MEASURING NEW ZEALAND'S GDP 1865–1933: A COINTEGRATION-BASED APPROACH

Official and semi-official estimates of New Zealand's national income are available on an annual basis for the years since 1932. Retrospective, non-official, estimates are available from 1859. Chiefly these are constructed following Doblin's (1951) pioneering use of money stock data, velocity, and the implications of the Quantity Theory of Money, and include the estimates of Hawke (1975), Rankin (1992) and Cashin (1995).
This paper estimates New Zealand real GDP per capita with monetary data using valid, intervention-free, cointegration methods. The new measures avoid the ad hoc adjustments found in Rankin (1992), yet unlike Cashin (1995), they incoporate specific New Zealand monetary features. The new time series conform well with independent benchmarks and the historiography of the pre-1914 period. Alternatively, they suggest an interpretation of New Zealand's growth experience for years around World War One which differs from that of Australia, and from the findings of Rankin (1992) and Cashin (1995).     

REAL GDP IN THE SEVEN COLONIES OF AUSTRALASIA: 1861–1991

Using data on regional money stocks, a variant of Fisher's (1911) quantity theory of money identity, and a technique first suggested by Doblin (1951) and Friedman (1961), this paper presents the first consistently-based estimates of real GDP in each of the seven British colonies of Australasia for the period 1861–1991. Examination of the historical pattern of growth in the regional economies of Australasia has not previously been undertaken, due in particular to the dearth of data on aggregate incomes for the colonies (later states) of Australia. The data calculated here reveal the historical pattern of the domination of New South Wales, Victoria and New Zealand in real Australasian GDP, and the shrinkage of the cross-sectional dispersion of real per capita GDP in the seven colonies over this 13 1-year period.     

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF AUSTRALIAN GDP IN THE 19TH CENTURY

This paper summarises the results of a new comparison of the level of Australian and U.K. real product in the 1890s, obtained by the direct deflation of money values of GDP by relative prices. The object of the study was to provide a check on the existing comparisons, obtained by extrapolation of time series of real GDP, as shown, for example, in Maddison (1982). Existing estimates imply that in the 1890s Australian GDP per capita was about 50 percent higher in the U.K. and U.S.A. and more than twice that for the average of 12 other western countries. The present study suggests these results probably overstate Australia's real GDP, and that Australian real GDP per capita was 36 percent higher than the U.K. in 1891 and 3 percent higher in 1900. Personal consumption per capita was 15 percent higher in Australia than in the U.K. in 1891, but about the same level in 1900.
Although this study compares prices and GDP in the colony of New South Wales with those in the U.K., the colony may be taken as representative of Australia as a whole.¹     

Income velocity and non-GDP transactions in the UK

It is widely reported for many countries, including the UK, that income velocity has been highly variable around a declining trend in recent years. This paper advances the following hypothesis. The demand for credit and hence the broad money stock are influenced by total spending in the economy, rather than spending only on newly produced goods and services. Since total spending in the economy has generally increased relative to GDP (mainly because of asset transactions) credit and money have expanded more rapidly than GDP, with the resulting fall in income velocity. Using quarterly data from 1975 to 2008, we estimate a vector error correction with income velocity as the dependent variable and the ratio of total to GDP transactions as an explanatory variable. The results show substantial support for the hypothesis and raise (further) doubts about the information content of broad money aggregates for inflation targeting central banks.     

Would adopting the Australian dollar provide superior monetary policy in New Zealand?

Counterfactual experiments with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's core model provide some insight into the implications for New Zealand's economic performance over the 1990s, had it credibly fixed its currency to the Australian dollar. If New Zealand had faced the relatively more stimulatory Australian monetary conditions prevailing over the 1990s, then output growth may have been temporarily boosted. However, demand pressures would have probably been greater and inflation higher. In particular, results suggest that over the latter part of the 1990s annual inflation would have been approximately 1% point higher on average. Stochastic simulation experiments provide a vehicle to analyse what the implications of currency union might be more generally. Results suggest that if New Zealand were to lose its ability to set monetary policy independent of that set in Australia, then the variability of inflation and output would increase over the business cycle.     

货币冲击与中国经济波动——基于DSGE模型的数量分析

基于1993~2008年的季度数据,本文在一个包含Calvo价格粘性的新凯恩斯主义模型中,讨论了中国货币冲击与经济增长的关系。在假定货币政策通过调整货币供给增长实施的前提下,本文根据模型模拟和实际数据的对比以及脉冲响应函数分析得出以下结论:(1)货币并非我国经济波动根源,实际产出对货币供给具有一定反馈作用。(2)通货膨胀的顺周期性和领先增长表明中国经济周期存在总需求拉动的特性。物价波动在中短期主要由货币供应量波动引起。(3)货币政策对实体经济有效但效果有限,货币供给变动对投资的作用效力更大,对消费需求刺激有限。     

Testing long-run neutrality using intra-year data

Previous tests of the long-run neutrality hypothesis have generally relied on annual time series data. This paper analyses the long-run neutrality of money in Australia using different sources of intra-year data, which permits an examination of the effects of seasonality and the robustness of previous empirical results. A reduced form ARIMA model is used with both quarterly seasonally unadjusted and adjusted Australian real GDP and nominal money supply to test the neutrality hypothesis. Using two measures of money stock, namely M1 and M3, it is shown that the hypothesis is supported using M1 as the measure of money supply, while it is rejected using M3. Recent trends and developments in the money and credit markets in Australia provide a possible explanation of the sensitivity of the outcome to the measure of money stock employed in the analysis.     

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.     

我国双目标基础货币规则的设定

通过VEC模型研究发现,我国基础货币增长率、实际GDP增长率、CPI、货币流通速度之间具有趋势特征,存在显著相关性,基础货币的可控性与可测性良好且流通速度较为稳定;基础货币对实际GDP增长率偏差的反应程度要高于通货膨胀率偏差,需在规则设定中赋予更大的权重;能实现经济增长和物价稳定双重目标的基础货币规则,其目标值的设定可以是点或是区间,而区间目标既能体现规则的严肃性又能实现操作的灵活性,还能满足货币政策逆风向调节的本质特征。     

Stock prices and money velocity: a multi-country analysis

What kind of information do stock prices offer for predicting velocity? This paper develops previous work by Milton Friedman for the US economy and shows that in a panel of 25 countries a wealth effect derived from the stock market has negatively influenced the ratio of nominal income to a broad definition of money. Taking quarterly data for the period 1961–1998, the relationship holds in Japan, the UK and Switzerland; in Italy a substitution effect (away from money) has also been operating. Overall, these empirical findings indicate the presence of systematic influences of stock price fluctuations on money velocity and suggest that the repercussions of asset inflation and deflation on the behavior of monetary aggregates should be monitored. First version received: July 1998/Final version received: November 2000     

Accounting for Growth and Output Gaps: Evidence from New Zealand

We evaluate New Zealand's macroeconomic performance over the 1967–1996 period, which witnessed numerous economic reforms. Using both index–number and econometric techniques, we decompose nominal GDP growth and the output gap into contributions from price level changes, productivity growth and changes in factor utilisation. Changes in domestic prices accounted for four–fifths of the growth in nominal GDP, while capital accumulation and employment growth were the most important factors determining real–output growth. Deviations in the domestic price level around its long–run trend contributed most heavily to changes in the nominal output gap. The real gap was influenced in any year variously by deviations of the terms of trade and labour input from their long–run trends, as well as by productivity shocks.     

INCOME ESTIMATION FROM MONETARY DATA: FURTHER EXPLORATIONS

This note explores further the utility of national income estimates derived from monetary data, an issue recently revived in this journal by Professor Leff. Income estimates for New Zealand are extended back from 1918 to 1870 and it is argued that while such figures are not a substitute for more laboriously compiled product or factor reward estimates, they are a useful stop-gap in what is otherwise an historical vacuum.     

一个GDP动力学模型与货币金融政策

This article applies a dynamics approach in the research of monetary law of movement under the complex system of social economical operation, and characterizes the movement of money in a social institutional framework during GDP’s formation. Assuming that humans’ pursuit of the return of their money expenditure is a sensible course of nature, it defines the expression of money circulation velocity, and proceeds to deduce the basic differential equation of money circulation. By solving this equation, we can get the expression for a GDP dynamics model. After empirically testing the expression, this article draws a conclusion: GDP and the money in circulation (M₀) share the positive correlation when the monetary financial institution remains unchanged.      

我国M_2/GDP的动态增长路径、货币供应量与政策选择

本文试图求解我国M2/GDP的动态增长路径,并对与此相关的金融政策选择进行分析。研究发现,我国M2/GDP的变动路径具有Logistic曲线的基本形状,将经历先加速上升后增长速度逐渐减缓,最终趋于稳定状态的变化过程。本文估算了我国M2/GDP的增长上限及其变化拐点。研究还发现,M2/GDP的上升并不必然意味着通胀压力加大,只有M2/GDP偏离动态增长路径时,才会对通货膨胀产生影响。据此本文估算了2005年货币供应量的合理区间。本文认为,应继续实施稳健货币政策,合理确定货币总量增长速度,继续推进体制性改革等措施确保经济金融的稳定运行。     

The incremental time costs of children: An analysis of children's impact on adult time use in Australia

Abstract

Raising children takes both time and money. Scholars have sought convincing ways to capture the costs of children, but even when these estimates include indirect costs, such as mothers' foregone earnings, they fall short of the true time costs involved. This paper uses data from the 1997 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey to study how the allocation of time differs across households with varying numbers and ages of children and how households with children differ from those without children. It also examines the intra household division of time resources, showing how childcare, related unpaid work, and the total market and non-market workloads compare for a couple in the same household. It includes secondary activity in an analysis of total parental time commitments to give a more accurate picture of the time cost of children than is possible on the basis of analyzing “primary” activities alone.     

Complementary credit networks and macroeconomic stability: Switzerland's Wirtschaftsring

The Swiss Wirtschaftsring (“Economic Circle”) credit network, founded in 1934, provides residual spending power that is highly counter-cyclical. Individuals are cash-short in a recession, and economize by greater use of WIR-credits. A money in the production function (MIPF) specification implies that transactions in WIR form a stabilizing balance that makes up for the lack of ordinary currency. Thus, unlike the ordinary money, WIR money is negatively correlated with GDP in the short run. This implication is confirmed by empirical estimates. Such credit networks play a stabilizing role that should be considered in monetary policy.     

CHINA's REFORM PERIOD ECONOMIC GROWTH: HOW RELIABLE ARE ANGUS MADDISON's ESTIMATES?

Chinese economic growth statistics are controversial. In recent years they have been challenged on technical grounds as well as on suspicions of data falsification. Angus Maddison in a 1998 OECD study goes further in that he questions China's long-run growth statistics and proceeds to provide an alternative time series. His average annual real GDP growth rate for China in the reform period (1978 through 1995) is 2.39 percentage points below the official one. Angus Maddison's revisions were subsequently incorporated into the Penn World Tables; his GDP estimates for China, thus, have found their way into numerous cross-country studies. This paper critically examines the validity of Angus Maddison's revisions to official data.     

Outbound Business Travel Depends on Business Returns: Australian Evidence

In an earlier note, Collins and Tisdell (2002b ) explored the possibility of a long-run relationship between Australian business returns and international business travel. Using annual data they found that such a relationship exists. The purpose of this study is to further examine this relationship using quarterly data for the time frame 1974:1 to 1999:4. In addition, previous studies on international business travel have offered some but not strong evidence for the existence of a positive relationship between the level of international business travel and real GDP of the origin country. This study suggests that the aggregate return on business investments is a better predictor of international business travel than GDP. The Engle-Granger and Johansen's maximum-likelihood cointegration procedures are used to show a long-term relationship exists between Australian outbound business travel and Australian business returns, but not with Real Australian GDP. Reasons for this relationship are discussed.     

Outsourcing and the provision of welfare-related services to unemployed youth in New Zealand

Concentrating on New Zealand's welfare-to-work policy, thispaper draws on interview data to explore the impact of ‘outsourcing’on tutors who work with young, unemployed people. Contractingindependent organisations to provide services, or outsourcing,as it is euphemistically known, has become standard practicein business and is assuming a central role in social policyin many Western nations. It is argued that outsourcing is usedto control the practices of those who work with unemployed peoplein New Zealand. The data show that outsourcing achieves thiscontrol by creating uncertainty over the tutors' own employmentsituation. In this respect, outsourcing helps create a regulatoryframework in which the tutors seek to secure their own employmentby improving their tutees' employability.