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.     

Liquidity risk, economic development, and the effects of monetary policy

Empirical evidence indicates that monetary policy is not super-neutral in many countries. In particular, in high inflation economies, inflation is negatively related to economic activity. By comparison, inflation may be positively correlated with output in low inflation countries. We present a neoclassical growth model with money in which the incidence of liquidity risk is inversely related to aggregate capital formation. Interestingly, there may be multiple monetary steady-states where the effects of monetary policy vary. In poor economies, the financial system is highly distorted and higher rates of money growth are associated with less capital formation. In contrast, in advanced economies, a Tobin effect is observed. Since inflation exacerbates distortions from a coordination failure in the low-capital steady-state, individuals become much more exposed to liquidity risk. Consequently, optimal monetary policy depends on the level of development.     

(In)determinacy, increasing returns, and the optimality of the Friedman rule in an endogenously growing open economy

This paper sets up a monetary endogenous growth model with Benhabib–Farmer production externalities for an open economy, and then uses it to investigate the possibility of indeterminacy. Moreover, the paper examines how the monetary authorities will set its optimal anchor of the money growth rate from the viewpoint of welfare maximization. Several main findings emerge from the analysis. First, when investment does not involve adjustment costs, the monetary equilibrium is locally determinate regardless of the strength of the labor externality and the extent of world capital market imperfections. Second, in the presence of investment adjustment costs, the monetary equilibrium may exhibit indeterminacy when the aggregate increasing returns-to-scale in production is sufficiently strong. Third, in the presence of world capital market imperfections, the Friedman rule of a zero nominal interest rate fails to be optimal. Fourth, in the face of perfect world capital markets, the optimal nominal money growth rate is maintained at the rate that is conformable to the Friedman rule, regardless of whether investment involves adjustment costs or not.     

A macroeconomic model of aggregate supply and demand for the UK

In this paper we publish for the first time the econometric model of the UK economy recently developed at City University Business School (CUBS). The differentiating feature of the CUBS model is its concern with the ‘supply side’ and its attempt to estimate an aggregate production function. The model distinguishes between markets in goods and services, labour, capital, money and foreign exchange.     

Capital Accumulation in an Economy with Dynasties and Uncertain Lifetimes

This paper studies how the lack of an annuities market affects savings behavior and intergenerational transfers in a dynastic overlapping generations economy. I find that the answer to this question depends crucially on altruism. On the one hand, if the altruistic bequest motive is operative, then the lack of annuity markets enhances capital accumulation. On the other hand, if the altruistic bequest motive is not operative, the absence of annuity markets can either increase or decrease aggregate savings. I characterize under which conditions capital accumulation is enhanced. I also prove that an overlapping generations economy with altruism and uninsurable lifetime risk faces capital overaccumulation relative to the modified Golden Rule. The efficient allocation corresponding to the modified Golden Rule can be decentralized as a competitive equilibrium by a pay-as-you-go social security system, and this can only be done if individuals are altruistic.     

Money,working capital and production in a developing economy: A disequilibrium econometric model of production for India, 1950–1980

The paper formulates and estimates for India for the period 1950–1980 an aggregate production function wherein the supply of real money balances in the economy appears as a limitational factor of production. The rationale for the formulation is argued from the importance of working capital funds in organising production, and how the supply of money, or the lack thereof, may constrain its availability in a financially underdeveloped economy characterized by imperfect capital markets.Comments and suggestions by annonymous referees for the journal as well as by the participants in the seminar at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India and the session on money and production at the Windsor meetings of the Canadian Economic Association are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due Mr. Salah Foda for programming assistance.     

To Each According to . . . ? Markets, Tournaments, and the Matching Problem with Borrowing Constraints

We compare the performance of markets and tournaments as allocative mechanisms in an economy with borrowing constraints. The economy consists of a continuum of individuals who differ in their initial wealth and ability level. These must be assigned to a continuum of investment opportunities or inputs of different productivity. With perfect capital markets matching is efficient under both mechanisms. Markets, however, generate higher aggregate consumption because of the waste associated with the production of signals under tournaments. When borrowing constraints are present, tournaments dominate markets in terms of matching efficiency and, for sufficiently powerful signalling technologies, also in terms of aggregate consumption.     

Financial market imperfections and monetary policy strategy

In a model with imperfect money, credit and reserve markets, we examine if an inflation-targeting central bank applying the funds rate operating procedure to indirectly control market interest rates also needs a monetary aggregate as policy instrument. We show that if private agents use information extracted from money and financial markets to form inflation expectations and if interest rate pass-through is incomplete, the central bank can use a narrow monetary aggregate and the discount interest rate as independent and complementary policy instruments to reinforce the credibility of its announcements and the role of inflation target as a nominal anchor for inflation expectations. This study shows how a monetary policy strategy combining inflation targeting and monetary targeting can be conceived to guarantee macroeconomic stability and the credibility of monetary policy. Friedman's k-percent money growth rule, which can generate dynamic instability, and two alternative stabilizing feedback monetary targeting rules are examined.     

Capital market imperfections in a monetary growth model

Summary. We consider a monetary growth model essentially identical to that of Diamond (1965) and Tirole (1985), except that we explicitly model credit markets, a credit market friction, and an allocative function for financial intermediaries. These changes yield substantially different results than those obtained in more standard models. In particular, if any monetary steady state equilibria exist, there are generally two of them; one of these has a low capital stock and output level, and it is necessarily a saddle. The other steady state has a high capital stock and output level; either it is necessarily a sink, or its stability properties depend on the rate of money creation. It follows that monetary equilibria can be indeterminate, and nonconvergence phenomena can be observed. Increases in the rate of money creation reduce the capital stock in the high-capital-stock steady state. If the high-capital-stock steady state is not a sink for all rates of money growth, then increases in the rate of money growth can induce a Hopf bifurcation. Hence dynamical equilibria can display damped oscillation as a steady state equilibrium is approached, and limit cycles can be observed as well. In addition, in the latter case, high enough rates of inflation induce the kinds of “crises” noted by Bruno and Easterly (1995): when inflation is too high there are no equilibrium paths approaching the high-activity steady state. Received: November 18, 1995; revised version: March 26, 1996     

The Transition to Market Economies in an Endogenous Growth Model with Altruistic Agents

This paper considers an endogenous transition from a self-sufficient traditional economy to a market economy and its consequences on fertility and growth. The transition can occur if private intergenerational transfers are unable to secure old-age consumption as adequately as savings on capital markets; otherwise individuals stay in the traditional economy unless the mass-production technology in the market economy is sufficiently more advanced than individually accessible technologies. Markets emerge only if per capita output exceeds a certain level given a fixed cost of forming markets. The transition reduces fertility and promotes growth under plausible restrictions.
JEL Classification : E 20; J 13; O 10     

公司治理、盈余管理与企业成长

我国上市公司在治理结构方面的缺陷使得资本市场上盈余管理成为一种普遍现象,对公司的发展造成不利的影响。公司治理与盈余管理负相关,与企业增长正相关,而盈余管理与企业增长负相关。     

Liquidity-profit rate cycles in a capitalist economy

A monetary economy consisting of independent capitalist firms, in which workers spend wages instantly and labor is not scarce, is studied The firms create demand for each other's output through their capital outlays, and create the backing for money through borrowing. When all firms are identical in behavior and initial conditions, and the rate of growth of money is constant, the economy may be unstable around the equilibrium steady state growth path due to strong accelerator effects, and follow a limit cycle trajectory.     

Growth and equilibrium indeterminacy: the role of capital mobility

Summary. The paper presents a human capital driven endogenous growth model which, in general, permits a multiplicity of equilibrium balanced growth paths. It is shown that allowing for perfect capital mobility across countries increases the range of parameter values for which the model permits equilibrium indeterminacy. As opposed to the closed capital markets case, simple restrictions on preferences are no longer sufficient to eliminate the indeterminacy. Intuitively, under perfect capital mobility agents are able to smooth consumption completely. This induces an economy with open capital markets to behave like a closed economy with linear preferences thereby increasing the possibility of equilibrium indeterminacy. Received: 18 November 1998; revised version: 10 August 1999     

Social status, human capital formation and super-neutrality in a two-sector monetary economy

In this paper, we study how social status affects the impact of monetary policy on the long-run growth rate in a two-sector monetary economy with human capital accumulation, and find that the super-neutrality of money, with regard to the growth rate of the economy depends on the formation of human capital. In an economy with Lucas-type human capital formation, money is super-neutral; however, for an economy in which both physical and human capital are used as inputs for human capital accumulation, the money growth rate will have a positive effect on the long-run economic growth rate. The existence, uniqueness and saddle-path stability of balanced-growth equilibrium are also examined.     

上市公司、资本虹吸与房价的地区差异

鉴于上市公司与房价地区差异的研究鲜见,文章首次从地区层面寻找上市公司影响房价的微观传导路径.研究发现,上市公司从一级市场上融资、内部人在二级市场上减持均会"虹吸"全国资金,增加当地货币资本,进而正向影响房价,即高融资或高减持地区成为"虹吸方";融资虹吸与减持虹吸对房价的影响存在差异,减持虹吸引起财富集聚,对房价的影响更多地由富裕阶层的购房需求所推动,而融资虹吸带来的财富影响比较分散.地区股票市值与房价呈现螺旋增长关系,在股市上涨期间替代效应占主导地位,两者的增长率负相关;而在下跌期间财富效应占主导地位,两者的增长率正相关.文章从企业层面阐释了房价地区差异的金融成因及路径,并试图厘清股票市场与房价的增长结构,为地区经济的协调发展提供了参考.     

Money, endogenous fertility and economic growth

This paper analyzes the issue of money superneutrality through an intertemporal optimizing model of capital accumulation with endogenous fertility, i.e. endogenous population growth. Two elements of this setup invalidate money superneutrality: (i) a demand for fertility that depends on real money balances, and (ii) an inverse relation between capital–labor ratio and population growth. Higher monetary growth increases fertility, since it reduces its opportunity cost, and hence diminishes capital intensity, and per capita output. This reverse Tobin effect is matched by an increase in aggregate capital and output growth rates. In this framework, the optimal monetary growth rule is a “distorted Friedman rule”.     

Liquidity risk and financial competition: Implications for asset prices and monetary policy

This paper studies the implications of banking competition for capital markets and monetary policy. In particular, I develop a two-sector monetary growth model in which a group of agents is exposed to liquidity shocks and money is essential. Banks insure depositors against such risk and invest in the economy's assets. In this setting, I compare an economy with a perfectly competitive banking sector to an economy with a fully concentrated financial sector. Unlike previous work, banks can have market power in both deposits and capital markets. Compared to a perfectly competitive financial sector, I demonstrate that a monopolistic banking system can have substantial adverse consequences on capital formation, assets prices, and the degree of risk sharing. Furthermore, multiple steady-states can emerge and the economy becomes subject to poverty traps. More importantly, market power in financial markets may overturn the Tobin effect present under a perfectly competitive financial sector. This necessarily happens in economies with high degrees of liquidity risk and low levels of capital formation.     

The Macroeconomics of Financial Crises: How Risk Premiums and Liquidity Traps Affect Policy Options

The paper offers an overview of what structural models of the IS-LM and Mundell-Fleming variety can tell about the macroeconomics of economic crises. In addition to demonstrating how the emergence of risk premiums in money and capital markets can generate liquidity traps at positive interest rates and may drive economies into recessions, it shows the following: (1) Fiscal policy works even in a small, open economy under flexible exchange rates when the country is stuck in a liquidity trap; (2) Near the fringe of liquidity traps, there may be perfect traps, in which neither monetary nor fiscal policy works when used in isolation but policy coordination is called for; and (3) Massive financial crises in the domestic money market may even destabilize the economy.     

Multiplier effects in economies with missing risk markets

The paper analyses the impact of pecuniary externalities in a two-sector economy with an incomplete market structure. Agents in each sector choose their proportion of risky investment. Sector specific risks are assumed to be perfectly negatively correlated. It is shown that the economy is more volatile if risk markets do not exist. With a complete set of risk markets, shocks in one sector will be dampened on the aggregate level. In contrast, when risk markets are absent, pecuniary externalities arising from higher risky investment in one sector can create feedback effects in the other sector. When agents are sufficiently risk averse (their coefficient of relative risk aversion being greater than one), an individually optimal response to the increased riskiness of the price distribution will result in an even riskier price distribution: an increase in risky activity in one sector will lead to an increase in risky activity in the other sector, and this gives multiplier effects.Part of this work has been done while I was visiting assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.I am grateful to Hans-Werner Sinn for helpful comments. The suggestions of the two referees have contributed to improve the paper considerably.     

The myth of a booming town: a two-sector model of Macau economic growth

This paper builds a trade-based equilibrium, two-sector model to reveal the inefficiency of a foreign-dominated, gaming-biased, bubble growth in Macau. This fast GDP growth that has not led to much real development as measured by the effective GNP would likely have adverse impacts on the city's long-term prosperity. We employ the model to analyze why various gaming markets have adopted differing tax rates. This work provides a rigorous argument against the problematic attempts to push for low tax convergence in the Asian gaming market. To neutralize the damaging effects of foreign domination in the local economy, we offer several policy recommendations for reviving home businesses and enhancing domestic welfare in Macau. It is suggested that enforceable laws should be made to prevent the foreign firms with cross-market operations from stealing away Macau customers, that differential taxes on casino operators and income taxes on player winnings should be chosen to support Chinese-owned casinos and curb pathological gambling, and that a sovereign wealth fund should be established to stop too much of Chinese gaming money from being lost too fast and foster Macau's economic autonomy by reducing its overreliance on foreign concerns for output growth.