International and intranational business cycles

This paper surveys and analyses the international real businesscycle literature. We re-explore two international business cycleanomalies emphasized by Backus, Kehoe, and Kydland (1995) aswell as establishing the pattern of productivity growth betweenindustries and countries. We then compare these findings forthe international business cycle to those obtained for databetween regions within a country - the so-called 'intranationalbusiness cycle'. Importantly, the intranational business cycleis a natural environment for thinking about the interactionsbetween economies when there are no trade frictions and whenthere are not multiple currencies. We summarize our findingswith a comparison between the stylized facts for internationaland intranational business cycles and draw some policy conclusions.     

能源格与中国宏观经济:动态模型与校准分析价

能源价格的上涨和大幅度波动对中国宏观经济的影响日益凸显,探讨能源价格波动的传导机制,研究能源价格波动对我国宏观经济的影响具有很强的现实意义.本文首先分析中国宏观经济的一些特征事实,其次在实际经济周期模型中引入能源价格冲击,建立能源价格波动影响宏观经济的动态随机一般均衡模型,将模型参数校准到和中国经济发展的特征事实相一致,并比较模型经济和实际经济的接近程度.分析结果表明,引入能源价格冲击后,实际经济周期模型对真实经济的模拟效果相当理想.能源价格冲击的初始效应大于技术冲击;技术冲击持续的时间比能源价格冲击更长     

Aid Volatility and Real Business Cycles in a Developing Open Economy

This article analyzes the impact of the unpredictability of foreign aid on macroeconomic fluctuations in the recipient country. I build a small open‐economy business cycle model that accounts for foreign aid shocks, with no preference shocks. The model is calibrated to reflect the structural empirical regularities of Cote d'Ivoire, a typical aid‐dependent developing country. The parameters of the exogenous shocks are estimated using Bayesian methods and time series data for Cote d'Ivoire. The model produces business cycle patterns that are consistent with the data and key stylized facts. Specifically, the excess volatility of consumption with respect to output is successfully replicated. The results suggest that the unpredictability of foreign aid contributes to explain the volatility of business cycles in the recipient economy and has negative welfare effects.     

The macrodynamics of business cycles: A comparative evaluation Mohammed H.I. Dore Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993, 242 pp.

In his latest book, Mohammed Dore has provided a much needed exposition of macroeconomic and business cycle theory since the advent of Keynes' General Theory. The book provides under one cover extended derivations of the main models that must be mastered if one is to be proficient in macroeconomic theory. It is, however, much more than just an expository volume; it is also a work of highly structured evaluation and criticism. The theories considered fall into the broad classifications of New Classical, New Keynesian, and endogenous cycle theories. The theories are rated on how well they account for ten stylized facts describing business cycles. The winner of the Dore sweepstakes is Richard M. Goodwin's endogenous cycle theory. While heartily endorsing Dore's criticism of representative agent models, this review expresses reservations about abandoning micro foundations.     

Myopia,Discretion, and Commitment in a Two‐Period AS/AD Model

A large body of pedagogical literature has recently emerged to place the New Keynesian framework for analyzing business cycle fluctuations and the conduct of monetary policy into undergraduate economics curricula. This article develops the graphical apparatus for the analysis of optimal monetary policy in the context of a two‐period model under alternative assumptions about the formation of inflationary expectations. It demonstrates that differences in assumptions about the formation of inflationary expectations translate into quite different conclusions regarding the optimal conduct of monetary policy.     

Postwar business cycles in Japan: A quest for the right explanation

This paper explores the nature of postwar business cycles in Japan. Our basic strategy is to study different production behaviors of various manufacturing industries over business cycles. We are particularly interested in the problems of whether only monetary shocks are important and, if not, what kind of real shocks are important. We conclude that purely monetary theory is inadequate, and that construction activities were major causes of aggregate fluctuations in the pre-first oil shock period of rapid growth. We also present some evidence suggesting that real business cycle theory is implausible.     

ZONE‐TARGETING MONETARY POLICY PREFERENCES AND FINANCIAL MARKET CONDITIONS: A FLEXIBLE NON‐LINEAR POLICY REACTION FUNCTION OF THE SARB MONETARY POLICY

We estimate a flexible model of the monetary policy reaction function of the South African Reserve Bank based on a representation of the policymaker's preferences that capture asymmetries and zone‐targeting behaviours. We augment the analysis to allow for responses to financial market conditions over and above inflation and output stabilisation to address the current debate on the importance of financial asset prices in monetary policy decision making. The empirical results show that the monetary authorities' response to inflation is zone symmetric. Secondly, the monetary authorities' response to output is asymmetric with increased reaction during business cycle downturns relative to upturns. Thirdly, the monetary authorities pay close attention to the financial conditions index by placing an equal weight on financial market booms and recessions.     

Re-examining the cyclical behaviour of prices and output

Re-Examining the Cyclical Behaviour of Prices and Output. -Re-cent studies have suggested that prices are not predominantly procyclical and that estimates of negative correlations provide substantially more support for “real” or supply-side interpretations than for “nominal” or demand-side interpretations of business cycles. This paper re-examines the implications of macroeconomic theory for prices and output and provides an alternative interpretation of the empirical results. The main conclusions are: (i) the correlations, when taken at face value, identify the presence of only temporary supply and demand shocks which is inconsistent with the postwar experience of sustained inflation; (ii) demand-induced business cycles can very well deliver timevarying and negative price-output correlations.     

Aggregate fluctuations in a monetary two-sector endogenous growth model

This paper examines the implications of a monetary human capital investment endogenous growth model for aggregate economic fluctuations. In addition, an exogenous growth model with a similar human capital investment specification is included in the analysis to compare the business cycle properties of the endogenous growth model with that of the exogenous growth model. The money introduced into the models allows for the liquidity effects. It is found that both the endogenous and exogenous human capital investment growth models are able to capture the business cycle properties of U.S. data closely. Some sensitivity analysis results are provided. The theory predicts that the stochastic properties of the human capital shocks affect the ability of the models to generate the business cycle facts.     

Asset Prices, Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Stability

This article discusses the role of asset prices in the conduct of monetary policy when the ultimate goal is to maintain price stability and limit fluctuations in real income. It is argued that judicious interpretation of asset price movements can provide information about the risks of future macroeconomic imbalances, and that this information should be utilized in monetary policy decisions. Simulations results from both theoretical and empirical models support the conceptual argument. It is stressed that policy reactions to asset prices must not follow a mechanical rule, since the appropriate response depends on the underlying shock.     

Interest Rates, Leverage, and Money

The current mainstream approach to monetary policy is based on the New Keynesian model and is expressed in terms of a short-term nominal interest, such as the federal funds rate in the United States. It ignores the role of leverage and also downplays the role of money in basic monetary theory and monetary policy analysis. But as the federal funds rate has reached the zero lower bound and the Federal Reserve is in a liquidity trap, the issue is whether there is a useful role of leverage and monetary aggregates in monetary policy and business cycle analysis. We address these issues and argue that there is a need for financial stability policies to manage the leverage cycle and reduce the procyclicality of the financial system. We also argue that in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and Great Contraction there is a need to get away from the New Keynesian thinking and back toward a quantity theory approach to monetary policy, based on properly measured monetary aggregates, such as the new Center for Financial Stability Divisia monetary aggregates.     

Measuring monetary policy with empirically grounded restrictions: An application to Thailand

This paper studies the effect of monetary policy in Thailand based on structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. Unlike all existing studies, this paper (i) properly controls for external factors, (ii) uses the identifying restrictions which are specified and justified from empirical evidence and (iii) studies the immediate as well as the short term effect of monetary policy. I find that several important stylized facts on the transmission mechanism of monetary policy need to be revised.     

Transmission mechanisms of real stochastic shocks in a small open economy

We offer a qualitative evaluation of the transmission mechanisms of two real shocks, a productivity shock and a government expenditure shock in Walrasian business cycle models. The analysis is developed in a monetary small open economy business cycle model, a set-up general enough to study the effects of the two shocks on both real and nominal variables. Qualitative and graphical displays indicate properties of Real Business Cycles that are able to reproduce observed cyclical patterns, independently of the calibration used for different economies. These qualitative findings match the quantitative results found in the literature, and rationalize some disparity findings (such as the cyclicity pattern of prices) and failures (such as the Dunlop–Tarshis observation). We suggest that understanding the underlying qualitative intuitions of these models may be of great help in tackling new puzzles in this area.     

Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Keynes’s General Theory, Soaring Wheat Prices, and Subprime Mortgage Write-Downs

Keynes’s presentation of own rates of interest on wheat and housing is set within Austrian business cycle theory, to show that soaring wheat prices and subprime mortgage writedowns are expected, when a monetary authority holds interest rates too low for too long. From that basis, further interest rate cuts are an unlikely remedy for a recession whose roots lie in a proliferation of credit.     

On the Sources of Inflation in Kenya: A Model‐Based Approach

We develop a semi‐structural new‐Keynesian open‐economy model – with separate food and non‐food inflation dynamics to study the sources of inflation in Kenya in recent years. To do so, we filter international and Kenyan data (on output, inflation and its components, exchange rates and interest rates) through the model to recover a model‐based decomposition of most variables into trends (or potential values) and temporary movements (or gaps) – including for the international and domestic relative price of food. We use the filtration exercise to recover the sequence of domestic and foreign macroeconomic shocks that account for business cycle dynamics in Kenya over the last few years, with a special emphasis on the various factors (international food prices, monetary policy) driving inflation. We find that while imported food price shocks have been an important source of inflation, both in 2008 and more recently, accommodating monetary policy has also played a role, most notably through its effect on the nominal exchange rate. We also discuss the implications of this exercise for the use of model‐based monetary policy analysis in sub‐Saharan African countries.     

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).     

The exchange rate and monetary conditions in the Euro area

The Exchange Rate and Monetary Conditions in the Euro Area. — Using information from a variety of sources, this paper suggests that the exchange rate will play an important role in the transmission of the impact of monetary policy on the real economy and inflation in the euro area. As a first approximation it would be reasonable to assume that an increase in the real 90-day interest rate of 100 basis points would have the same effect on demand two years later as a 3.5 percent fall in the real euro exchange rate. This implies that the euro area will tend to behave like a large open economy rather than a closed economy and hence that it would be helpful in informing monetary policy to construct a Monetary Conditions Index (MCI).     

THE PROPERTIES OF CYCLES IN SOUTH AFRICAN FINANCIAL VARIABLES AND THEIR RELATION TO THE BUSINESS CYCLE

The paper describes cyclicality in a range of local and international financial variables and their relation to cyclical behaviour in the South African real economy. Cycles are derived using a dating algorithm similar to that used to determine business cycle turning points and falls within the Burns‐Mitchell tradition of business cycle analysis. Co‐movement between phases in financial variables and similar phases in the business cycle are described using the concordance statistic, instead of the correlation statistic (which requires stationarity). This is a preliminary step in identifying financial variables that can act as leading indicators of economic activity.     

The Role of the Exchange Rate as a Shock Absorber in a Small Open Economy

This paper analyses interactions between the real exchange rate and business cycles in a small open economy like Norway. Using a structural vector autoregression model, the role of different shocks are analysed, to investigate to what extent the real exchange rate is absorbing shocks, or a source of shocks itself. The results are ambiguous. Output and the real exchange rate are mainly explained by separate shocks, so that relinquishing exchange rate independence should come at little cost. However, the importance of nominal shocks in the business cycle emphasises that stabilisation is possible. Hence, remaining monetary independence may be attractive.     

我国货币政策资产价格传导机制的实证研究

本文将货币政策的资产价格传导机制划分成货币政策传导到资产价格和资产价格传导到实体经济两个环节,主要关注货币政策、实体经济以及最终目标三个层面的变量,细分股票价格传导和房地产价格传导两条路径,分别建立了具有系数约束的向量误差修正（VEC）模型,检验我国货币政策通过资产价格渠道传导的有效性。在此分析结果的基础上,指出当前我国货币政策不应以资产价格为目标,中介目标应由货币供应量向利率转变,并且对疏通股票市场和房地产市场传导渠道提出了相应的政策建议。