On the role of domestic and international financial cyclical factors in driving economic growth

ABSTRACT

We investigate the effects of (domestic and international) financial cyclical factors on the US business cycle over the period 1890–2013 using an augmented stochastic version of the neoclassical growth model. In our setting, financial factors enter as determinants of the total factor productivity cyclical pattern. By means of static and dynamic estimations we find that (i) the inclusion of financial cyclical factors improves the model’s performance; (ii) the sensitivity of economic growth to financial factors is time-varying; (iii) domestic financial factors have a key role in explaining short-run output fluctuations only in the first half of the 20th century; (iv) US business cycle fluctuations have been mainly driven by global financial factors (i.e., financial integration) over the last three decades.

JEL CODES: O40, E32, C32     

Globalization and terrorism

This paper has multiple objectives. I set out linkages of a causal model to portray how globalization influences international terrorist strategies. I also point to methodological and theoretical shortcomings in the literature with respect to the levels of disaggregation at which issues are analyzed, and I evaluate the opportunity–cost argument for assessing international terrorism. The paper and conclusions present perspectives on developments of terrorism in the context of globalization, including the relationship of terror to immigration.     

On the dynamics of international inflation

We investigate the dynamic properties of inflation in 20 OECD countries with a novel approach based on the autocorrelation function. We find evidence in favor of long memory and nonlinearity. Linear autoregressive models are shown to be misspecified.     

Securitization of mortgage debt,domestic lending,and international risk sharing

Abstract Securitization makes mortgage‐related risks internationally tradeable and thus contributes considerably to the international diversification of macroeconomic risk: in the years 2003–2008, the increase in international cross‐holdings of securitized mortgage debt has lowered industrialized countries’ conditional consumption volatility (relative to the United States) by about 10–15 percentage points. We turn to the role of domestic credit in explaining this result. Domestic credit leads to better international risk sharing only if debt is securitized and traded internationally. Conversely, the risk‐sharing benefits from securitization seem to evaporate if credit dries up – as it did in the recent financial crisis.     

Micro and macroeconomic effects of financial innovation in a domestic and international perspective

This paper is focused on the rise and the fall of structured finance, derivatives, and asset-backed securities. Special focus is made on the attempts of the banking sector to improve the economic performance, particularly the ROE, by creating, acquiring, and selling derivatives. The possible outcome of public intervention to rescue the financial sector is finally discussed. V. Coppola supported the research in collecting and elaborating data.     

Islamist terrorism and the status of women

We investigate the effect of Islamist terrorist activity on women's legal position in society, using data for 171 countries between 1970 and 2016. To identify causal effects, we exploit the prevalence of Islamist terrorism in neighboring countries as an exogenous source of variation, arguing that regional terrorism affects local terrorism through contagion effects. We show that increased activity by Islamist terrorist groups is linked to lower legal status of women. By contrast, we find that neither Islam per se nor other types of terrorism have comparable effects. This reinforces the notion that Islamist terrorism is singularly interested and effective in weakening women's rights. Our results are consistent with a rational-economic model of terrorism, where Islamist terrorists purposefully use violence to maximize political utility, while governments make concessions that constrain the role of women because the costs of compliance are lower than the harm from continued Islamist terrorism.     

论吴歌的源流及其发展

吴歌是流传于吴语地区的民歌民谣.在历史上吴歌真正作为一种歌体出现,是从南朝乐府的"吴声歌曲"开始的.明代是吴歌发展史上又一个极其繁荣的时期,到了清代长篇叙事吴歌繁荣起来.五四时期,建国后至今,人们对吴歌的搜集整理和研究工作从未停止过.迄今为止,长篇叙事吴歌的陆续被发现和以科学方法对之进行的研究,使吴歌进入到一个新的历史发展时期.     

Technology and the Hydra of terrorism?

In the application of new technologies that address the terrorism problem, an objective is to ensure that the technology does not cause more problems than it solves. Potential new technologies, including convergences of genomics, robotics, information technology, and nanotechnology, might rapidly develop. As with any technological advance, each of these offers a mixture of benefits and risks. At first, a direct approach is reviewed by looking at how these technologies might deter the motive, means, and opportunity for terrorist activities. While there are many potential deterrence applications, other issues are identified that might cause unintended problems in the system. Some of these problems include the possible contribution to terrorist motives by increasing stresses toward divisiveness in society, terrorist means through the development of dual-use technologies, or terrorist opportunities by further developing technological vulnerabilities.Next, a more systemic approach is taken by reviewing a wider range of issues, such as resource availability, management of science and technology, and general societal trends. The balance between technological change and social response is important in realizing benefits while mitigating unintended consequences such as harmful uses through terrorist actions. To explore issues concerning this balance, possible technological development scenarios are reviewed, including the possibility of accelerating or slowing technological development. Some recent recommendations are considered within this context. The need for a balance between technological and social response in this asymmetric situation suggests that the benefits of a rapid technological response against terrorism might not be as large as those observed during World War II.     

The contribution of domestic, regional and international factors to Latin America's business cycle

This paper quantifies the relative contribution of domestic, regional and international factors to the fluctuation of domestic output in six key Latin American (LA) countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru. Using quarterly data over the period 1980:1-2003:4, a multi-variate, multi-country time series model was estimated to study the economic interdependence among LA countries and, in addition, between each of them and the three world largest industrial economies: the US, the Euro Area and Japan. Falsifying a common suspicion, it is shown that the proportion of LA countries' domestic output variability explained by industrial countries' factors is modest. By contrast, domestic and regional factors account for the main share of output variability at all simulation horizons. The implications for the choice of the exchange rate regime are also discussed.     

On the choice between international capital and labor mobility

This paper examines the choice of international factor mobility. It proves in a two-country, two-factor, one-commodity model that the policy-setter, when it maximizes its own welfare by following the Ramaswami policy of monopsonistic import of its scarce factor, impoverishes the passive country. Furthermore, the paper studies the choice of mobility in a two-commodity model and shows that the optimality of the monopsonistic import policy extends to a situation with trade in goods. Lastly, it addresses the welfare effects in the passive country in the two-commodity model.     

关于国际经济与贸易对环境的影响探究

国际经济与贸易的快速发展,有效推进了国内经济的健康发展,但同时也为国内环境带来了诸多不利影响。究其原因,主要是一些地方政府和企业为了获取更多的经济利益而盲目追求外贸发展,却忽略了环境保护,因此出现了很多环境污染问题,从而导致生态环境失衡,对人们的生存环境产生了负面影响。所以,有必要采取有效措施,及时化解并预防环境污染问题。基于此,本文在分析了国际经济与贸易对国内环境带来的影响基础上,提出了相应的措施。     

On the welfare benefits of an international currency

Is it beneficial for a country's currency to be used internationally? And, if so, can we quantify the benefit? Since the emergence of the euro, there has been great interest in the consequences of a transfer of the dollar's premier international role to the euro. This paper presents a novel model-based approach towards assessing the welfare benefits associated with the international use of a country's currency. Apart from the familiar benefits associated with seigniorage, residents of the issuing country experience an increase in the purchasing power of their currency both at home and abroad. In the calibration exercise carried out in this paper, we find the benefits of an international currency to be quantitatively significant. The welfare gain for the Euro area in having the euro internationally used ranges from 1.9% to 2.3% of consumption depending on relative inflation rates. The rest of the world is not indifferent as to which currency circulates as the dominant international currency. Conditional on their currency not being used internationally, their preference is for the dominant international currency to be the one with the lowest inflation rate.     

The origins of terrorism: Cross-country estimates of socio-economic determinants of terrorism

Prior research has concluded that socio-economic development does not significantly affect terrorism. We take an alternative view. First, we note that a country's socio-economic circumstances affect terrorists' behavior through terrorism's opportunity costs. We argue that this reasoning also holds for the case of supreme value terrorism. Then, we run a series of negative binomial regressions for 110 countries between 1971 and 2007 to test the hypothesis that poor socio-economic development is conducive to terrorism. We find that socio-economic variables indeed matter to terrorism, contrary to other results. Our findings imply that countries can benefit from economic development and growth in terms of a reduction in terrorism.     

论国际垂直专业化分工与贸易的最新发展

当前国际贸易的迅猛发展与国际垂直专业化分工密切相关,国际垂直专业化分工的日益发展,体现了经济全球化背景下市场一体化与生产过程分散化的统一.本文对国际垂直专业化分工与贸易的最新研究进行了梳理,对国际垂直专业化分工的内涵、衡量指标以及与国际垂直专业化分工相关的问题进行了分析,最后阐明了中国参与国际垂直专业化分工的战略性利益.     

Insurance,self-protection,and the economics of terrorism

This paper investigates the rationale for public intervention in the terrorism insurance market. It argues that government subsidies for terror insurance have the effect of discouraging self-protection and limiting the negative externalities associated with self-protection. Cautious self-protective behavior by a target can hurt public goods like national prestige if it is seen as “giving in” to the terrorists, and may increase the loss probabilities faced by others by encouraging terrorists to substitute toward more vulnerable targets. We argue that these externalities in protection are essential for normative analysis of government intervention in insurance markets and may also explain why availability problems in this market have engendered much stronger government responses than similar problems in other catastrophe insurance markets.     

On the origin of high persistence in GARCH-models

We show that the (Baillie and Chung, 2001) minimum distance estimates of the GARCH (1,1) model induce spurious persistence in the volatility when there are structural changes in the mean of the process.     

On the theory of international trade between capitalist and labour-managed countries

This paper attempts to establish a model of international trade between capitalist and labour-managed countries and to reexamine whether or not the basic theorems of the traditional trade theory carry over to environments characterized by the coexistence of capitalist and labour-managed countries.     

试论短期国际资本流动的经济效应

20世纪90年代以来,经济全球化不断深化,作为全球化重要标志之一的国际资本流动空前发展,规模日益增大,速度日益快捷,外国直接投资(FDI)发展迅猛,区域经济集团的区域内投资活跃,已成为当今世界经济中一股最为活跃的力量。它有力地影响着国际金融资源在全球范围内的配置,改变着各国经济运行效率,使各类金融交易的供求关系和价格信号的可变性与不确定性明显增强,对世界经济产生日益深远的影响。相对国际长期资本而言,短期国际资本对一国产生的经济效应更大。