The inclusion of employed workers increases the estimates of the elasticities of the matching function with respect to its two inputs (labor supply and job vacancies).     

Price discrimination in the housing market

There is little credible evidence on whether price discrimination exists in the housing market. Using a large sample of single-family home sales from Florida where both the race of the seller and buyer are known, we present evidence using the traditional and Harding et al. [HRS, Harding, J.P., Rosenthal, S., Sirmans, D.F., 2003. Establishing bargaining power in the market for existing homes. The Review of Economics and Statistics 85, (1) 178–188] approaches to empirical estimation. Omitted variable bias is found to plague the traditional approach. Results from following the HRS approach indicate that price discrimination exists by whites and Hispanics against blacks and Asians. Price discrimination against blacks is restricted to non-majority black neighborhoods and is smaller in magnitude in neighborhoods containing younger and more educated homeowners.     

Learning in an estimated medium-scale DSGE model

We evaluate the empirical relevance of learning by private agents in an estimated medium-scale DSGE model. We replace the standard rational expectations assumption in the Smets and Wouters (2007) model by a constant-gain learning mechanism. If agents know the correct structure of the model and only learn about the parameters, both expectation mechanisms produce very similar results, and only the transition dynamics that are generated by specific initial beliefs seem to improve the fit. If, instead, agents use only a reduced information set in forming the perceived law of motion, the implied model dynamics change and, depending on the specification of the initial beliefs, the marginal likelihood of the model can improve significantly. These best-fitting models add additional persistence to the dynamics and this reduces the gap between the IRFs of the DSGE model and the more data-driven DSGE-VAR model. However, the learning dynamics do not systematically alter the estimated structural parameters related to the nominal and real frictions in the DSGE model.     

Forecasting the US housing market

The recent housing market boom and bust in the United States illustrates that real estate returns are characterized by short-term positive serial correlation and long-term mean reversion to fundamental values. We develop an econometric model that includes these two components, but with weights that vary dynamically through time depending on recent forecasting performances. The smooth transition weighting mechanism can assign more weight to positive serial correlation in boom times, and more weight to reversal to fundamental values during downturns. We estimate the model with US national house price index data. In-sample, the switching mechanism significantly improves the fit of the model. In an out-of-sample forecasting assessment the model performs better than competing benchmark models.     

Spillovers of currency carry trade returns,market risk sentiment,and U.S. market returns

This paper examines the link between spillovers of currency carry trade returns and U.S. market returns. Following Tse and Zhao (2012), this paper hypothesizes that the magnitude of spillovers of currency carry trade returns is positively correlated with market risk sentiment and, therefore, has an impact on market returns. Using the G10 currencies and S&P 500 index futures, the empirical results present a high magnitude of spillover effects of currency carry trade markets. The empirical findings also show a significantly positive relationship between spillovers of currency carry trade returns and subsequent market returns. Furthermore, the results indicate that this relationship is stronger in bear markets than in bull markets. Finally, our findings show that spillovers of currency carry trade returns significantly affect the subsequent transition probabilities of market returns.     

房地产市场走向分化

今年上半年,房价总水平出现高位涨势趋缓的迹象,整个行业面临全面调整,预计下半年房价涨幅将稳步回落,市场将稳步发展今年以来,房地产市场延续着去年末销售量下降的状况,市场继续低迷,未来走势如何,社会各界十分关注。关键是应该认