FORECASTING AND POLICY EVALUATION IN ECONOMIES WITH RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS: THE DISCRETE TIME CASE*

Several techniques for solving dynamic rational expectations models have been proposed. This paper puts forward an alternative method for discrete time models, which is significantly simpler to use in practice. That solution is used to derive and compute optimal policy selections (incorporating ‘noncausal’ effects) which, by exploiting the discrete time framework, are also time consistent when sequentially reoptimized. Those decisions are shown to contain an optimal open loop component plus an innovations dependent correction mechanism. A numerical example is used to verify these properties, and to demonstrate the superiority of this policy selection technique over recursive methods (e.g. dynamic programming).     

FISCAL POLICY RULES AND THE SUSTAINABILITY OF PUBLIC DEBT IN EUROPE*

The sustainability of public debt is interpreted as the result of the interaction of fiscal policy with the economic environment, and not as a statistical concept as in most of the recent literature. If debt is not to explode over time, policymakers have to respond to the changing conditions in the macroeconomic environment. This article defines the conditions that will ensure compliance of fiscal policy with the intertemporal budget constraint in the context of Europe's fiscal policy rules. The empirical part of the article reveals that European public debt is sustainable in this respect, but questions regarding long‐run liquidity requirements remain unresolved.     

世界第三产业与产业结构演变规律的分析

本文从经济发展、发展阶段和第三产业内部结构等方面分析了亚洲“四小龙”产业结构的演变趋势,从产值结构、就业结构和标准模型等方面探讨了世界第三产业与产业结构的演变规律。     

BILATERALISM IN THE INTERWAR WORLD ECONOMY*

Discriminatory protectionist policies in the 1930s are assumed to have led to a collapse of multilateral trading patterns. This paper examines the trends in bilateralism during the interwar period for a sample of ten countries. The findings show that, with the exception of Germany between 1934 and 1938, the level of bilateralism fluctuated but did not see a significant trend increase in the period of increased protectionism during the 1930s.     

THE LIQUIDITY TRAP,THE REAL BALANCE EFFECT,AND THE FRIEDMAN RULE*

This article studies the behavior of the economy and the efficacy of monetary policy under zero nominal interest rates using a model with population growth that nests, as a special case, the conventional specification in which there is a single infinitely lived representative agent. The article shows that with a growing population, monetary policy has distributional consequences that give rise to a real balance effect, thereby eliminating the liquidity trap. These same distributional effects, however, can also work to make many agents much worse off under zero nominal interest rates than they are when the nominal interest rate is positive.     

REAL PRODUCT AND PRICE COMPARISONS BETWEEN LATIN AMERICA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD

The purpose of this article is to add 12 Latin American countries to the Phase III of the United National International Comparisons Project (ICP). The data for Latin America was obtained through ECIEL. It has been demonstrated that the exchange rates do not usually reflect the relative purchasing power of currencies. When low-income countries are compared to higher income countries the exchange rate conversion tends to understate the relative income of the lower income countries. This is true for the total GDP and even more so for the GDP components. In per capita terms it is found that for low income countries their income is more than twice as great as is indicated by the exchange rate conversion.     

INFLATION AND THE DISPERSION OF REAL WAGES*

The article studies the effects of inflation on real wage dispersion in a search‐monetary framework. The economy is characterized by frictions in both the goods and the labor markets. In the goods market, buyers and sellers bargain over prices, whereas in the labor market firms post wage offers. In equilibrium, a lower inflation rate increases the dispersion of real wages. This result is consistent with both the observed trends in wage dispersion and the inflation rate witnessed in the 1980s and the 1990s in the United States and the empirical literature linking reduced inflation to greater wage dispersion.     

FIRM HETEROGENEITY,RULES OF ORIGIN,AND RULES OF CUMULATION*

This article sheds light on the restrictive nature of rules of origin (ROO) and on the role of diagonal cumulation in mitigating the protectionist content of ROO. Empirical evidence suggests that diagonal cumulation has beneficial effects on trade—particularly among spoke countries. We show that these patterns can be reconciled with a theoretical setting where heterogeneous firms buy intermediate inputs from domestic and foreign sources. The model finds that switching from bilateral to diagonal cumulation relaxes the restrictiveness of the ROO and leads the least productive exporters to stop exporting.     

起点公平、过程公平、结果公平与分配公平满意度*

深入研究居民对现阶段分配公平满意程度的认知、判断与评价,对于政府制定科学合理的调控政策、促进分配公平、提高居民满意程度、维护社会和谐与稳定具有十分重要的意义。本文基于浙江省11个地区958份居民家庭问卷调查数据,对居民收入分配不平等程度与分配公平满意度现状进行统计分析,构建Ordered Probit模型,从起点公平、过程公平、结果公平等方面对分配公平满意度的主要影响因素进行实证研究。研究结果表明：现阶段收入分配不平等程度较大,但居民对收入分配公平满意度相对较高。起点公平、过程公平、结果公平、人力资本、物质资本、社会保障对分配公平满意度有显著的正向影响。其中人力资本、起点公平、结果公平、社会保障对分配公平满意度的正向影响程度较大,过程公平对分配公平满意度的正向影响程度次之,而家庭劳动力人数、物质资本对分配公平满意度的正向影响程度较小。这一研究结果提供了重要的政策启示。