Chinese Divisia Monetary Index and GDP Nowcasting

Since China’s enactment of the Reform and Opening-Up policy in 1978, China has become one of the world’s fastest growing economies, with an annual GDP growth rate exceeding 10 % between 1978 and 2008. But in 2015, Chinese GDP grew at 7 %, the lowest rate in 5 years. Many corporations complain that the borrowing cost of capital is too high. This paper constructs Chinese Divisia monetary aggregates M1 and M2, and, for the first time, constructs the broader Chinese monetary aggregates, M3 and M4. Those broader aggregates have never before been constructed for China, either as simple-sum or Divisia. The results shed light on the current Chinese monetary situation and the increased borrowing cost of money. GDP data are published only quarterly and with a substantial lag, while many monetary and financial decisions are made at a higher frequency. GDP nowcasting can evaluate the current month’s GDP growth rate, given the available economic data up to the point at which the nowcasting is conducted. Therefore, nowcasting GDP has become an increasingly important task for central banks. This paper nowcasts Chinese monthly GDP growth rate using a dynamic factor model, incorporating as indicators the Divisia monetary aggregate indexes, Divisia M1 and M2 along with additional information from a large panel of other relevant time series data. The results show that Divisia monetary aggregates contain more indicator information than the simple sum aggregates, and thereby help the factor model produce the best available nowcasting results. In addition, our results demonstrate that China’s economy experienced a regime switch or structure break in 2012, which a Chow test confirmed the regime switch. Before and after the regime switch, the factor models performed differently. We conclude that different nowcasting models should be used during the two regimes.     

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.     

货币供应量作为我国货币政策中介目标的有效性及其检验

本文利用我国 90年代以来的季度经济数据 ,通过对AD AS方程的拟合 ,检验了货币供应量作为我国货币政策中介目标的有效性。结果表明 ,现阶段以货币供应量作为中介目标已存在较大缺陷。主要原因在于 ,公众预期的变化和利率管制政策在一定程度上阻碍和扭曲了货币政策传导 ,而证券市场的反常波动又经常造成货币的大量“漏损”。因此本文认为 ,目前央行可尝试采用基于货币供应量和名义利率指标的混合货币政策规则 ,作为对现行货币供应量规则的改进。     

遗失的美元:全球货币总量统计的巨大遗漏

流动性指标选择是全球流动性管理的关键问题。以M2为代表的广义货币统计受金融全球化影响已不能真实全面反映流动性状况。银行跨境负债是多数国家广义货币统计遗漏的部分,是衡量全球流动性状况的重要指标,也是金融冲击传导的重要途径和金融风险积累的重要原因,将银行跨境负债纳入全球流动性监测指标体系十分必要。     

官员来源、本地信息与地区经济增长——基于地级市数据的新证据

通常认为地方官员在地区经济发展中扮演着重要角色。文章基于1994-2012年中国24个省、自治区241个城市市委书记与城市的匹配数据，采用"倍差法"系统地考察了地方官员来源方式对地区经济增长的影响。研究发现，官员外调使得流入地的经济增长速度降低了0.98个百分点，外调官员对本地信息的缺乏是造成这一现象的重要原因。以地方官员前后任职地区之间的地理距离作为本地信息的代理变量，进一步发现，对一个外调官员而言，前后任职地区之间的地理距离越远，当前任职地区的经济表现越差。此外，官员横向交流和纵向交流对当地经济增长绩效并无显著的差异。研究结果对中国官员交流制度的进一步完善具有重要的政策参考价值。     

现金等价货币总量作为货币政策中介目标的有效性——来自中美两国的经验证据

由于简单加总的货币供应量M2的局限性,学术界和实务界一直在探讨更贴近宏观经济变动的货币总量测度法,但一直没有定论。本文首先对现金等价货币总量、迪维西亚货币总量、简单加总货币总量这3种不同测度法下货币总量的合理性及其优劣进行理论上的比较分析,然后通过边限协整检验和自回归分布滞后协整估计的实证研究,分析中美两国按照不同测度法所测算的货币总量需求函数的稳定性。实证检验的结果发现,两国现金等价货币总量的需求函数都比各自的迪维西亚货币总量、简单加总货币总量的需求函数稳定,而且在每种测度法下,中国货币总量的需求函数都比美国货币总量的需求函数稳定。本研究结论说明,现金等价货币总量作为货币政策中介目标的有效性强于迪维西亚货币总量、简单加总货币总量,且这一结论具有一定的国际普适性。但就中美两国而言,货币总量更适合作为中国的中介目标。     

货币与财政政策后续效应评估:40次银行危机样本

以20世纪80年代以来40次重要的系统性银行危机为基础,对金融危机后的货币政策和财政政策选择进行实证评价。实证结果表明,"适度扩张"的货币政策和财政政策能产生相对较优的经济效果,应成为金融危机后的主要政策选择,但由于两种政策刺激或稳定经济的效力都集中体现在短期,为避免持续和大规模货币扩张和财政赤字带来的负面影响,一旦危机消退、经济企稳回升,之前作为"反危机工具"出现的扩张性货币和财政政策就应该逐步淡出。     

The Present International Monetary System: Problems,Complications, and Reforms

In the last decade serious crises have affected financial markets. Some proposals to avoid international financial crises have been made, but more useful could be measures to strengthen the functioning of the present international monetary system. Another way could be a much greater involvement of the private sector. The misalignment among leading currencies of the world can be a source of crisis difficult to solve. The creation of the European Central Bank (ECB) and of the euro leaves unresolved the serious problem of how a European Monetary Union member will respond to an asymmetric shock.     

Monetary Policy Rules with Model and Data Uncertainty

In this paper we examine the prevalence of data, specification, and parameter uncertainty in the formation of simple rules that mimic monetary policymaking decisions. Our approach is to build real-time data sets and simulate a real-time policy-setting environment in which we assume that policy is captured by movements in the actual federal funds rate, and then to assess what sorts of policy rule models and what sorts of data best explain what the Federal Reserve actually did. This approach allows us not only to track the performance of alternative rules over time (hence facilitating a type of model selection among competing rules), but also to more generally assess the importance of the data revision process in the formation of macroeconomic time series models. From the perspective of real-time data, our results suggest that the use of data that are erroneous, in the sense that they were not available at the time decisions could have been made based on forecasts from the rules, can lead to the selection of quantitatively different models. From the perspective of finding a rule that best approximates what the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) has actually done (and hence from the perspective of finding a rule that best approximates what the Fed will do in the future), we find that (i) our version of “calibration” is better than naïve estimation, although both are dominated by an approach to rule formation based on the use of adaptive least-squares learning; (ii) rules based on data that are not seasonally adjusted are more reliable than those based on seasonally adjusted data; and (iii) rules based solely on preliminary data do not minimize mean square forecast error risk. In particular, early releases of data can be noisy, and for this reason it is useful to also use data that have been revised when making decisions using policy rules.     

中国货币政策的福利损失与政策规则选择——基于新凯恩斯DSGE模型的分析

本文在新凯恩斯主义DSGE模型框架下,运用福利损失函数和脉冲响应方法研究我国最优货币政策规则选择的问题。研究结果表明,货币供应量规则相对于利率规则,使外生冲击对产出和通货膨胀的影响更持久,造成更大的福利损失,因此中央银行的货币政策规则应该逐步从货币供应量规则转向利率规则;在一定条件下,前瞻型利率规则、后顾型利率规则和泰勒规则所造成的福利损失相差不大,从便利的角度出发,中央银行应该选择后顾型利率规则。     

新金本位与二元货币体系

当前，金融危机席卷全球，并已影响到实体经济的发展，国际货币体系急需重新构建；作为全球重要经济体之一的中国应该积极参与国际货币体系的重构，这不但有利于国际经济金融形势的稳定，也有利于维护我国的财富安全，促进我国经济的自主、稳定发展。     

The Stock Market,Monetary Policy,and Economic Development

In this article, we examine the impact of financial market development on the level of economic development. In particular, we explore this issue in a setting where individuals face idiosyncratic risk. Incomplete information also provides a transaction role for money so that monetary policy can be studied. While an active banking sector promotes risk sharing, we incorporate a market for equity by allowing individuals to trade capital across generations. In this manner, each asset and financial market in our model fulfills a distinct economic function. Consistent with recent empirical work, we find that the impact of access to a stock market may be indeterminate—the economy may respond with significant gains in capital accumulation and risk sharing, or there may be relatively little impact. We also show that the effects of monetary policy vary across the level of financial development. In economies with small stock markets, increasing the amount of liquidity will cause capital accumulation to decline. By comparison, in advanced economies, capital accumulation improves.     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy Design in the EMU: An Overview

The interaction of monetary and fiscal policies is a crucial issue in a highly integrated economic area such as the European Union. This paper analyzes the design of monetary and fiscal policies in the EMU. To do so, the paper starts with an overview of the most important aspects. Next, it analyzes monetary and fiscal policy interaction in a stylized model of a monetary union, in which monetary and fiscal policy design is modeled as a dynamic stabilization game. Macroeconomic policy making and adjustment are studied under alternative forms of cooperation and in both symmetric and asymmetric settings.