Fear itself: How risk sensitive firms can give demand shocks bite

Many economists believe that recessions arise when aggregate demand is insufficient to support full employment. However, replicating this intuition within a real business cycle (RBC) model has proven surprisingly challenging. Rather than eliciting a contraction, lower consumer demand leads to greater household savings in many such models, fueling new investment and causing the economy to expand. The present paper proposes a novel way to resolve this apparent paradox: risk-averse firms. In the model to follow, cautious firms reduce their demand for investment prior to a recession. This contraction in the demand for capital overcomes the increased supply arising from consumer savings and restores intuitive business cycle behavior. In particular, the paper demonstrates that the model economy contracts when subjected to an uncertainty shock in consumer demand, mimicking a pre-recessionary environment in which firms, fearing a lack of orders, precipitate the downturn by reducing capital expenditures. These results are consistent with microeconomic evidence that uncertainty, particularly uncertainty about future demand, is the primary reason for firms shedding workers or scaling down operations in advance of an economic downturn. More generally, they imply that firm's attitudes towards risk shouldn't be ignored in modern macroeconomic models.     

Conflict,distribution, and finance in alternative macroeconomic traditions

Power and conflict are issues that loom large in the work of David Gordon. They are also issues that are largely absent in conventional macroeconomics. This paper shows how these concepts can be introduced within alternative macroeconomic traditions, and it shows how their significance depends on the particulars governing the construction of the macroeconomic process. The paper details the implicit economic process embedded in the new classical, neo-Keynesian, classical Marxist, and Kaleckian constructions of macroeconomics. It then develops a general post Keynesian model that fuses the insights of the classical Marxist and Kaleckian models regarding the significance of conflict and income distribution, with the insights of the neo-Keynesian model regarding the place of finance. Last, the paper argues that finance matters both for aggregate demand and as a worker discipline device. This represents a supply side channel for finance that links with modern new classical models that emphasize credit rationing     

Indeterminacy with no-income-effect preferences and sector-specific externalities

We examine a two-sector real business cycle (RBC) model with sector-specific externalities in which household utility exhibits no income effect on the demand for leisure. Unlike in the one-sector counterpart, indeterminacy can result with sufficiently high returns-to-scale in the investment sector. Moreover, the smaller the labor supply elasticity, the lower the level of externalities needed for indeterminacy. This finding is the opposite of that in all existing RBC-based indeterminacy studies. Finally, in contrast to previous sunspot-driven two-sector RBC models, our economy is able to match the stylized facts that sectoral labor inputs are positively correlated and consumption is procyclical.     

Teaching Inflation Targeting: An Analysis for Intermediate Macro

Over the last decade, many central banks have adopted policies known as inflation targeting. If intermediate-level macroeconomics students are to be prepared to think about current policy issues, it is important to provide them with an introduction to the macroeconomic implications of inflation targeting. Unfortunately, the standard aggregate demand-aggregate supply frameworks commonly used to teach intermediate macroeconomics are not well suited for this task because they are expressed in terms of output and the price level and because they fail to make explicit the policy objectives of the central bank. The author provides a simple graphical device involving the output gap and the inflation rate that overcomes these problems and that can be used to teach intermediate macroeconomics students about inflation targeting.     

Is ex‐ante ex‐post analysis irrelevant to Keynes's theory of employment?

Ex‐ante ex‐post analysis has become a standard tool in macroeconomics. Yet Keynes dismissed it. We argue that Keynes's dismissal of ex‐ante ex‐post analysis is not an oddity but an indication of the originality of his theory of employment compared to standard macroeconomics. First, the principle of effective demand does not amount to a process that determines employment and income at the point of intersection of the traditionally defined ex ante supply and demand functions. Second, the finance motive allowed Keynes to confirm the identity of aggregate supply and demand already asserted in The General Theory. This latter conclusion is puzzling, however, since the principle of effective demand presupposes the possibility of a discrepancy between supply and demand. We suggest that Keynes's theory of employment is linked to a theory of income distribution whereby profits are a redistributed share of factor income which is transferred to firms when prices exceed factor costs. The identity and the equilibrium condition then relate to separate measurements of income and output, factor cost and prices.     

The equity premium in a small open economy and an application to Israel

We show that the preferences suggested by Greenwood, Hercowitz and Huffman (GHH), which are quite common in real business cycle (RBC) models of small open economies, are not suited for reproducing both the business cycle and the equity premium facts of a small open economy. We show that by assuming a moderate degree of a wealth effect on labor supply, together with some limitations on labor supply (in the form of real wage rigidity), we can increase the volatility of the stochastic discount factor (SDF), thereby increasing the equity premium and improving the fit of the business cycle moments. We also find that under the aforementioned assumptions, a shock to the realized return on foreign bonds can help in reproducing the equity premium.     

Supply and demand factors in the output decline in East and Central Europe

What are the relative weights of supply and demand factors in generating the output declines observed in Poland during its transition to the market? And how important are the factors that fit under the rubric of “supply and demand” in comparison to other potential reasons for the output decline, especially adjustment away from the Soviet-style economic system? The initial decline seems to have been due to a combination of aggregate demand shocks associated with the stabilization, declines in inventory investment due to the transition from a shortage economy, and especially shifts in demand away from socialized sector industry towards other sectors of the economy. Growth has come primarily from expansion in new sectors, such as services and residential construction, and in new enterprises. The applicability of one-good macroeconomics is limited in understanding either the output decline or the subsequent growth in Poland.     

Aggregate demand shocks and economic growth

The traditional view of growth and fluctuations implies that aggregate demand shocks result in only transitory departures from trend or “normal” output, which is determined exclusively by aggregate supply factors. Using a simple dynamic framework for a less-developed economy, a series of models is developed to show that aggregate demand can have a permanent effect on economic growth. It is shown that even if the economy converges to some “normal” path, this path itself may be altered by large demand shocks, due to increasing returns and hysteresis effects in labor markets and balance of payments constraints. It is also shown that the economy may not converge to its “normal” path, in which case fiscal and monetary policy will have long-term effects on output and growth.     

新古典生产函数的质疑与货币量值的生产函数

新古典理论以生产函数和效用函数为基础,建立了技术关系的稀缺资源有效配置理论,其核心是表明商品和要素稀缺性的相对价格.生产函数在微观尚可应用,但并不能用于解释总量经济和经济增长与波动问题.尤其是总供给完全取决于实物生产函数的投入产出关系,这与总需求分析所采用的货币支出是不协调的.货币量值的生产函数的推导表明,总供给只是企业的货币成本函数而不联系到技术上的投入产出关系,而所有的国民收入核算中的货币量值都只是表明人们经济关系的名义变量而与实物的技术关系或生产函数是完全无关的.     

Intermediate Macroeconomics without the IS-LM Model

The IS-LM model is the primary model of economic fluctuations taught in intermediate-level undergraduate macroeconomics. Recent works by Taylor and Romer make a strong case for an alternative model, known as the aggregate demand-price adjustment (AD-PA) or the aggregate demand-inflation adjustment (AD-IA) model, as a better model of economic fluctuations. The author argues that the AD-PA model is superior to the IS-LM model for teaching about economic fluctuations in intermediate macroeconomics. He compares the perfomance of the two models in teaching about two important issues in current macroeconomics: the ineffectiveness of monetary policy in stimulating the 1990s Japanese economy and the rapid switch of the U.S. Federal Reserve from contractionary policy to expansionary policy in 2001.     

MARKUPS AND THE REAL EFFECTS OF VOLATILITY SHOCKS

This article studies the role of endogenous markups in the transmission of volatility shocks in real models. I design a variant of a small open economy model with volatility shocks and firm dynamics that gives rise to endogenous markups. I calibrate this model to match the business cycle facts in emerging economies and show that the impact of volatility shocks is substantially amplified if markups are endogenously time varying. Volatility shocks increase savings, due to precautionary motives, and markups, which act as a wedge that endogenously decreases real wages and labor supply with further negative aggregate dynamics that are absent in the models with constant markups.     

通过加总推出的总供给曲线

总供给曲线的推导是宏观经济学中的最重要内容之一。在大多数宏观经济模型中 ,在推导总供给曲线时 ,加总问题 (aggregationproblem)往往被忽略。一般认为 ,总供给曲线是各企业供给曲线的简单算术和或是一个代表性企业供给曲线的简单放大。但是 ,在现实中 ,各个企业是不同的。只有在非常严格的条件下 ,总供给曲线与企业供给曲线在性质上才是等价的。考虑到中国经济的制度性特点并在解决加总的一系列技术问题的基础上 ,本文推导出了在企业劳动生产率服从均匀分布情况下的总供给曲线。通过这种方法推出的总供给曲线具有许多传统总供给曲线所不具有的新性质。笔者希望本文能为进一步研究处于微观经济和宏观经济之间的往往被忽视的一块重要领域 (“中观经济领域”)做出贡献。     

Intertemporal production and intertemporal substitution in output supply and input demand

This article presents an intertemporal model of production with multiple inputs to investigate substitution opportunities facing firms over time. The firm’s intertemporal profit maximization problem is characterized with the familiar cost function, and various intertemporal substitution elasticities are delineated for output supply and input demand. The absence of intertemporal substitution in production can imply production smoothing, and allowance for intertemporal substitution in labour demand reinforces the prediction of the real business cycle model. For aggregate US manufacturing, we find substantial substitution in output supply and labour demand over time due to intertemporal changes in output price and wage rates.     

通货紧缩时期的宏观调控政策选择

通货紧缩是一种与通货膨胀相对应的宏观经济现象。表现为物价水平持续下跌,它既是一种货币现象,又是一种实体经济现象。通常发生在经济周期的经济收缩阶段。我们认为,中国已进入趋势性通货紧缩时期。总需求小于总供给导致物价水平持续下降,是导致出现通货紧缩的根本原因。当前我国宏观调控政策的取向是：应把治理通货紧缩作为宏观经济政策的基本目标。把扩张性的财政政策和货币政策作为中长期的宏观调控政策。同时应该加强宏观经     

财政困局下经济结构调整路径的再定位*

我国财政体制和经济社会发展环境的不协调等因素,导致当前甚至未来较长时间财政都将面临着总量上的收支矛盾和结构上的央地矛盾,财政陷入困局。政府主导的供给方结构调整对财政支出和减税要求较高,在财政困局下难以为继。因此,结构调整路径应定位于市场主导的需求方。经济下行周期中企业腾挪空间较小,政府仅通过减税等给企业松绑并不能帮助企业发展,而必须通过投资模式创新等激发总需求。为此,需要相应的财政变革。     

OPEC, rationality, and the macroeconomy

This paper builds a simple two-nation macro-model which includes a large manufacturing economy, such as the OECD and OPEC. Its distinguishing feature is that OPEC is a revenue-maximizing cartel who exploits the imperfectly elastic oil demand curve emerging from the rest of the world's use of imported oil as an intermediate good. Unlike the case of a small open economy facing OPEC, the large open economy is found to have a vertical aggregate supply curve. Consequently, anticipated macro-policies have no effect on real GNP. Moreover, micro-policies which induce the adoption of oil-saving technologies are also found to be neutral.     

技术冲击和劳动供给对经济波动的影响分析--基于可分劳动RBC模型的实证检验

文章根据国内外经济波动的不同特征,构建了用于研究中国经济波动的可分劳动RBC模型,并对改革开放以来的中国经济进行了实证检验,从供给角度考察技术冲击对中国经济波动的影响,并在RBC模型框架下分析了技术进步对中国劳动市场的影响。研究发现,一是在固定劳动和可分劳动RBC模型中,技术冲击可以解释中国经济波动的主要部分;二是可分劳动RBC模型的实证结果表明,劳动供给变动对经济波动的影响较小,技术进步对改革后的产出、居民消费和就业都产生了正向冲击效应。技术进步对就业增长效应较小,致使我国的劳动需求增长率明显小于劳动供给增长率,劳动市场供需严重不平衡,这也是导致就业波动较为平缓、失业问题日趋严峻的一个重要原因。     

Demand-Side Characteristics of the Learning Economy: A Preliminary Assessment

The aim of the paper is to redress the almost exclusive supply-side focus of the existing studies on the learning economy. We first survey those strands of the economic literature that highlight the importance of the demand-side for long-term growth, following which we narrow our focus to a specific aspect of contemporary aggregate demand—consumer demand for quality amenity—and the role it plays in the emergence of the learning economy. We then go on to examine some previously not considered preconditions that fuel the growth of the learning economy, namely on the demand-side and dynamic feedback loops between supply and demand.     

Wage rigidity and destabilizing spirals

This paper investigates the impact of real wage rigidity on the (de)stabilizing role of demand feedback. I show that destabilizing supply–demand feedback driven by countercyclical precautionary savings demand against uninsured unemployment risk is fundamentally a matter of rigid real wage adjustments over business cycles. Given the estimated wage rigidity consistent with aggregate labor market dynamics in the United States, the quantitative results suggest that the unemployment risk channel has a minor impact on aggregate volatility.     

Aggregate labor market fluctuations under news shocks

The standard RBC model fails to replicate the relationship between aggregate hours worked and average productivity. We propose a DSGE model that incorporates habit formation preferences, capital adjustment costs, and news shocks to solve the puzzle implied in the standard RBC model with only technological shocks. The aggregate labor supply curve is shifted due to the wealth effect caused by the variation of consumption under a news shock. Moreover, capital adjustment costs help amplify the variation of consumption, and thus the movement of the aggregate labor supply curve under the news shock. Also, the aggregate demand curve will be shifted, as it operates in the standard RBC model after the realization of the news shock. As a result of the joint movement of the aggregate labor supply curve and aggregate labor demand curve under the news shock, the model achieves a relationship quite close to the empirically observed relationship.