Endogenous Growth in a Dependent Economy with Traded and Nontraded Capital

The equilibrium growth path for this economy depends upon the relative sectoral capital intensities of the two production functions. If the nontruded sector is relatively intensive in traded capital , both the relative price of nontraded output and the price of installed capital always remain at their respective steady-state levels. Traded capital and aggregate wealth are always on their respective steady-state growth paths. Nontraded capital undergoes transitional dynamics, ultimately converging to the growth rate of traded capital and an equilibrium ratio of traded to nontraded capital. If the sectoral intensities are reversed, both asset prices will follow transitional adjustment paths.     

Credit market imperfection,labor supply complementarity,and output volatility

This paper argues that output volatility depends on the degree of credit market imperfection. In the early stages of financial development, agents are constrained in their borrowing ability. As a result, the individual savings, affected by the labor supply, play a dual role in the economy, having repercussions on the interest rate. On the one hand, high savings imply high investment, low marginal product of capital and thus low interest rate. On the other hand, high savings affect the agents' ability to run highly productive investment projects, which increases the interest rate. When the former effect is dominant, a dynamic complementarity between individual and aggregate labor supply arises. This leads to a local and global indeterminacy of equilibrium paths. If the borrowing constraint is relaxed, the complementarity between individual and aggregate labor supply decisions weakens, equilibrium becomes globally unique and the possibility of having aggregate fluctuations in output disappears.     

Monetary policy under flexible exchange rates: When is expansion contractionary?

This paper studies whether the observed instability in the effects of monetary policy could be due to the way in which the behavior functions have been specified in an open economy context. Accordingly, special emphasis is on the specification of the behavior functions to correspond to their foundations in closedeconomy macrotheory. The demand for real money balances, in terms of the expenditure basket of goods, is specified as a function of income in terms of the same basket. Imports are specified as a function of expenditures, being functionally part of expenditures. The supply of labor is specified as a function of the expenditure price.It is shown that the exchange rate overshoots but output declines, to eventually rise above its original level in response to monetary expansion in the real wage model. In the money wage model, output and the exchange rate overshoot their steady-state levels if the expansion eventually leads to an increase in nominal wealth. If it leads to a decrease, both variables undershoot. However, if interest payments on foreign securities are not small relative to the trade balance, many of the effects are reversed. Thus the overshooting result is far from robust even in a standard model with an exogenous money supply.     

The effects of unions and strikes on the rate of growth of total factor productivity in Canada

In this paper, the performance of the New Keynesian IS curve for the G7 countries is assessed. It is found that there is an IS puzzle for both the purely backward-looking as well as for the forward-looking IS curve. The real interest rate does not have a significantly negative effect on the output gap. Based on an extended specification of the IS curve, also including asset prices and monetary aggregates, a significantly negative interest rate effect on aggregate demand is found for all countries. This finding suggests that a richer specification of the IS curve in empirical work may be necessary in order to obtain an unbiased estimate of the effect of monetary policy on aggregate demand.     

Capital Wealth Taxation: Theory and Application

Using an ls model analysis, the economic effects of implementing a modest taxation rate on capital wealth (3%) are found to be basically favorable: slightly higher output, lower inequality as measured by various Gini coefficients, and higher social welfare according to the three major social welfare functions—Bentham, Nash and Rawls. Implementing capital wealth taxation enables a compensating reduction in the labor-income taxation rate. The single most important consequence of this change is increased labor output among the wealthiest households, whose labor productivity is highest. Even though labor output is reduced among less-wealthy households, the overall effect on aggregate output is positive.     

Why progressive redistribution can hurt the poor

Recent macroeconomic research discusses credit market imperfections as a key channel through which inequality retards growth: With convex technologies, progressive transfers increase aggregate output because marginal returns become more equalized across investment opportunities. We argue that this reasoning may not hold in general equilibrium. Since the investment functions are concave in wealth, reducing inequality increases capital demand and the interest rate. Hence, through the impact on capital costs, shifting wealth from the rich to the middle class depletes the poorest investors' access to credit. But because the poor face the highest marginal returns, the net effect on output may be negative. We find, however, that redistributing towards the bottom-end of the distribution has a clear positive impact. Finally, we discuss the implications of our theoretical findings for future empirical research.     

Housing prices,stock prices and the US economy

This paper studies the relationship between housing prices, stock prices, interest rates and aggregate output in the US using monthly data from 1993 to 2014. Evidence from causality tests and a variance decomposition procedure suggest that stock prices have a much larger effect on aggregate output in the US economy than do either housing prices or interest rates. Instead, the wealth effect created by changes in stock prices has a relatively large impact on US aggregate output. Separate estimations and variance decompositions for the sample periods 1993–2001, 2002–2008 and 2009–2014 show that the impact of housing prices relative to stock prices has been waning over time.     

Variability in the effects of uncertainty shocks: New stylized facts from OECD countries

This study examines variability in the effects of uncertainty shocks using a panel of international data. It first evaluates variability in the effects of uncertainty shocks by applying rolling sample and time-varying parameter Vector Autoregression models to US data covering the past 70 years. The results reveal that the effects of uncertainty shocks on the US economy have changed substantially over time. First, the negative effect of uncertainty shocks on the output decreased until the recent period, in which monetary policy rules are constrained by the zero lower bound. Second, contrary to the negative aggregate demand interpretation in the recent literature, uncertainty shocks acted as a negative aggregate supply shock in the earlier periods. From the past 50 years’ data for 12 small open economies, I find that the negative effect of uncertainty shocks on output has increased, contrary to the US case. Additionally, the exchange rate and inflation responses are heterogeneous across countries, and the country’s commodity exporter or safe haven status is critical in determining the sign of these responses. Finally, the increased vulnerability of small open economies to uncertainty shocks is associated with an increase in international trade.     

WEALTH,ASSET PORTFOLIO,MONEY DEMAND AND POLICY RULE

I look at the linkages between monetary policy and asset wealth using quarterly data for the USA. I show that a positive interest rate shock leads to a fall in aggregate wealth and an important change in portfolio composition: housing wealth gradually decreases, but the effects are very persistent; and financial wealth quickly shrinks, but the impact is short‐lived. I also find that the money market can be characterized as follows: (i) the money demand has a large interest elasticity and a small output elasticity; and (ii) the estimated monetary policy reaction function highlights the special focus given by the central bank to developments in monetary aggregates. These features call for an approach whereby monetary authorities put more emphasis on tracking wealth developments, in particular, given the asset portfolio rebalancing between money holdings and financial and/or housing assets.     

Trend-reverting fluctuations in the life-cycle model

Aggregate time series provide evidence of short-term dynamic adjustment that appears to be governed by complex or negative real eigenvalues. This finding is at odds with the predictions of reasonably parameterized, convex one-sector growth models with complete markets. We study life-cycle economies in which aggregate saving depends non-trivially on the distribution of wealth among cohorts. If consumption goods are weak gross substitutes near the steady-state price vector, we prove that the unique equilibrium of a life-cycle exchange economy converges to the unique non-monetary steady state via damped oscillations. We also discuss examples and extensions.     

Growth Effects of Bubbles in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper examines the possibility of the existence of bubbles and their effects on the growth rate by using an endogenous growth model. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of steady-state equilibrium with bubbles is provided. If non-zero rates of the useless asset supply are allowed, a steady-state equilibrium with bubbles exists even if the growth rate of the bubbleless equilibrium is lower than the market interest rate. The growth rate in the steady state with bubbles depends positively on the supply rate of the useless asset. Dynamic properties of bubbles are also analysed.
JEL Classification Numbers: E52, O41, O42.     

OPTIMAL MONETARY POLICY AND ASSET PRICE MISALIGNMENTS

This paper analyses the relationship between monetary policy and asset prices in the context of optimal policy rules. The transmission mechanism is represented by a linearized rational expectations model augmented for the effect of asset prices on aggregate demand. Stabilization objectives are represented by a discounted quadratic loss function penalizing inflation and output gap volatility. Asset prices are allowed to deviate from their intrinsic value due to momentum trading. We find that in the presence of wealth effects and inefficient markets, asset price misalignments from their fundamentals should be included in the optimal interest rate reaction function.     

The real balance effect and the non-neutrality of money in a simple model of a small open economy

The paper examines the implications of the real balance effect for the neutrality of money in a small open economy model which contains an explicit treatment of aggregate supply. Two specific results emerge. First, an unanticipated monetary expansion is neutral in both the long and short runs, whilst an anticipated increase in the money supply has real short-run effects. Secondly, the non-neutrality associated with an anticipated monetary expansion manifests itself in a fall in output and employment during the transition to the new steady-state.     

The length of the production period and effective stabilization policy

This paper presents an example of policy relevance in a simple macroeconomic model with continuous market clearing and rational expectations. When the length of the production period is non-zero, the real interest rate enters as an argument of the aggregate supply function. Hence any aggregate demand policy which manipulates the real rate of interest may have direct effects on the evolution of output and employment. In these circumstances, fiscal policy may well be an effective stabilization policy tool. However, the optimal setting of the fiscal policy instrument may not correspond to that suggested by the Keynesian conventional wisdom.     

Incentives and performance in the presence of wealth effects and endogenous risk

Two of the most widely tested predictions of agency theory are that there exists a negative association between an agent's pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) and the risk of output, and that PPS enhances performance. Empirical evidence has been mixed. This paper proposes a new utility function and develops a model that introduces a “wealth effect” and also allows the agent to control the (idiosyncratic) risk of output. When risk is endogenous, the paper shows that the two predictions may not hold.     

总需求和总供给冲击对我国失业和产出动态关系的影响分析

在我国的失业产出关系中,短期内,总供给冲击是产出波动的主要来源,总需求冲击则是失业波动的主要来源,总需求冲击和总供给冲击共同破坏了产出失业之间反向变化关系,但是总需求冲击的破坏作用更多一些。在长期,总需求冲击对产出没有影响,总供给冲击对产出有显著的正的影响,总需求冲击在长期对失业没有影响,但总供给冲击在长期会对失业产生不利影响,即正的供给冲击的累积影响所带来的产出增加在长期使我国的失业率上升。     

When is money neutral under flexible exchange rates?

The paper studies the conditions for the neutrality of money under flexible exchange rates in an extended real-wage Mundell–Fleming model, with special emphasis on the specification of the behavior functions to correspond to their foundations in closed-economy macrotheory.It is shown that monetary expansion causes output first to decline, to eventually rise above its original level. However, if interest earnings on foreign securities dominate the trade balance in the expression for the exchange rate, monetary expansion leads to an appreciation of the exchange rate, while having an expansionary output effect. Money is neutral in the long run if either the wealth effect or foreign interest payments are abstracted from; if both are abstracted from, it is neutral also in the short run. Short and long-run neutrality results also if wealth consists only of foreign securities. The above responses hold both for net creditors and – with a minor qualification – debtors.     

Perpetual youth and endogenous labor supply: A problem and a possible solution

In the “perpetual youth” overlapping-generations model of Blanchard and Yaari, if leisure is a “normal” good then some agents will have negative labor supply. We suggest a solution to this problem by using a modified version of Greenwood, Hercowitz and Huffman’s utility function. The modification incorporates real money balances, so that the model may be used to analyze monetary as well as fiscal policy. In a Walrasian version of the economy, we show that increased government debt and increased government spending raise the interest rate and lower output, while an open-market operation to increase the money supply lowers the interest rate and raises output.     

STOCKS AND DEPRECIATION OF HUMAN CAPITAL: NEW EVIDENCE FROM A PRESENT-VALUE PERSPECTIVE

Responding to a perceived growing interest in human wealth estimates, this paper offers a framework for measuring the aggregate stock of human capital and then implements the procedure for the United States male population age 14 to 75. Unlike previous estimates of human wealth that are based upon historical or resource costs, these estimates measure the capital stock as the discounted resent-value of expected lifetime returns. In the estimation, returns are equated with earnings data from the 1970 U.S. Census 15 percent Public Use Sample for out-of-school males, adjusted for employment and survival probabilities, adjusted for an assumed exogenous growth in future earnings, and discounted at 7.5 percent.
We provide cross-sectional estimates of individual stocks of human capital by age and educational attainment, as well as expected lifetime wealth profiles for individuals by level of education. These individual profiles can be used to obtain direct estimates of age-specific depreciation which suggest human capital is subject to significant and prolonged appreciation before nearly straight-line depreciation begins around middle age. This finding is all the more significant since resource-cost estimates of human capital which must assume a depreciation pattern to obtain stocks have always imposed a much faster rate much sooner.
Finally, an aggregate estimate of the stock of human capital for all males is supplied and its sensitivity to the choice of the discount rate, tax laws, and expected exogenous growth is analyzed. This seemingly-conservative stock estimate is then compared to a much lower resource-cost estimate offered recently by John Kendrick. A discount rate over 20 percent would be needed to equate the two measures. In trying to reconcile the two figures, we raise some new questions about the validity of both approaches for human capital accounting.     

Income and wealth distribution in a simple model of growth

Summary. This paper studies a deterministic one-sector growth model with a constant returns to scale production function and endogenous labor supply. It is shown that the distribution of capital among the agents has an effect on the level of per-capita output. There exists a continuum of stationary equilibria with different levels of per-capita output. If the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is large, a higher output level can be achieved when income inequality is great, that is, when the income distribution is strongly dispersed. If the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is low, the reverse relation holds. The paper shows that countries with identical production technologies and identical preferences may have different GDP levels because wealth is distributed differently among their inhabitants. Received: January 29, 1999; revised version: October 4, 1999