WAGE FLEXIBILITY AND THE STABILITY ARGUMENTS OF THE NEOCLASSICAL SYNTHESIS

This note fills a lacuna in the neoclassical synthesis and completes its dynamic disequilibrium processes by including adjustments of the money wage rate in response to excess demand on the labour market. A Walrasian and a Keynesian variant are distinguished. While in the first case local asymptotic stability is always ensured, the equilibrium is unstable in the Keynesian case if money wages are too flexible relative to the adjustment speeds on the product and money markets.     

Some disequilibrium dynamics of exchange-rate changes

The aim of this paper is to suggest a formal dynamic model of the adjustment path of an economy during the time interval between an exchange-rate change and the attainment of a new equilibrium. It is a ‘first-pass’ model insofar as its structure and dynamics are very simple (a labor market and a commodity market are specified, with wage, price, and employment adjustment as functions of excess demand). The two principal conclusions are: exchange-rate changes may produce short-run effects qualitatively opposite to their long-run effects, not only in the current account, but also in employment and output; and knowledge of disequilibrium adjustment speeds for each sector of the economy taken in isolation appears to yield a misleadingly optimistic forecast of the disequilibrium adjustment speeds when all sectors adjust simultaneously to an exchange-rate change.     

A note on the demand for labor by firms and the Phillips curve phenomenon

This paper derives microeconomic implications of an increase in inflation uncertainty for a firm's demand for capital and labor resources. The concern for this topic is motivated by an interest in the effect of inflation uncertainty on the demand for labor and especially the Phillips curve. The basic idea is that an increase in the actual inflation rate increases inflation uncertainty with respect to the rental price of capital relative to that of labor, which in turn increases the demand for labor, both absolutely and relative to the capital stock. The result is a decline in unemployment.     

New firm location: An equilibrium model and its disequilibrium dynamics

This paper is centered on two basic statements: i) the birth of new firms is spatially related to location factors endowment and ii) the set of location factors can support only up to a given number of firms.The paper firstly defines the regional ex-ante demand for firms as a function of location factors set. In the following step a definition of regional equilibrium stock of firms is given and a static equilibrium model of new firms birth is built up. In a dynamic disequilibrium model the net birth of firms is a function of two disequilibrium terms: a sectoral and a regional one.The sectoral disequilibrium depends on the industry production structure, the regional disequilibrium is linked to the adaptation elasticity of location factors set to an exogenous shock.Finally, a first estimation on Italian data is performed, on the basis of which some new lines of analysis are suggested.     

MARKETS FOR INFLATION‐INDEXED BONDS AS MECHANISMS FOR EFFICIENT MONETARY POLICY

We consider a continuous‐time framework featuring a central bank, private agents, and a financial market. The central bank's objective is to maximize a functional, which measures the classical trade‐off between output and inflation over time plus income from the sales of inflation‐indexed bonds minus payments for the liabilities that the inflation‐indexed bonds produce at maturity. Private agents are assumed to have adaptive expectations. The financial market is modeled in continuous‐time Black–Scholes–Merton style and financial agents are averse against inflation risk, attaching an inflation risk premium to nominal bonds. Following this route, we explain demand for inflation‐indexed securities on the financial market from a no‐arbitrage assumption and derive pricing formulas for inflation‐linked bonds and calls, which lead to a supply‐demand equilibrium. Furthermore, we study the consequences that the sales of inflation‐indexed securities have on the observed inflation rate and price level. Similar to the study of Walsh, we find that the inflationary bias is significantly reduced, and hence that markets for inflation‐indexed bonds provide a mechanism to reduce inflationary bias and increase central bank's credibility.     

Flexible exchange rates,unemployment and stabilization policy effectiveness

The paper presents a general equilibrium model of a small flexible exchange rate economy comprising asset, goods, and labor markets. Viewing the exchange rate as determined proximately in asset markets, the study examines its influence on the excess demand for labor and for output and, correspondingly, its impact on the level of unemployment and external imbalance. The role of exchange rate expectations is central to the present analysis, which reconsiders, in that light, the conventional conclusions about monetary and fiscal policy effectiveness under flexible exchange rates.     

Customer Markets,Inflation and Unemployment in a Dynamic Model with a Range of Equilibria

The paper presents a dynamic model incorporating a range of non‐accelerating‐inflation rates of unemployment (NAIRU) obtained according to the theoretical framework proposed by the customer markets literature. The analysis of the dynamic adjustments of unemployment and inflation emphasizes the real effects of demand shocks. Changes in the fiscal and monetary policy can exert permanent effects on output and unemployment, both determining persistence in the unemployment rate and selecting the actual steady‐state equilibrium within the NAIRU range.     

THE DIAMOND OF MACROECONOMIC EQUILIBRIA AND NON‐INFLATIONARY EXPANSION

This paper combines the microeconomic foundations of earlier models of a range of equilibrium rates of employment to generate a model with a diamond of equilibria. Analysis of the diamond model shows that for a depressed economy an expansionary aggregate demand policy can, without violating rational expectations of inflation, generate a central proposition of Keynesian economics—a non‐inflationary expansion (NIE), that is a permanent increase in employment without increasing inflation. The microeconomic foundations of the model draw on ideas of customer markets, reference dependence and loss aversion. It is also shown that the possibility of achieving an NIE is enhanced if a macro price policy, such as incomes policy or inflation targeting, accompanies the expansion in aggregate demand.     

货币供给冲击、货币需求冲击与中国宏观经济波动

基于由贝叶斯技术估计的新凯恩斯动态随机一般均衡(DSGE)模型,识别和分析货币供给与货币需求冲击对产出和通货膨胀波动的影响,结果表明:货币供给冲击对产出和通货膨胀波动均能够产生同向影响,但对产出波动的影响不明显,仅能解释其不足2%的波动,而对通货膨胀波动的影响比较强,长期内可以解释其26%以上的波动;货币需求冲击对产出和通货膨胀波动的影响都不明显,长期内对二者波动的解释能力均低于0.6%。因此,在应对通胀压力时,央行可以运用数量型货币政策工具,对高通胀势头实施积极的紧缩性宏观调控。     

UNIONS,MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION AND THE OPTIMAL MONETARY REGIME

This paper considers the optimal monetary regime in a monopolistically competitive economy where wages are set by non‐atomistic (i.e. large) unions. In such a context, the conduct of monetary policy is known to influence not only the equilibrium inflation rate, but also equilibrium employment. Previous contributions which have examined this scenario have commonly concluded that a low degree of accommodation of wages and prices is optimal. This study shows, however, that the framework's principal features imply a highly accommodating policy stance can potentially achieve a superior outcome and, indeed, despite its character, is able to both eliminate unemployment and deliver zero inflation.     

ACCELERATING INFLATION OR RISING UNEMPLOYMENT -IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE?

Empirical observations suggest the existence of an unstable inflation-unemployment trade-off: whereas high levels of employment generate accelerating inflation rates, stability of the price level seems to require growing rates of unemployment. Under these conditions, macroeconomic policy has to produce countervailing economic fluctuations in order to limit the extent of the two-sided instability. This is discussed within the framework of a macroeconomic model, in which prices and wages are determined by potential competition, and in which employment depends on monetary demand. The model is confronted with prevailing natural rate theories in which a stable equilibrium rate of employment is determined by supply conditions.     

Real and Financial Sector Interaction Under Liberalization in an Open Developing Economy

A short‐run model incorporates instantaneous portfolio equilibrium with macroeconomic flows to clarify the structure of real–financial sector interactions. If equity and foreign exchange markets are introduced in structuralist theories of asset markets in developing countries, the key result that a fall in money supply raises the rate of inflation now holds only under special conditions on partial derivatives. But there is a tendency for interest rates to rise and for fluctuations in asset prices. Fuller integration of asset markets moderates these fluctuations. Outcomes are stable in spite of the generalized complementarity distinguishing equity markets from loan markets. Expectations play a major role. Implications for policy are to link domestic interest rates to foreign, remove artificial barriers to market integration, and stimulate demand as well as supply.     

The Trouble with Harrod: The fundamental instability of the warranted rate in the light of the Sraffian Supermultiplier

The paper argues that Harrodian instability is an instance of what Hicks in his book Capital and Growth (1965) called static instability, related to the direction (and not to the intensity) of the disequilibrium adjustment process. We show why such instability obtains in demand‐led growth models in which the ratio of capacity creating private investment to output ratio is given exogenously by the aggregate marginal propensity to save. We also show that Sraffian Supermultiplier model overcomes the Harrodian instability and that its demand‐led equilibrium is statically stable. It is explained that the latter results do not follow from the presence of autonomous non‐capacity creating expenditure component as such but from its presence within a model in which investment is driven by the capital stock adjustment principle (i.e., the flexible accelerator). Finally, we argue that, although being statically stable, the equilibrium growth path of the Sraffian Supermultiplier model can be dynamically stable or unstable depending on the intensity of the reaction of investment to demand. We then provide a discrete time sufficient condition for the dynamic stability of such equilibrium that implies that the marginal propensity to invest remains lower than the marginal propensity to save during the adjustment process, a modified Keynesian stability condition.     

当前我国通货膨胀成因及对策研究

我国的消费物价指数CPI的持续走高,成为当前人们最关注的热点问题之一。通过对当前我国通胀的成因分析,结果表明：造成CPI持续走高的原因主要包括流动性过剩,供给因素、需求因素以及制度上的因素,其中制度因素是影响其他方面的深层次原因。若缓解通货膨胀压力应做到：加大对农业的投入,提高汇率的弹性,调整对利率和要素价格的扭曲以及改善官员的考核制度等。     

Dynamic analysis of a disequilibrium macroeconomic model with dual labor markets

We extend the general disequilibrium model of Malinvaud (1980) by using dual labor market theory. By considering two tiers of workers, we find that while the duality of the labor market expands an equilibrium regime in the short term, it does not always keep an equilibrium in the medium term. In the medium term, the business cycle converges toward a disequilibrium regime unless the goods market is potentially in equilibrium. Employment and wages at the steady state are affected by the size of the government expenditure, and the stability of wage bargaining is only a sufficient condition of the local stability of our dynamic system. Therefore, involuntary unemployment can be remedied only when goods demand is sufficiently large.     

The ECB During the Financial Crisis. Not so Unconventional!

The European Central Bank's balance sheet has expanded notably, without banks granting more credit, and the overnight interest rate has stayed close to the deposit facility level for long periods of time since the onset of the financial crisis. This appears to go against the logic implicit in the post‐Keynesian Horizontalist approach to monetary macroeconomics, which links reserves to credit and holds that a central bank accommodates the demand for reserves in order to control the overnight interest rate. In this article, we analyze the monetary policy implemented by the ECB since the third quarter of 2008, with a view to studying its implications for monetary theory, concluding that this approach can still explain much of what has happened in the Euro Zone in the last troubled years, despite paradoxically, there being excess reserves and simultaneously accepting that reserves are demand led, and that the ECB has lent them at the official rate while the overnight interest rate has been close to the deposit facility rate. Further, this analysis reveals that mainstream monetary theory has not been very useful, because neither the link between reserves and loans nor the relation between reserves and inflation have worked. This leads us to believe that some transmission channels of the monetary policy implemented by the ECB since late 2014, which can be deemed unconventional, will not perform well.     

Fiscal policy and regional inflation in a currency union

Substantial attention has been devoted to inflation differentials within the European Monetary Union, including suggestions that inflation differentials are a policy issue for national governments. This paper investigates the ability of a region participating in a currency union to affect its inflation differential with respect to the union through fiscal policy. In a two-region general equilibrium model with traded and nontraded goods, lowering the labor income tax rate in response to positive inflation differentials succeeds in compressing inflation differentials. Such policies can lead to higher volatility of domestic inflation while leaving the volatility of real output roughly unchanged. Regional fiscal policies also have spill-over effects on the volatility of union-wide and foreign inflation in our model.     

INPUT PRICE UNCERTAINTY,INVESTMENTS IN FLEXIBILITY AND COMPETITIVE INDUSTRY EQUILIBRIUM

This paper assumes that firms can respond to input price uncertainty by selecting a flexible technology. A simple model of industry equilibrium is used to examine the choice of flexibility. It is shown that the industry equilibrium is not characterized by excess capacity. This contrasts with the result in the previous literature dealing with equilibrium under product demand uncertainty. It is also shown that the effect of an increase in input price dispersion on the optimal level of flexibility and the equilibrium number of firms depends on the interaction between flexibility and the optimal size of the firm.     

Exports versus multinational production under nominal uncertainty

This paper examines how nominal uncertainty affects the choice that firms face to serve a foreign market through exports or to produce abroad as a multinational. I develop a two-country, stochastic general equilibrium model in which firms make production and pricing decisions in advance, and I consider its implications for the relative attractiveness of exporting and multinational production. I find that when multinational sales are priced in the local currency while exports are priced in the producer currency, destination volatility benefits exporters: during a foreign nominal contraction, the foreign exchange rate appreciates, causing exports to be relatively cheaper. Exporters gain non-linearly through demand, making profit convex in prices. As foreign volatility rises, the model implies that the home country should serve the foreign country relatively more through exports. I take this implication to bilateral U.S. data, using inflation volatility as a proxy for nominal volatility. Using sectoral data on sales by majority-owned foreign affiliates matched with U.S. exports, I find that higher inflation volatility is associated with a significantly lower ratio of multinational sales to total foreign sales.     

Exports versus multinational production under nominal uncertainty

This paper examines how nominal uncertainty affects the choice that firms face to serve a foreign market through exports or to produce abroad as a multinational. I develop a two-country, stochastic general equilibrium model in which firms make production and pricing decisions in advance, and I consider its implications for the relative attractiveness of exporting and multinational production. I find that when multinational sales are priced in the local currency while exports are priced in the producer currency, destination volatility benefits exporters: during a foreign nominal contraction, the foreign exchange rate appreciates, causing exports to be relatively cheaper. Exporters gain non-linearly through demand, making profit convex in prices. As foreign volatility rises, the model implies that the home country should serve the foreign country relatively more through exports. I take this implication to bilateral U.S. data, using inflation volatility as a proxy for nominal volatility. Using sectoral data on sales by majority-owned foreign affiliates matched with U.S. exports, I find that higher inflation volatility is associated with a significantly lower ratio of multinational sales to total foreign sales.