不完全资本市场、预防性储蓄与通货膨胀的福利成本分析

本文假设不完全资本市场条件下个体的自我保险为持币的主要动机,在总体风险和个体风险的框架下,讨论了通货膨胀对异质个体福利的影响。研究表明:对于像中国这样一个有很强信贷约束的不完全资本市场国家,本方法比传统基于MIU和CIA的模型更能反映通货膨胀对中国居民福利的影响。传统的方法低估了对像中国这样的国家中个体的通货膨胀福利成本。此外研究还表明,平均失业期对个体造成的通货膨胀成本影响很大。那些没有储蓄计划个体的出现减少了所有个体的平均福利。通过对总体风险的讨论,我们发现较高的失业率(平均失业期)将大大增加通货膨胀的成本,而工作分享计划则是一种降低通货膨胀成本的好措施。     

不完全资本市场、预防性储蓄与通货膨胀的福利成本分析

本文假设不完全资本市场条件下个体的“自我保险”为持币的主要动机，在总体风险和个体风险的框架下，讨论了通货膨胀对异质个体福利的影响。研究表明：对于像中国这样一个有很强信贷约束的不完全资本市场国家，本方法比传统基于MIU和CIA的模型更能反映通货膨胀对中国居民福利的影响。传统的方法低估了对像中国这样的国家中个体的通货膨胀福利成本。此外研究还表明，平均失业期对个体造成的通货膨胀成本影响很大。那些没有储蓄计划个体的出现减少了所有个体的平均福利。通过对总体风险的讨论，我们发现较高的失业率（平均失业期）将大大增加通货膨胀的成本，而工作分享计划则是一种降低通货膨胀成本的好措施。     

最优财政和货币政策及其福利效应分析

本文建立了财政和货币政策协作的最优政策模型,并以中国经济为研究对象,以福利效应为最优政策的评估标准,研究了财政和货币政策协作的最优政策机制。分析表明:在Ramsey最优均衡下,财政和货币政策共同作用于通货膨胀和产出目标,以严格通货膨胀为目标的最优货币规则会使得政策的福利损失最小,但货币政策在产出目标、通货膨胀目标以及政策福利损失三者上不能同时兼顾;最优财政规则是趋向缩小收支差,从而趋近于福利损失最小。本文同时使用贝叶斯分析,对中国经济政策2005年第一季度至2009年第二季度的福利效应进行了评估,实证分析表明:样本期间政策的无条件福利损失处于波动状态,经济增长增加了家庭部门的条件福利损失,即经济增长导致跨期消费成本增加。     

通货膨胀福利成本与消费攀比

本文在一个引入消费攀比的McCallum-Goodfriend框架中,讨论了通货膨胀的福利成本。在政府开支由收入税、一次总付税和铸币税融资的假定下,消费攀比程度与通货膨胀福利成本之间的相关性受收入税率的影响。另外,本文所得到的福利成本要稍高于Lucas模型中的成本。本文还发现,当经济中不存在消费攀比时,最优收入税率和最优名义利率都等于零;反之,则最优名义利率等于零,最优收入税率不等于零。     

中国通货膨胀对社会福利影响的实证分析

通货膨胀究竟会给社会福利水平带来多大的影响,这是经济学者和各级政府所广泛关注的重要问题。本文基于双对数货币需求函数,结合中国1992—2004年的时间序列数据,通过应用计量经济学前沿方法得到货币需求的利率弹性和相应参数值,然后使用消费者剩余方法和变异补偿方法来具体估算中国通货膨胀对社会福利的影响。实证结果表明:将利率从14%降至3%会改善社会的福利水平,其数值相当于增加实际产出的0.67%;将利率从3%降至零带来的福利收益相当于增加实际产出的0.19%;通货膨胀越高,社会福利水平越低,因此,提高社会福利水平的一个重要手段是维持低通货膨胀.     

信用交易与通货膨胀的福利损失——基于货币搜寻理论的视角

不同于货币效用模型(MIU)和现金约束模型(CIA)引入货币的特定方式,货币搜寻模型具有货币更深刻的微观基础。本文拓展了FaigLi(2009)货币搜寻理论新古典一般均衡的框架,分析了信用交易对通货膨胀福利损失的影响。本文发现:一方面,信用交易使购买者的需求不受当期持有货币数量的约束,从而减少了通货膨胀带来的福利损失;另一方面,信用交易通过影响购买者的货币需求增加了福利损失。因此,信用交易对通货膨胀福利成本总的影响取决于信用交易的正效应和负效应哪种效应占优。校准模型后数值模拟结果显示,随着信用交易规模的增加,通货膨胀的福利损失是逐渐减小的。由本文的结论可知,推动我国金融市场不断发展,扩大信用交易的规模对提高国民的福利具有重要作用。     

通货膨胀福利成本与消费攀比

本在一个引入消费攀比的McCallum-Goodfriend框架中。讨论了通货膨胀的福利成本。在政府开支由收入税、一次总付税和铸币税融资的假定下，消费攀比程度与通货膨胀福利成本之间的相关性受收入税率的影响。另外，本所得到的福利成本要稍高于Lucas模型中的成本。本还发现，当经济中不存在消费攀比时，最优收入税率和最优名义利率都等于零；反之，则最优名义利率等于零，最优收入税率不等于零。     

我国通胀与经济增长放缓福利 成本的比较研究

经济理论和实践经验通常认为我国经济增长放缓的福利成本远高于通货膨胀的福利成本,因而“保增长”的重要性远高于“防通胀”。本文认为这一判断已经不再适用于我国当前情况,核心原因是当前家庭的财产积累水平较以往有了大幅度提高,通胀将通过财产再分配效应造成严重的社会福利损失。经过计算发现：在各组参数设定下,5%的通胀和经济增速下滑一个百分点所造成的社会总福利成本（对消费的补偿比例）分别平均是18%和59%;通胀福利成本与增长放缓福利成本之比平均为329%,相比之下,在不考虑财产再分配效应的计算方法中,该比例仅为约16%。这说明在中长期“保增长”和“防通胀”都具有重要的社会福利意义,因此宏观调控应该将二者都作为重要的政策目标。     

通货膨胀问题国外研究进展与评述

20世纪70年代以来通货膨胀的频发,成为严重困扰世界各国经济运行的主要难题之一,引发了众多国外学者对通货膨胀的广泛关注以及从宏观层面到微观基础层面的深入研究。本文主要从通货膨胀的福利成本、通货膨胀的不确定性、持续性和通货膨胀目标制四个方面入手,着重回顾与评论20世纪90年代尤其是21世纪以来的国外学者研究通货膨胀问题的成果,以期在把握通货膨胀问题研究的进展中,总结治理经验与合理借鉴应对政策。     

中国货币政策的福利损失及中介目标的选择——基于新凯恩斯DSGE模型的分析

文章运用新凯恩斯框架下的DSGE模型对中国货币政策的福利损失进行分析,研究表明:(1)名义利率对通货膨胀的反应越是敏感,则福利损失越小,因此,货币当局应该充分利用利率政策稳定价格水平;(2)名义利率对产出的反应越是敏感,则福利损失越大,因此,货币当局不宜运用利率政策影响经济增长速度;(3)利率平滑对福利的影响不大,货币当局的利率政策应该直接针对通货膨胀,而不应该追求利率本身的稳定;(4)在一定条件下,不同的利率政策规则造成的福利损失差别不大,货币当局可以从便利的角度出发,根据上期的通货膨胀率和产出水平来设定当期的名义利率;(5)与利率变动相比,货币供应量的变动造成福利损失更大,因此,货币政策的中介目标应该逐步由货币供应量转向利率。     

中国通货膨胀的福利成本研究

Inflation is always an important indicator to measure whether economy is stable and healthy. This paper provides a substantive survey of the research on the welfare cost of inflation, and uses the methods of consumer’s surplus and neo-classical general equilibrium models respectively to estimate the welfare cost of inflation in China. The results show that high inflation will cause huge welfare cost in China, so keeping low inflation is beneficial to the entire economic welfare of China. __________ Translated from Jingji Yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2007, (4): 30–42, 159     

WELFARE COST OF INFALTION IN A NEW KEYNESIAN MODEL

We study the welfare cost of inflation in a new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. Nominal prices and wages are subjected to Taylor‐style adjustments in the benchmark model. We find that the welfare cost of inflation in a new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model is much higher than its counterpart in a real business cycle model. We also find that the welfare cost of inflation increases linearly with the inflation rate with the introduction of monopolistic competition but rises faster as the inflation rate increases with the introduction of nominal rigidity. Alternative price and wage setting schemes, such as Rotemberg and Calvo‐style adjustments would yield welfare costs of moderate inflation that are 2–10 times higher.     

Welfare cost of inflation in a stochastic balanced growth model

There is a large and growing literature on the welfare cost of inflation. However, work in this area tend to find moderate estimates of welfare gains. In this paper we reexamine welfare costs of inflation within a stochastic general equilibrium balanced growth model paying a particular attention to recursive utility, portfolio balance effects, and monetary volatility and monetary policy uncertainty. Our numerical analysis shows that a monetary policy that brings down inflation to the optimum level can have substantial welfare effects. Portfolio adjustment effects seem to be the dominant factor behind the welfare gains.     

Welfare costs of shifting trend inflation

This paper studies the welfare consequences of exogenous variations in trend inflation in a New Keynesian economy. Consumption and leisure respond asymmetrically to a rise and a decline in trend inflation. As a result, an increase in the variance of shocks to the trend inflation process decreases welfare not only by increasing the volatilities of consumption and leisure, but also by decreasing their average levels. I find that the welfare cost of drifting trend inflation is modest and that it comes mainly from reduced average levels of consumption and leisure, not from their increased volatilities.     

Endogenous money,inflation, and welfare

This paper addresses the classic question: what are the welfare costs of inflation. We employ a model in which the ratios of currency to deposits and currency to reserves are endogenously determined. The model distinguishes quantitatively between three sources of welfare cost of inflation, and provides further estimates for potential welfare gains from improvements in transaction technologies. Estimates of the marginal cost of public funds associated with the inflation tax are compared both with that of labor taxation within the model and with those reported in the public finance and macro literature. We conclude that not only is inflation an inefficient source of government revenue, but also that, in the absence of lump-sum taxation, deflationary policies may be highly inefficient.     

Relative Prices and Inflation Stabilization

When price adjustment is sluggish, inflation is costly in terms of welfare because it distorts various kinds of relative prices. Stabilizing aggregate price inflation does not necessarily minimize these costs, but stabilizing a well‐designed core inflation minimizes the cost of relative price fluctuations and, thus, the cost of inflation.     

Reconsidering the welfare cost of inflation in the US: a nonparametric estimation of the nonlinear long-run money-demand equation using projection pursuit regressions

This paper, first, estimates the appropriate, log–log or semi-log, linear long-run money-demand relationship capturing the behavior US money demand over the period of 1980:Q1–2010:Q4, using the standard linear cointegration procedures found in the literature, and the corresponding nonparametric version of the same based on projection pursuit regression (PPR) methods. We then, compare the resulting welfare costs of inflation obtained from the linear and nonlinear money-demand cointegrating equations. We make the following observations: (i) the appropriate money-demand relationship for the period of 1980:Q1–2010:Q4 is captured by a semi-log function; (ii) based on the estimation of semi-log cointegrating equations, the welfare cost of inflation was found to at the most lie between 0.0131 % of GDP and 0.2186 % of GDP for inflation rates between 0 and 10 %, and; (iii) in comparison, the welfare cost of inflation obtained from the semi-log non-linear long-run money-demand function, derived using the PPR method, for 0–10 % of inflation ranges between 0.4930 and 1.9468 % of GDP. However, the standard errors associated with the welfare cost estimates obtained from PPR relative to the linear models tend to indicate that the nonlinear money demand provides more precise estimates of the welfare costs primarily for higher rates of inflation.     

The economics of the Phillips curve: Formation of inflation expectations versus incorporation of inflation expectations

This paper examines the theory of the Phillips curve, focusing on the distinction between “formation” of inflation expectations and “incorporation” of inflation expectations. Phillips curve theory has largely focused on the former. Explaining the Phillips curve by reference to expectation formation keeps Phillips curve theory in the policy orbit of natural rate thinking where there is no welfare justification for higher inflation even if there is a permanent inflation–unemployment trade-off. Explaining the Phillips curve by reference to incorporation of inflation expectations breaks that orbit and provides a welfare economics rationale for Keynesian activist policies that reduce unemployment at the cost of higher inflation.     

Measuring the contribution of durable goods to the welfare cost of inflation

In this paper, we measure the contribution of durable goods to the welfare cost of inflation, in the context of an endogenous growth model with durable and nondurable goods, where purchases of the latter require only a partial cash payment compared with the former. Unlike existing measures, our proposed welfare measure is computationally efficient and relatively easy to implement.We find that durability adds a significant component to the welfare costs of inflation.