Elementary Index Bias: Evidence for the Euro Area from a Large Scanner Dataset

We provide evidence on the effect of elementary index choice on inflation measurement in the euro area. Using scanner data for 15,844 individual items from 42 product categories and 10 euro area countries, we compute product category level elementary price indexes using eight different elementary index formulas. Measured inflation outcomes of the different index formulas are compared with the Fisher ideal index to quantify elementary index bias. We have three main findings. First, elementary index bias is quite variable across product categories, countries and index formulas. Second, a comparison of elementary index formulas with and without expenditure weights shows that a shift from price only indexes to expenditure weighted indexes would entail at the product level multiple percentage points differences in measured price changes. And finally, we show that elementary index bias is quantitatively more important than upper level substitution bias.     

Asymmetry and the Problem of Aggregation in the Euro Area

This paper highlights the implications for a single monetary policy when key economic relationships are nonlinear or asymmetric at a disaggregate level. Using data for the EU and OECD countries we show that there are considerable non-linearities and asymmetries in the Phillips and Okun curves. High unemployment has relatively limited effect in pulling inflation down while low unemployment can be much more effective in driving it up. Downturns in the economy are both more rapid and sustained in driving unemployment up than recoveries are in bringing it down. There is considerable variety in these relationships and IS curves across not just countries but also sectors and regions.     

Evaluation of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve: evidence from the Euro Area and United States

Empirical relevance of inflation expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) is highly controversial in the macroeconomics literature. With this in mind, this article evaluates the purely forward-looking NKPC useful for policy analysis with respect to their abilities to account for the dynamic relationship between output and inflation. Our findings show that the NKPC heavily relying on firms’ forward-looking behaviour is hardly supported by the Euro Area and the US data. The failure of the NKPC in matching the data is consistently observed across the sub-samples divided before and after the early 1980s. For comparison, we also investigate the performance of the hybrid NKPC and the traditional backward-looking Phillips curve associated with ad hoc price indexation assumptions.     

The relevance and relative robustness of sources of inflation bias in Pakistan

We empirically examine the relevance and relative robustness of stabilization and non-stabilization sources of inflation bias for the typical discretionary monetary policy strategy of Pakistan. First, the stabilization and non-stabilization sources of inflation bias are identified, and their proxy variables are constructed. Second, a robustness evaluation strategy is developed based on bivariate and multivariate analysis of cointegrating relationships among inflation bias indicators and potential sources thereof to determine their long-term relevance and relative robustness or fragility. The stabilization sources of inflation bias such as exploitation of the inflation output trade-off for growth stimulation and the central bank’s preference for growth stabilization are the most relevant and relatively robust sources of inflation bias vis-à-vis the non-stabilization sources. Among the non-stabilization sources, only openness is partially relevant but is fragile.     

Inflation Dynamics in the Euro Area and the Role of Expectations

This paper examines the empirical performance of the New Keynesian Phillips curve and its hybrid specification in the euro area. Instead of imposing rational expectations, direct measures, i.e. OECD forecasts, are used as empirical proxies for economic agents’ inflation expectations. Real marginal costs are proxied by three alternative measures. The results suggest that once the rational expectations hypothesis is relaxed and directly measured expectations are used, the European inflation process can be modeled using the forward-looking New Keynesian Phillips curve. However, when allowing for possible non-rationalities in expectations, inflation can be modeled more accurately by the hybrid Phillips curve with the additional lagged inflation term. In this approach, output gap turns out to be at least as good as labor income share as a proxy for real marginal cost. Moreover, the inflation process seems to have become more forward-looking in the recent years of low and stable inflation.The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bank of Finland. Special thanks are due to the editor, two anonymous referees, Juha Tarkka, Jouko Vilmunen and Matti Virén for useful comments. I am also grateful to David Mayes and Geoffrey Wood for helpful suggestions and to Heli Tikkunen for excellent research assistance. For their constructive comments, I would also thank participants in the conference on the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network at the ECB, which was held in Frankfurt in December 2003.     

Financial integration and the construction of historical financial data for the Euro Area

Time series analysis for the Euro Area requires the availability of sufficiently long historical data series, but the appropriate construction methodology has received little attention. The benchmark dataset, developed by the European Central Bank for use in its Area Wide Model (AWM), is based on fixed-weight aggregation across countries with historically distinct monetary policies and financial markets of varying international importance. This paper proposes a new methodology for producing back-dated financial series for the Euro Area, that is based on the time-varying distance of periphery countries from core countries with respect to monetary integration. Historical decompositions of the residuals of vector autoregressive models of the Euro Area economy are then used to explore and compare the monetary policy implications of using the new methodology versus the use of AWM fixed weight series.     

Fiscal multipliers in downturns and the effects of Euro Area consolidation

We estimate the impact of the fiscal consolidation actions in the Euro Area between 2011 and 2013 on output and public finances. We identify the discretionary fiscal consolidation effort based on new data by the European Commission. We combine these data with robust estimates from a rich meta-regression analysis on multipliers for various fiscal measures under different business cycle regimes. The frontloaded consolidation came at a considerable cost with an output loss of 7.7% and only a small gain to the primary balance of 0.2% of GDP. Backloading would have been much less costly due to lower multipliers.     

地方政府支出有偏性、企业融资约束与经济结构失衡

文章基于地方政府视角下困扰当前中国经济增长的结构性现实问题,根据1993—2012年的中国省际年度数据,借鉴 Bernanke 等(1999)和 Fernández-Villaverde(2010)的分析思路,运用动态随机一般均衡模型,实证研究了经济结构失衡①与由地方政府支出有偏性引起的政府投资增加之间的内在逻辑关系。研究发现：(1)伴随着经济增长,东、中、西部的社会投资占 GDP 的比重不断地提高,而居民消费和劳动收入占 GDP 的比重则呈下降趋势,这些经济结构失衡的表现与由地方政府支出有偏性引起的政府投资增加是共存的。(2)通过对大企业模型、中小企业模型和粘性价格模型进行的模拟比较分析发现,地方政府发展经济的目的促使其支出行为表现为有偏性,引发了政府投资较大幅度的增加;基于融资约束,中小企业的投资增幅不大,而大企业投资高涨,引致了地方经济结构失衡的加剧,而在这传导机制中政府投资的正外部性、企业融资约束和金融摩擦担当重要角色。     

Controllability and Persistence of Money Market Rates along the Yield Curve: Evidence from the Euro Area

Abstract. Controllability of longer‐term interest rates requires that the persistence of their deviations from the central bank's policy rate (i.e. the policy spreads) remains sufficiently low. This paper applies fractional integration techniques to assess the persistence of policy spreads of euro area money market rates along the yield curve. Independently from anticipated policy rate changes, there is strong evidence for all maturities that policy spreads exhibit long memory. We show that recent changes in the operational framework and the communication strategy of the European Central Bank (ECB) have significantly decreased the persistence of euro area policy spreads and, thus, have enhanced the ECB's influence on longer‐term money market rates.     

The recent growth of the internet and changes in household-level demand for entertainment

This paper investigates whether the recent growth of the Internet complements or substitutes for consumption of existing entertainment goods. Applying a difference-in-differences approach to the Consumer Expenditure Survey, I find varying degrees of potential substitutability between Internet growth and consumer expenditures across different entertainment goods. For most goods, these negative effects appear to be sensitive to changes in specifications. In contrast, the negative effect on recorded music expenditure is statistically significant and robust to different specifications.     

The role of ageing in the growth of government and social welfare spending in the OECD

Government expenditure as a share of GDP in the OECD rose at an annual growth rate of 1.02% in the period between 1970 and 1997. Government spending has increased most on functions particularly demanded by elderly population: social welfare, health and defence. Ageing is the main driving force of the growth of government spending, followed by relative prices and population. However, we also find that the other age groups react to ageing, thereby preventing increases in benefits per retired persons and that institutional reforms have been successful at reducing the impact of ageing on pensions in recent years.     

The role of factor substitution in the theory of economic growth and income distribution: Two examples

While much empirical evidence suggests that the Cobb–Douglas production function may be a reasonable benchmark for aggregate analysis, we argue that the practice, particularly prevalent in contemporary growth theory, of adopting the Cobb–Douglas technology, may lead to misleading implications. Using two examples, we show that key implications of the models are highly sensitive to small deviations of the elasticity of substitution from unity. The first employs the standard neoclassical model and emphasizes the sensitivity of the speed of convergence to small changes in the elasticity of substitution. This in turn has profound consequences for wealth and income distribution. The second deals with foreign aid and highlights how the relative merits of “tied” versus “untied” aid are also very sensitive to the elasticity of substitution.     

我国政府财政支出结构与经济增长关系实证分析

财政支出与经济增长之间存在一定的关系,对此问题的研究,有利于合理安排财政支出的结构,从而保证其对经济增长发挥更大的促进作用.文章基于柯布一道格拉斯生产函数的分析框架并以改进的经济模型,通过对我国1978-2006年相关数据的实证检验,发现其在财政支出结构中存在失衡,进而结合我国的实际情况,给出财政支出结构优化的方案.     

A Theoretical Basis for the Consideration of Spending Thresholds in the Analysis of Fiscal Referendums

This paper concerns the political economy of budget balances and focuses on fiscal referendums. It specifically suggests – on the basis of theoretical arguments –that any analysis of fiscal referendums must take their spending thresholds into account. Thus, it claims that mandatory fiscal referendums can impose greater constraints than optional fiscal referendums. In conclusion, various recommendations based on this observation are proposed.JEL classification: D70, H72.     

A Head-to-Head Comparison of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States*

We examine the composition of augmented household wealth (i.e., the sum of net worth and pension wealth) in the United States and Germany. Pension wealth makes up a considerable portion of household wealth, of about 48 percent in the United States and 61 percent in Germany. When pension wealth is included in household wealth, the Gini coefficient falls from 0.889 to 0.700 in the United States, and from 0.755 to 0.508 in Germany. If the wealth shares in Germany were the same as in the United States, this would lead to a 12.6 percent increase in the Gini coefficient in the augmented wealth distribution in Germany.     

我国服务价格与物价总水平波动互动关系研究

通过采用1992～2011年全国居民消费价格总水平、服务价格上涨率时间序列数据,建立VAR模型,运用脉冲响应函数和预测方差分解的方法对服务价格波动和我国物价总水平波动互动关系进行实证研究。计量结果表明,服务价格波动与我国物价总水平波动间存在单向因果关系,服务价格波动是我国物价总水平波动的格兰杰原因。服务价格波动1%,会带来物价总水平0.5902%的波动。VAR模型的动态分析表明,服务价格波动对我国物价总水平波动约有5年的影响。方差分解的结果说明服务价格波动对我国物价总水平波动的贡献率最大达到38.4%。要防止我国物价总水平大幅度波动,政府需要更加重视产业价格政策。     

The Residency Discount for Rents in Germany and the Tenancy Law Reform Act 2001: Evidence from Quantile Regressions

Most countries show a residency discount in rents for sitting tenants. In the wake of strong rent increases and housing shortages, Germany implemented a reform in 2001 to curtail rent increases. Based on linked housing‐tenant data for Germany, this paper estimates panel OLS and quantile regressions of rents within tenancies. The results show that rents deflated by the CPI increase strongly from 1984 until the reform in 2001, and there is a reversal in the trend afterwards. Before the reform, there is a significant residence discount which decreases in absolute value with tenure. The reform reduces rents, in particular for expensive apartments and for new leases. There is no residency discount after the reform.     

财政支农支出总量及结构与农业经济增长的关系——基于1980—2005年中国数据的实证分析

本文在C-D生产函数的框架下,利用1980—2005年我国政府财政支农支出和农业GDP的相关数据,对财政支农支出的总量和结构对农业经济增长的关系进行了实证分析。结果表明:政府财政支农支出总量对农业经济增长具有显著的正效应,即财政支农支出总量每增长1个百分点,农业GDP将增长0.3087个百分点;目前我国财政支农支出与农业经济增长之间存在一定的结构性偏差。因此,政府应在增加财政支农支出总量的同时,不断优化财政支农支出结构,以提高农业经济增长效率。     

新形势下我国货币政策的传导绩效及其优化

本课题坚持货币政策短期有效的命题，同时也强调，影响我国货币政策绩效的主要是长期因素。未到位的制度转轨引致包括短期因素在内的综合因素积累，在经济转型期以内生性通货萎缩为释解。其根源在于经济结构和投融资体制广泛存在的结构性矛盾和扭曲，削弱了货币政策的传导绩效。一方面，传统的货币政策传导途径处于梗阻状态；另一方面，现有货币政策传导架难以适应资本市场迅速发展、广泛的货币替代等新形势发展，货币政策的外部约束加强。提高货币政策有效性首先要解决的是通货萎缩的内生性问题，其核心在于重建适应于经济结构变化的投融资制度，在政策层面，应该搭配好财政政策与货币政策。     

和谐劳动关系评价指标体系的构建及对上海的分析

以上海的调查数据为基础,从收入保障、劳动环境、权益实现、技能发展等四个方面初步构建劳动关系和谐状况评价指标体系,在资料的可获得性、特异性、敏感性、代表性、全面性、简明性六大原则的指导下,用包括变异系数法、样本聚类和相关分析法、指标聚类法、德尔菲法等主观和客观方法对指标体系进行了筛选和验证。将建立的评价指标体系用于对上海不同行业和不同性质企业的劳动关系和谐状况作评估,在两种划分标准下,可以合理地将上海市的企业分别分为三类,即劳动关系和谐状况良好、一般和较差。