Oil prices,economic activity and inflation: evidence for some Asian countries

In this paper we study the oil prices–macroeconomy relationship by means of studying the impact of oil price shocks on both economic activity and consumer price indexes for six Asian countries over the period 1975Q1–2002Q2. The results suggest that oil prices have a significant effect on both economic activity and price indexes, although the impact is limited to the short run and more significant when oil price shocks are defined in local currencies. Moreover, we find evidence of asymmetries in the oil prices–macroeconomy relationship for some of the Asian countries.     

The impact of financial and economic conditions on aggregate merger activity

A model of aggregate merger activity is developed by integrating the literature on aggregate investment in fixed capital into a microfinance framework. Mergers are viewed as the result of firms capital budgeting processes, and two major categories of explanatory variables emerge: (1) cost of capital and related financial effects, and (2) output effects. Regressions, estimated to explain the number of large mining and manufacturing mergers over the sample period 1956–1978, provide evidence consistent with this view. In addition, the model explains the high level of merger activity during the conglomerate boom of 1967–9.     

Energy use,technical progress and productivity growth: A survey of economic issues

In this paper I survey and interpret several of the most important aspects underlying relationships among technical progress, productivity growth, and energy use, viewed from the vantage of an economist. The first portion of the paper provides a noneconomist with a nontechnical summary of the economic theory of cost and production, and defines single-factor and multi-factor productivity growth. In the second half of the paper, four examples are presented that highlight the special role of energy consumption in inducing and reflecting the effects of technical progress and productivity growth. A common theme in the four examples is that the concepts of embodiment, diffusion and learning are critical to understanding the forces linking energy usage, technical progress and productivity growth.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through T.G. Cowing.     

Directional imbalance in transport prices and economic geography

This paper examines how and why transport prices become imbalanced with respect to the direction of shipments and how this affects economic geography. It is shown that the equilibrium transport price of the shipment in a particular direction is a nondecreasing function of the relative size of the embarkation region. Furthermore, we show that the directional imbalance in transport prices increases the likelihood of the symmetric pattern being stable and decreases the likelihood of the core-periphery patterns being sustainable. In short, the imbalance acts as a dispersion force.     

Energy consumption and economic growth

The present paper discusses methods originally proposed by Adams and Miovic in 1968 (then refined and used later by many other authors) for calculating the output elasticity of useful energy consumption (?). We first show that this methodological approach is quite dubious. Better alternative methods of estimation are then proposed. We also stress that, since the marginal rate of interfuel substitution depends on the GDP functional form, the simulataneous use of several functional forms of GDP in energy studies leads obviously to misleading interpretations. Using thermal efficiency coefficients and OECD countries figures for the 1959–73 period, we finally found that ? did steadily fall from high values to values which are still higher than one.     

The behavior of speculative prices and the consistency of economic models

Modern financial economic theory suggest that changes in speculative prices should follow simple ‘fair game’ processes in an informationally efficient capital market. The observation that changes in speculative prices follow simple time series processes both supports this theoretical proposition and suggest restrictions on the transfer functions of structural econometric models in which speculative prices appear as output variables. The simplicity of the time series processes for observed changes in speculative prices are shown to impose strong restrictions on potential equilibrium models of asset pricing, informational disequilibrium models of financial markets, and many monetary and macroeconomic models as well.     

Selling prices and profits: what survey data tell about firms’ rationality

This paper states that the strong biases found in survey expectations do not necessarily distort economic decisions. An econometric analysis of price and profit data suggests that Swiss manufacturers do not base their production decisions on the forecasts they supply to the surveying institution. Instead, production decisions are based on data of past prices. This suggests that in their production management, firms make adjustments for biased marketing projections of selling prices. However, the practice of these adjustments is not optimal since it neglects the valuable information contained in these price forecasts. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stock prices and domestic and international macroeconomic activity: a cointegration approach

This paper supports the existence of a significant, long-run relationship between stock prices and domestic and international economic activity in six European economies. Johansen Cointegration tests demonstrate that stock price levels are significantly related to industrial production, business surveys of manufacturing orders, short- and long-term interest rates as well as foreign stock prices, short-term interest rates and production. Variance decomposition methods support the strong explanatory power of macroeconomic variables in contributing to the forecast variance of stock prices. Hence, stock prices are determined by macroeconomic activity.     

Weekly economic activity: Measurement and informational content

We construct a composite index to measure the real activity of the Swiss economy on a weekly frequency. The index is based on a novel high-frequency data set capturing economic activity across distinct dimensions over a long time horizon. We propose a six-step procedure for extracting precise business cycle signals from the raw data. By means of a real-time evaluation, we highlight the importance of our proposed adjustment procedure: (i) our weekly index significantly outperforms a comparable index without adjusted input variables; and (ii) the weekly index outperforms established monthly indicators in nowcasting GDP growth. These insights should help improve other recently developed high-frequency indicators.     

Multi-scale interactions between economic policy uncertainty and oil prices in time-frequency domains

Dynamic interactions between policy uncertainty and economic activity, including oil prices, have attracted increasing amounts of scholarly interest, but few studies have considered the inherent feature that the entire market is composed of different stakeholders operating in different time horizons. To fill this gap and address this issue, this paper proposes a multi-scale correlation framework. Specifically, we use the wavelet coherence method and scale-by-scale linear Granger causality tests to explore the co-movement and causality of pairs of economic policy uncertainty indices of G7 countries, China, Brazil, and Russia and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices. Our results show that the interaction between economic policy uncertainty and oil prices in the short-term is weak but gradually strengthens towards the long-term, especially when significant historical political or financial events occurred. Moreover, a consistent conclusion is that the interaction is negative in the medium-term, while it is positive in the long-term. Further, Granger causality tests at different time-scales show that no Granger causality from economic policy uncertainty to oil prices exists in the short-term for all sample countries, except the US, while there is a strong unidirectional or bidirectional Granger causality for all researched countries in the medium- and the long-term.     

Tornado activity,house prices,and stock returns

In this paper we investigate the effects of tornado activity on house prices and stock returns in the US. First, using geo-referenced and metropolitan statistical area (MSA)-level data, we find tornado activity to be responsible for a significant drop in house prices. Spillover tornado effects between adjacent MSAs are also detected. Furthermore, our granular analysis provides evidence of tornadoes having a negative impact on stock returns. However, only two sectors seem to contribute to such a negative effect (i.e., consumer discretionary and telecommunications). In a macro-analysis, which relies on aggregate data for the South, West, Midwest and Northeast US regions, we then show that tornado activity generates a significant drop in house prices only in the South and Midwest. In these regions, tornadoes are also responsible for a drop in income. Tornado activity is finally found to positively (negatively) affect stock returns in the Midwest (South). If different sectors are examined, a more heterogeneous picture emerges.     

Household survey data, econometrics and economic transition

This paper explores some of the possible uses of household survey data for the analysis of the process of economic transition. It is argued that such data are particularly valuable for work on the distributional effects of transition, using simulation techniques of various kinds. Some examples are given, focusing on: labour supply; indirect taxation; and the cost and effectiveness of the Hungarian personal income tax and social security systems under alternative assumptions about changes in the distribution of gross earnings and the level and incidence of unemployment.     

Energy consumption and economic growth: evidence from non-OPEC oil producing states

According to the US EIA (2009, www.eia.doe.gov), out of the 15 largest oil producing nations in the world, 7 are not OPEC members, namely Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Norway, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America (USA). This paper investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for these non-OPEC oil producing countries. Real GDP per capita is used to measure economic growth; whereas; energy consumption is represented by four sub-variables (electric power, oil, natural gas, and coal energy). Using a panel data covering (1969–2009), this study employs the Pedroni (Econometric Theory, 20, 597–627, 2004) approach to determine cointegration and the (Econometrica, 55, 251–276, 1987) two-step procedure to explore short and long run causal effects. The results suggest that there are long run relationships between the real GDP, labour force, real capital, oil consumption, electricity consumption, gas consumption and coal consumption. Further analyses show that real GDP and oil consumption Granger cause real gross capital formation in the short run; real gross fixed capital and electricity consumption cause oil consumption in the short run; and also oil consumption and gas consumption cause electricity consumption in the short run.     

An uncertain suggestion for gold-pricing models: the effect of economic policy uncertainty on gold prices

Gold, whether held in physical form or through financial claims, is of utmost importance to investors, central bankers, and sovereign nations alike. Yet empirically validated explanations of its volatile price remain elusive. Without an ex-post understanding of the determinants of gold prices, ex-ante forecasting is a fruitless endeavor. In this research, an index of US and European economic policy uncertainty is incorporated into a short-run pricing model for gold. The results suggest that in addition to gold being a hedge against inflation, increases in economic policy uncertainty contribute to increases in the price of gold.     

2007年第一季度 城市地价动态监测报告

根据中国城市地价动态监测系统对全国重点地区和主要城市监测结果的分析，2007年第一季度我国主要城市地价状况如下——     

Market‐oriented institutions and policies and economic growth: A critical survey

Abstract.  This paper surveys recent evidence suggesting that market‐oriented institutions and policies are strongly related to economic growth, focusing on studies using the economic freedom (EF) indicator of the Fraser Institute. This index is critically discussed. Also various serious shortcomings of empirical studies using this index are identified. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that liberalization, i.e. an increase in the EF index, stimulates economic growth. This paper also reviews studies on the determinants of EF. Political liberalization is often found to enhance economic liberalization, whereas there is less evidence for causality running in the other direction.     

Monetary policy and asset prices in an open economy

This paper examines whether central banks should respond to asset price fluctuations in a two-country sticky price model. We compare a monetary policy rule that targets both domestic asset prices and foreign asset prices with several alternative monetary policy rules. This paper shows that this policy rule can produce preferable outcomes because the domestic central bank incorporates important information that both domestic and foreign asset prices possess into its monetary policy. Our model suggests that central banks should consider both domestic and foreign asset prices in a two country framework with asset price fluctuations.