Inflation expectations and recovery in spring 1933

This paper uses the historical narrative record to determine whether inflation expectations shifted during the second quarter of 1933, precisely as the recovery from the Great Depression took hold. First, by examining the historical news record and the forecasts of contemporary business analysts, we show that inflation expectations increased dramatically. Second, using an event-study approach, we identify the effect of the key events that shifted inflation expectations on financial markets. Third, we gather new evidence—both quantitative and narrative—that indicates that the shift in inflation expectations played a causal role in stimulating the recovery.     

Inflation and output with rational expectations in open economies

Zusammenfassung Inflation und Produktion bei rationalen Erwartungen in offenen Volkswirtschaften. - Der Aufsatz entwickelt ein Modell für den Gütersektor einer kleinen offenen Volkswirtschaft, die Fertigwaren exportiert und sowohl Fertigwaren als auch Rohstoffe, die im ProduktionsprozeΒ verwendet werden, importiert. Die L?hne sind in unterschiedlichem MaΒe indexiert, und die Wirtschaftssubjekte verhalten sich rational im Sinne von Muth. Das Modell wird getestet mit Hilfe von Jahresdaten aus fünf EG-L?ndern für den Zeitraum von 1957 bis 1980. Die Hauptergebnisse zeigen, daΒ ein relativ groΒer Teil der Inflationsrate nicht antizipiert wird und daΒ die Lucas’sche Fehlwahrnehmung des Preisniveaus für das Produktionsverhalten eine geringere Rolle spielt als die relativen Preis?nderungen.

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Résumé Inflation et production aux expectatives rationnelles en économies ouvertes. — Dans cet article les auteurs développent un modéle du secteur réel d’une petite économie ouverte qui exporte des biens manufacturiers et importe des biens manufacturiers ainsi que des matiéres premiéres utilisées dans la production. Les salariés au marché du travail jouissent des plusieurs degrés de l’indexation au niveau de prix et les agents économiques se comportent rationnellement au sens de Muth. Le modéle est testé avec des données annuelles de cinq pays membres de la CEE pour la période 1957–1980. Les résultats principaux démontrent qu’une relativement grande part du taux d’inflation n’était pas anticipée et que la mésperception du niveau de prix á la Lucas jouait un róle peu important pour la production en relation aux changements de prix relatif.

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Resumen Inflación y producci?n con expectativas racionales en economias abiertas. — En este trabajo se construye un modelo del sector real de una pequena economfa abierta que exporta bienes manufacturados e importa manufacturas y materias primas, estas ultimas siendo insumos para la producci?n. En el mercado laboral los trabajadores gozan de un sistema diferenciado de indexation y los agentes económicos se comportan racionalmente en el sentido de Muth. El modelo es utilizado en un test empirico con datos de cinco pafses miembros de la CEE para el periodo 1957–1980. Los resultados demuestran que una parte relativamente importante de la tasa de inflación no fué anticipada y que la perception sesgada del nivel de precios en el sentido de Lucas jugé un papel menor en el comportamiento de la producci?n que el que jugaron las variaciones de los precios relativos.

     

Inflation expectations and the recovery from the Great Depression in Germany

A regime shift toward increased inflation expectations is credited with jump-starting the recovery from the Great Depression in the United States. What role did inflation expectations play in Germany that experienced a similarly successful economic upturn in the 1930s? We study inflation expectations in the German recovery across several methods: we conduct a narrative study of media sources; we estimate inflation expectations from a factor-augmented vector autoregression model, real interest rate forecasts, and quantitative news series. Consistently across these approaches, we do not find a shift to increased expected inflation. This recovery was different, and its causes lie elsewhere.     

Inflation,Inflation Uncertainty,and Relative Price Variability

This paper tests three models that predict a relationship between the variability of relative price changes (RPV) and aspects of inflation such as expected inflation, unexpected inflation, and inflation uncertainty. These are, respectively, the menu-costs model, the Lucas-Barro signal-extraction model, and the Hercowitz-Cukierman extension of the Lucas-Barro model that allows for different price elasticities of supply across markets. The results imply rejection of the hypothesis that any one of the models entirely explains the relationship between inflation and RPV and also imply rejection of the hypothesis that the three models together jointly explain the relationship.     

Goods Inflation,Asset Inflation,and the Greatest Peacetime Inflation in the US

In every episode of global monetary inflation originating in the Federal Reserve, we find both asset price inflation and goods inflation. The interrelationship between these two types of inflation depends both on cycle-specific factors and more general factors which transcend the cycle and stem from essential aspects of monetary disorder. The purpose of this article is to analyse the nature of this interrelationship and elaborate on the concepts of monetary disorder, goods inflation, and asset inflation. In today’s world of monetary systems where there is no stable demand for high-powered money (which itself is no longer a highly distinct asset) monetary disorder can be hard to recognize until quite late in the inflationary process. Asset price inflation now has a popular meaning quite different from the original found in Austrian business cycle theory. Two decades of widespread inflation targeting at around 2% per annum have encouraged us to ignore an old lesson. In a well-functioning capitalist economy under a sound money order, prices would fluctuate considerably upwards and downwards with a tendency to revert to the mean over the very long run. Finally the principles and hypotheses developed here are analysed in the laboratory of history, specifically for the greatest peacetime inflation in the U.S. (1963–80).     

通货膨胀、通货膨胀不确定性与中国实际产出增长

基于中国1993年1月至2010年12月的月度数据,本文采用双变量GARCH模型测量了中国通货膨胀不确定性,并借助于传统的Granger因果检验以及基于马尔科夫区制转移向量自回归(MS-VAR)模型下Granger因果检验等方法对通货膨胀、通货膨胀不确定性与中国实际产出增长进行了实证研究.本文研究发现:中国通货膨胀和通货膨胀不确定性之间存在着Granger意义上的双向因果性,在作用机制上支持了Okun-Friedman理论假说以及Holland论断;传统的Granger因果检验表明中国通货膨胀、通货膨胀不确定性对中国实际产出增长之间存在Granger意义上的因果性,但是基于MS-VAR模型的Granger因果检验研究则表明上述因果性仅存在于特定的机制下.     

Exports,Inflation and Growth

This article seeks to identify some of the main determinants of exports and economic growth in cross-sectional data from the World Bank covering 160 countries for 1985–94. First, the linkages between the propensity to export and population, per capita income, agriculture, primary exports and inflation are studied by statistical methods. Then, the relationship between economic growth and some of the above-mentioned determinants of exports as well as investment are scrutinized the same way. The main conclusion is that, in the period under review, high inflation and an abundance of natural resources tended to be associated with low exports and slow growth.     

Monetary Aggregates Targeting,Inflation Targeting and Inflation Stabilization in Ghana

The central bank of Ghana (BoG) has operated monetary aggregates targeting and inflation targeting since the 1980s, to ensure enhanced output growth, low unemployment and stable, low inflation. Under inflation targeting, the inflation rate averaged 13.26 per cent per annum between 2007 and 2015, compared with 29.22 per cent per annum under monetary aggregates targeting. The relatively lower inflation rates notwithstanding, an average inflation rate of 13.2 per cent per annum is far above the medium‐term target of 8 per cent. This paper has examined the effectiveness of monetary aggregates targeting and inflation targeting in keeping inflation at moderate levels. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was applied to the data covering the period 1970–2015. The results show that monetary targeting has steered inflation to moderate levels only in the short run while inflation targeting has maintained low inflation rates in both short run and long run. But neither regime has kept inflation at stable levels and within the target band, due to the sluggish transmission of broad money supply and prime rate changes to inflation. We implore the monetary authorities to strengthen the institutional setup for steering short‐term interest rates in Ghana. They should also enhance the BoG Act 2002 (Act 612), to develop secondary anchors and rules around output, money supply and fiscal deficit. Finally, the monetary policy committee should monetary policy credibility and transparency through strengthening its communication framework.     

Inflation,indexing and economic development

Recent analyses have established that there are significant costs as well as benefits to issuing indexed bonds. An assessment of the desirability of indexing hasproven to be clusive, perhaps because of the complexity involved in formulating the (presumably government) preferences by which indexing is to be evaluated and in ascertaining the optimal government policy with which to accompany indexing. This paper develops a general framework for examining indexed bonds. The envelope theorem is exploited to derive a convenient representation of the effects of indexing. The crucial elements in evaluating indexed bonds are the relative desirabilities of transferring purchasing power to the government and reducing consumer liquidity. The greater is the relative importance placed on the former, the more likely are the effects of indexed bonds to be favorably evaluated.     

升值、通胀和福利分化

人民币升值可以从时间路径和空间路径两个角度来进行研究。在多重的政策目标下，中国目前选择了渐进的升值方式，升值过程中名义汇率与物价水平共同调整。伴随有通货膨胀和资产价格泡沫的升值方式会从增量和存量两个方面改变社会的福利分配，这要求有相应的福利调整措施进行配套，以维护社会的公平和稳定。     

中国通货膨胀率与其不确定性之间的非线性动态关系

通货膨胀率和通货膨胀不确定性之间相互影响,二者之间的内在关系对政府运用货币政策具有重要的现实意义。本文采用1990年1月以来居民消费价格指数(CPI)的月度数据,结合随机域回归模型、系列随机域的非线性检验方法、最大似然估计及贝叶斯估计方法,对我国通货膨胀率与通货膨胀不确定性的关系进行了实证分析。实证研究发现,通货膨胀率引起了通货膨胀不确定性,两者呈现非线性的U型关系,支持了Friedman假说;大的通货膨胀不确性引起通货膨胀率先升后降,呈现非线性倒U曲线关系,Cukierman-Meltzer假说在U型左侧范围内成立,于U型右侧Holland结论成立。     

Robust cyclical growth

The stability of cyclical growth within the context of a model in "Growing through cycles" in Econometrica by Matsuyama (1999) is examined. It is shown that but for an extreme situation, the two-period cycles (two-cycles) are unique and a range of parameter values that imply the stability of such cyclical growth is derived. The growth enhancing property of two-cycles are shown to be retained by any cycle; the results of simulation exercises carried out are reported to show that for a very wide range of parameter values, such cyclical growth paths are stable and, therefore, robustness of the conclusions is established.     

Bailouts,Inflation, and Risk-Sharing in Monetary Unions

This paper presents a new rationalization for bailouts of sovereign debt in monetary unions, such as those observed during the recent Euro crisis. It introduces a model where member countries of the monetary union are ex-ante identical, and each derives utility from consumption and disutility from the union-wide inflation rate. The union’s central bank is utilitarian and lacks commitment. Countries borrow or save in a market for nominal sovereign debt in response to idiosyncratic income shocks, with countries that receive positive income shocks saving and countries that receive negative income shocks borrowing. Ex post, the monetary union’s central bank will attempt to devalue sovereign debt through surprise inflation, as this will redistribute income from rich creditor countries to poor debtor countries. Creditor countries choose to bailout debtor countries because bailouts will weaken the redistributive motives of the central bank and forestall surprise inflation. As bailouts in this environment constitute a payment from lucky creditor countries to unlucky debtor countries, they mimic a risk-sharing arrangement that insures against income shocks. The payments made by creditor countries are incentive-compatible due to the shared currency and inflation rate in the monetary union. This ability of countries to provide each other with incentive-compatible insurance constitutes a novel theory of optimal currency areas. This insurance benefit of the monetary union is largest for countries with negatively correlated income shocks, in contrast to the classic Mundell-Friedman optimal currency area criterion.

     

Inflation, the credit market, and economic growth

This paper presents a model which predicts a negative, non-linearrelationship between the rate of inflation and rate of outputgrowth, as observed in many empirical studies. The model describesan economy in which credit market imperfections arise due toasymmetric information between lenders and borrowers. Withinthis environment, two types of lending regime are possible—arationing regime, where high and low risk borrowers are separatedby means of credit rationing, and a screening regime, whereseparation takes place through costly information acquisition.An increase in the inflation rate alters lenders' behaviourin such a way (by increasing the incidence of rationing or thelevel of costly screening, or by switching the lending regimefrom screening to rationing) that adverse growth effect of inflationis magnified. The analysis provides a basis for the empiricalfinding that growth effect of inflation may be strongest insome specific range of inflation.     

通胀率动态与通胀惯性度量

本文从通胀惯性的理论模型出发,构建无限状态Markov区制转移的计量模型,实现对通胀惯性的有效度量。对美国通胀惯性的实证分析,证实货币政策工具的频繁使用会付出通胀惯性的代价,暴露出其单一目标货币政策框架的缺陷。我国央行的调控也已经对市场利率形成了显著的传导作用,谨慎地使用货币政策工具,使我国的通胀惯性在被货币政策短暂影响后,得以有效恢复。这表明坚持实行多目标、多手段与宏观审慎政策相结合的调控模式,对维护经济环境稳定与长期发展的重要性。十国通胀惯性的度量结果与对比分析,进一步佐证了本文观点。     

刘易斯拐点是否必然导致通胀?

近期有不少人士认为刘易斯拐点的出现及其引发的劳动力成本冲击会系统性推高中国目前及未来相当长一段时间的通胀水平。本文通过对典型经济体的经验以及理论分析认为,如果没有需求面以及货币供应量的配合,经济体在经历刘易斯拐点之时所面临的劳动力成本上升,并不必然导致通胀水平的系统性抬升。建议中国目前应该注重稳健的货币政策,并加快经济结构调整和城镇化建设。     

债务风险、量化宽松与中国通胀前景

在全球金融危机期间,美、英、日等主要发达国家的财政状况迅速恶化、公共债务急剧增加。而美联储和其他主要央行实施量化宽松的货币政策,更可能直接增加流向中国的热钱。另外还有三大因素将直接抬高中国的通胀压力:第一是粮食及大宗商品价格直线上升;第二是工资水平急剧上涨;第三是极度宽松的货币政策环境。所有这些表明通货膨胀可能是2011年中国最大的宏观经济风险,央行需要采取包括加息、升值等的全面性的货币政策紧缩来控制通胀风险。     

要素空间优化、宏观经济增长与通货膨胀

经济平稳增长和物价稳定是人们追求的理想目标,然而现实中难以同时兼得。经济下滑和高通货膨胀是人们最为担心的事情。一旦经济下滑就很难恢复,同样地,一旦形成了高通货膨胀,就很难使其下降。本文从全新的空间视角下分析经济增长和通货膨胀。文章发现要素区际理性流动不仅能带来区域经济和宏观经济的增长,而且能抑制通货膨胀。这一结论为我们运用非紧缩性财政政策和货币政策解决高通货膨胀问题,尤其是“滞胀”问题,提供了理论基础。