Robustness and real consequences of nominal wage rigidity

Nominal wage rigidity has been shown to exist in periods of high inflation, while reduction in nominal pay has been hypothesized to occur in times of low inflation. Nominal wage rigidity would therefore become irrelevant because there is little need to cut nominal pay under high inflation, while the necessary cuts would occur under low inflation. We test this hypothesis by examining Swiss data in the 1990s, where wage inflation was low. Nominal wage rigidity proves robust in a low inflation environment, constituting a considerable obstacle to real wage adjustments. Real wages would indeed respond to unemployment without downward nominal rigidity. Moreover, wage sweep-ups caused by nominal rigidity correlate strongly to unemployment, suggesting downward nominal wage rigidity fuels unemployment.     

Yesterday's Bad Times Are Today's Good Old Times: Retail Price Changes Are More Frequent Today Than in the 1890s

This paper documents differences in the nominal rigidity of retail prices across two 28-month periods: 1889–91 and 1997–99. The most striking finding is that prices changed much less frequently in 1889–91. In the late-1800s when price changes did occur they were smaller on average and more narrowly distributed with fewer small or large price changes. Further, price changes were more permanent 100-plus years ago. These differences are consistent with a high occurrence of temporary price shocks and a higher cost of changing prices in 1889–91 than in 1997–99.     

Price setting, price dispersion, and the value of money: or, the law of two prices

We study models combining search, money, price posting, and preference shocks. We show how these features interact to influence the price level and price dispersion. First, price-posting equilibria exist with valued fiat currency. Second, although both are possible, price dispersion is more common than a single price. Third, we prove that generically there cannot be more than two prices. We provide intuition for this law of two prices, show it also holds in some nonmonetary search models, and discuss variations of the assumptions under which it may not hold.     

Persistence in law of one price deviations: Evidence from micro-data

Using an extensive micro-price panel, we find a positive cross-sectional relationship between LOP persistence and the distribution margin, which we measure using sectoral U.S. data, as suggested by the classical dichotomy. The median level of persistence (across goods) is low, and there is no evidence of a border effect: the half-life of a deviation is about 19 months across OECD cities and just 1 month lower across cities in the U.S. Aggregating our micro-data using a variety of weighting methods shows PPP persistence to be in the range of 1-2 years, over the 1990-2005 period. These results challenge three widely held views: (i) the classical dichotomy is irrelevant; (ii) high persistence is a robust feature of aggregate real exchange rates; and (iii) border crossings necessarily generate greater real exchange rate persistence.     

The role of audit evidence in a strategic audit

This study examines how audit risk (the probability of false acceptance) and its components change when the auditor obtains audit evidence in an acceptance sampling model. Inherent risk and audit risk increase with audit evidence if the auditee has a sufficiently strong incentive for committing fraud. Detection risk always increases when audit evidence is introduced. If the auditor has a sufficiently strong incentive for avoiding false rejection, audit risk also increases with audit evidence. The analysis indicates that requiring auditors to obtain information is not effective in preventing material misstatements in at least some instances.     

Price dispersion, information and learning

We consider an economy where trade is decentralized and agents have incomplete information with respect to the value of money. Agents’ learning evolves from private experiences and we explore how the formation of prices interacts with learning. We show that multiple equilibria arise, and equilibria with price dispersion entail more learning than equilibria with one price. Price dispersion increases communication about private histories, which in turn increases the overall amount of information in the economy. We also compare ex ante welfare under price dispersion and one price. Our results show that, despite the existence of some meetings where no trade takes place, ex ante welfare under price dispersion may be higher than under one price.     

Speculative capital and currency carry trades

In this paper, we study a two-country general equilibrium model with partially segmented financial markets, where hedge funds emerge endogenously. Empirically, we show that the hedge fund investment strategy predicted by our model, which we call the “risk-adjusted carry trade” strategy, explains more than 16% of the overall hedge fund index returns and more than 33% of the fixed income arbitrage sub-index returns. The flow of new money to hedge funds affects market interest rates, exchange rates, and both the hedge funds’ contemporaneous and expected future returns as predicted by the model.     

Optimal monetary policy with imperfect common knowledge

This paper determines optimal nominal demand policy in a flexible price economy in which firms pay limited attention to aggregate variables. Firms’ inattentiveness gives rise to idiosyncratic information errors and imperfect common knowledge about the shocks hitting the economy. This is shown to have strong implications for optimal nominal demand policy. In particular, if firms’ prices are strategic complements and economic shocks display little persistence, monetary policy has strong real effects, making it optimal to stabilize the output gap. Weak complementarities or sufficient shock persistence, however, cause price level stabilization to become increasingly optimal. With persistent shocks, optimal monetary policy shifts from output gap stabilization in initial periods following the shock to price level stabilization in later periods, potentially rationalizing the medium-term approach to price stability adopted by some central banks.     

Extracting inflation expectations and inflation risk premia from the term structure: A joint model of the UK nominal and real yield curves

This paper analyses the UK interest rate term structure over the period since October 1992, when the United Kingdom adopted an explicit inflation target, using an affine term structure model estimated using both government bond yields and survey data. The model imposes no-arbitrage restrictions across nominal and real yields, which enables interest rates to be decomposed into expected real policy rates, expected inflation, real term premia and inflation risk premia. The model is used to shed light on major developments over the period, including the impact of Bank of England independence and the low real bond yield ‘conundrum’.     

Quantifying the Risk of Deflation

We propose formal and quantitative measures of the risk that future inflation will be excessively high or low relative to the range preferred by a private sector agent. Unlike alternative measures of risk, our measures are designed to make explicit the dependence of risk measures on the private sector agent's preferences with respect to inflation. We illustrate our methodology by estimating the risks of deflation for the United States, Germany, and Japan for horizons of up to 2 years. The question of how large these risks are has been subject to considerable public debate. We find that, as of September 2002 when this question first arose, there was no evidence of substantial deflation risks for the United States and for Germany, contrary to some conjectures at the time. In contrast, there was evidence of substantial deflation risks in Japan.     

The financial performance, capital constraints and information environment of cross-listed firms: Evidence from Mexico

This study provides evidence that Mexican firms that choose to trade in the United States as exchange-listed American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) have significantly weaker ex-post (subsequent to cross-listing) financial performances than Mexican firms that are eligible to list in the United States but choose not to do so. Our study is related to the generalizabililty of two streams of international research: global equity offerings studies (e.g., ( [Errunza & Miller, 2003] and [Foerster & Karolyi, 2000]) [Errunza, V. & Miller, D. 2003 Valuation effects of seasoned global equity offerings. Journal of Banking and Finance (September), 1611-1631; Foerster, S. & Karolyi, G., 2000. The Long-run performance of global equity offerings. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (December), 499-527]), based on large, multi-country samples, which show that ADR firms substantially underperform local-market benchmark company returns in years following issuance and accounting characteristics of ADR firms research (e.g., (Lang, Raedy, & Yetman, 2003) [Lang, M., Raedy, J. Smith, & Yetman, M. (2003). How representative are firms that are cross-listed in the United States? An analysis of accounting quality. Journal of Accounting Research]), which employ a multi-country sample and conclude that ADR firms are less aggressive in terms of earnings management and that they report accounting data that are more strongly associated with share prices. The cited studies above use relatively large samples, which are usually considered to be advantageous, but such studies tend to mask individual country differences in market efficiency, legal protections for shareholders, disclosure environment, and shareholder-class features that make generalizations tenuous.We show that cross-listed (ADR) Mexican firms, on average, are smaller, more highly levered, and less profitable than non-cross-listed (NCL) firms. Further, logistic regression models for classifying various ADR and NCL groupings of firms, using financial variables and other firm characteristics, are highly significant. While supplemental tests of earnings quality suggest that NCL firms exhibit nominally smoother earnings, that evidence is not sufficient to explain the stronger financial performance reported for those firms relative to ADR firms. Finally, our tests of value relevance, using book value and earnings to explain price, show significantly higher explanatory power for the ADR firms and generally non-significant explanatory power for the NCL firms. The value-relevance results may indicate that investors in Mexican ADR firms benefit from U.S. regulation and that reported market inefficiency in Mexico may result in low demand for financial statements of NCL firms.This study has the advantage of focusing on a single, emerging-market economy (Mexico, the United State's second-largest trade partner) in contrast to most previous ADR research that uses multi-country samples dominated by developed-market countries. It is also one of the first ADR studies to deal with selection-bias issues by comparing ADR and NCL firms. To gain these advantages, however, we must conduct tests on and draw conclusions from a relatively small sample.     

Are options redundant? Further evidence from currency futures markets

This paper investigates the impact of the introduction of options on the underlying asset's price formation process, using Geweke feedback measures. We derive the feedback measures from the Deutsche Mark, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Japanese Yen and Canadian Dollar futures and spot prices, before and after the introduction of options for these currency futures. While each currency market maintains some distinct characteristics in the post-option period, a common theme is found: after the option introduction, the instantaneous feedback between spot and futures markets improves drastically. The feedback from the spot to the futures market tends to decrease and remains small. The feedback from the futures market to the spot market tends to decrease as well. These results confirm the dominance of options markets, probably due to their smaller transaction costs. When made available, options assume a leading role for information transmission in currency markets.     

Price Setting in the Euro Area: Some Stylized Facts from Individual Producer Price Data

This paper summarizes the microevidence on the setting of producer prices in the euro area. The main findings are: (i) 21% of producer prices are adjusted each month, (ii) producer prices are changed more frequently and by smaller amounts than consumer prices (even after controlling for product characteristics), (iii) price decreases are relatively frequent, (iv) inflation correlates positively with the difference between the frequency of price increases and decreases, and (v) there is substantial variation in price flexibility across sectors, which can be explained in part by differences in the cost structure, the degree of competition, and the level of sectoral inflation.     

Disagreement and Biases in Inflation Expectations

Disagreement in inflation expectations observed from survey data varies systematically over time in a way that reflects the level and variance of current inflation. This paper offers a simple explanation for these facts based on asymmetries in the forecasters' costs of over- and underpredicting inflation. Our model implies (i) biased forecasts, (ii) positive serial correlation in forecast errors, (iii) a cross-sectional dispersion that rises with the level and the variance of the inflation rate, and (iv) predictability of forecast errors at different horizons by means of the spread between the short- and long-term variance of inflation. We find empirically that these patterns are present in inflation forecasts from the Survey of Professional Forecasters. A constant bias component, not explained by asymmetric loss and rational expectations, is required to explain the shift in the sign of the bias observed for a substantial portion of forecasters around 1982.     

The safety first expected utility model: Experimental evidence and economic implications

Roy’s [Roy, A., 1952. Safety first and the holding of assets. Econometrica 20 (3), 431–449] safety first criterion advocates the minimization of the probability of outcomes below a certain “disaster” level. This paper examines safety first theoretically and experimentally. We find that safety first plays a crucial role in decision-making, inducing choices that cannot be explained by, and even contradict, risk-aversion, Prospect Theory, and loss-aversion in general. Yet, safety first alone cannot explain individual choice. Therefore, we propose an expected utility – safety first (EU–SF) model where decisions are made based on a weighted average of the safety first criterion and standard expected utility maximization. We experimentally estimate these relative weights, and discuss their economic implications.     

Inflation and productive activity in a multiple-matching model of money

This paper investigates the relationship between money growth, inflation, and productive activity in a dynamic general-equilibrium, multiple-matching framework where trade frictions are manifested by limited consumption variety. Productive activity and matching in the goods market are endogenized by a time allocation decision of work and search effort. We find that a high degree of complementarity between participation in the labor and goods markets creates a channel by which inflation can positively influence production and output. This feature arises when household preferences for consumption variety is sufficiently large and it can also lead to the multiplicity of monetary equilibria.     

Inflation Dynamics in the U.S.: Global but Not Local Mean Reversion

A stylized fact of U.S. inflation dynamics is one of extreme persistence and possible unit root behavior. If so, the implications for macroeconomics and monetary policy are somewhat unpalatable. Our econometric analysis proposes a parsimonious univariate representation of the inflation process for the last 60 years, the nonlinear exponential smooth autoregressive. The empirical results confirm a number of the key features such as global stationarity, local unit root behavior, and lower persistence in the post-1983 period than in the pre-1983 period. We compare the forecasting ability of our model with that of competing univariate models and find that the nonlinear model outperforms the linear autoregressive model in the pre-1983 period and the random walk in the post-1983 period at short horizons.     

Dynamic forecasting behavior by analysts: Theory and evidence

We develop a multi-period learning model to examine the relation between analysts’ forecasting behavior and their performance. In a competitive market for banking services, the surplus and the analyst's payoff, which is determined through bargaining, are convex in her reputation. The convexity of her payoff structure and the presence of employment risk lead to a U-shaped relation between the analyst's forecast boldness and prior performance and a positive relation between forecast boldness and experience. We find support for these predictions in our empirical analysis. Significant underperformers (outperformers) face higher (lower) employment risk and are more likely to issue bolder forecasts.     

Comparing New Keynesian models of the business cycle: A Bayesian approach

The baseline New Keynesian model cannot replicate the observed persistence in inflation, output, and real wages for sensible parameter values. As a result, several extensions have been suggested to improve its fit to the data. We use a Bayesian approach to estimate and compare the baseline sticky price model of Calvo's [1983. Staggered prices in a utility maximizing framework. Journal of Monetary Economics 12, 383-398.] and three extensions. Our empirical results are as follows. First, we find that adding price indexation improves the fit of Calvo's [1983. Staggered prices in a utility maximizing framework. Journal of Monetary Economics 12, 383-398.] model. Second, models with both staggered price and wage setting dominate models with only price rigidities. Third, introducing wage indexation does not significantly improve the fit. Fourth, all model estimates suggest a high degree of price stickiness. Fifth, the estimates of labor supply elasticity are higher in models with both staggered price and wage contracts. Finally, the estimated inflation parameters of the Taylor rule are stable across models.     

Irreversible investment,managerial discretion and optimal capital structure

We explore the significance of employee compensation and alternative (reservation) income on investment timing, endogenous default, yield spreads and capital structure. In a real-options setting, a manager’s incentive to under(over)invest in a project is associated to labor income he has to forego in order to work on the project, the manager’s salary, his stake on the project’s equity capital and his subsequent income, should he decide to terminate operations. We find that the optimal level of coupon payments decreases with managerial salary and ownership stake while it is increasing in the manager’s reservation income. Yield spreads (optimal leverage ratios) are increasing (decreasing) in the manager’s salary and ownership stake, while they are decreasing (increasing) in the manager’s reservation income. Exploring agency costs of debt as deviations from a value-maximizing investment policy, we document a U-shaped relationship between agency costs of debt and the managerial compensation parameters: the manager’s reservation income, salary and ownership share.