预期到的与未预期到的财政政策冲击及其宏观影响*

本文根据1999-2014年中国宏观经济季度数据,在动态随机一般均衡模型框架下,考察了预期到的与未预期到的财政政策的宏观经济效应及其传导机制。本文研究发现：第一,预期到的与未预期到的财政政策均具有显著的宏观经济效应,二者合起来可以解释3634%的产出波动、1424%的就业波动和618%的物价波动;第二,与未预期到的财政政策直接影响经济均衡系统不同,预期到的财政政策主要是通过影响经济主体关于未来经济状态的信念来改变经济的均衡配置;第三,财政政策的宏观经济效应不仅取决于所选取的政策类型,而且受公众预期的影响。因此,政府不仅应当根据宏观经济目标理性选择财政政策工具,而且需要合理引导公众预期,以增强财政政策的针对性和有效性。     

The macroeconomic effects of fiscal rules in the US states

Fiscal policy restrictions are often criticized for limiting the ability of governments to react to business cycle fluctuations and, consequently, the adoption of quantitative restrictions is viewed as inevitably leading to increased macroeconomic volatility. In this paper, we use data from 48 US states to investigate how budget rules affect fiscal policy outcomes. Our key findings are that (1) strict budgetary restrictions lead to lower policy volatility (i.e. less aggressive use of discretion in conducting fiscal policy) and (2) fiscal restrictions reduce the responsiveness of fiscal policy to output shocks. These two results should have opposite effects on output volatility. While less discretion should reduce volatility, less responsiveness of fiscal policy might amplify business cycles. We provide empirical support for the first effect: restrictions, by reducing discretion in fiscal policy, can reduce macroeconomic volatility.     

The business cycle implications of the euro adoption in Poland

This article analyses the macroeconomic impact of the loss of autonomous monetary policy after the euro adoption in Poland. Using a two-country Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with sticky prices and wages, we find that the euro adoption will have a noticeable impact on the magnitude of economic fluctuations. In particular, the volatility of output, interest rate, consumption and employment is expected to increase while the volatility of inflation should decrease. Also, in order to quantify the effect of the euro adoption, we compute the welfare effect of this monetary policy change. Our findings suggest that the welfare cost is not large.     

Monetary Policy, Credit and Aggregate Supply: The Evidence from Italy

This paper concerns theory and evidence of the monetary transmission mechanisms. Current research has deeply investigated factors, such as dependence of firms on bank credit, that amplify the impact of monetary policy impulses on aggregate demand exerting strong but temporary effects on output and employment. We present an intertemporal macroeconomic equilibrium model of a competitive economy where current production is financed by bank credit, and then we use it to identify supply–side effects of the credit transmission mechanism in data drawn from the Italian economy. We find evidence that the 'credit variables' identified by the model – the overnight rate as a proxy of monetary policy and a measure of credit risk – have permanent effects on employment and output by altering credit supply conditions to firms.
To save on space, mathematical proofs, statistical tests and data sources have been gathered in two separate appendices that can be examined on request.
(J.E.L.: E2, E5).     

Macroeconomic Stabilization in the EMU: Rules Versus Institutions

This paper investigates the macroeconomic implications of different regimes of international fiscal coordination and monetary‐fiscal cooperation in a monetary union with independent fiscal authorities, that act strategically vis‐à‐vis a common central bank. In the presence of other policy goals than cyclical stabilization, such as interest rate smoothing and fiscal stability, we show that coordination among national fiscal authorities can reduce output and inflation volatility relative to the non‐cooperative setting in specific circumstances, as in case of demand disturbances, while turning potentially counterproductive otherwise. The adverse effects of union‐wide coordinated fiscal measures can be attenuated in a regime of global coordination, namely, when a centralized fiscal stabilization is coordinated with the common monetary policy as well.     

Natural Resource Exports,Fiscal Policy Volatility and Growth

The combination of poor institutions and erratic macroeconomic policy, as measured by the volatility of fiscal policy, is associated with slower growth. We show that macroeconomic policy is more erratic in countries that are rich in natural resources, especially minerals and fuels, and in those that receive large aid inflows. Poor institutions also play a role. Although Africa is a major receiver of aid and exporter of natural resources, this is not purely an African phenomenon. Output volatility is not associated with slower growth after controlling for institutions and the volatility of fiscal policy.     

The Role of Fiscal Policy in the Eighties*

After surveying objections to using expansionary fiscal policy to raise output and employment. this article concludes that budget deficits do not necessarily lead to high interest rates and that crowding out is only moderate. even with non-accommodating monetary policy. The major constraint on the effectiveness of expansionary fiscal policy is the need to avoid devaluation. If real wages are rigid downwards. devaluation will lead to increases in inflationary pressure rather than increases in output. Because of this. and because of inflationary pressure from short-run Phillips curve effects. expansionary fiscal policy must be complemented by a prices and incomes policy.     

Spillover effects of fiscal policy in a monetary union: Why do fiscal instruments matter?

Using a two‐country DSGE model, we analyse the spillover effects of fiscal policy in a monetary union. Based on a non‐Walrasian labour market with a labour force participation decision and involuntary unemployment and a detailed fiscal sector, we focus on the relative cross‐border effects of different kinds of fiscal shocks (government expenditure and tax shocks). Among the major lessons from this analysis, five general and striking results are worth highlighting : (1) spillover effects differ widely according to the fiscal instrument, (2) all fiscal instruments produce positive spillover effects on foreign GDP except a rise in government consumption, (3) the response of unemployment is not always negatively correlated with the response of output (4) the different fiscal shocks trigger different effects on foreign inflation and the term of trade, which implies heterogeneous interest‐rate and trade channels, and (5) a more accommodative monetary policy and a scenario of ‘fiscal dominance’ alter greatly the effects of fiscal policy shocks.     

Consumption in Contemporary Capitalism: The Backward Art of Living

Western economies have undergone a significant transformation over the last half a century as they have moved away from a commitment to full employment, going from activist fiscal policy to its abandonment with the adoption of budgetary austerity. This is not because of any technical or physical incapacity to achieve full employment. Analyzing the broad macroeconomic experience of Canada and the United States in the post-WWII era, the article finds that this growing unemployment has essentially resulted from a deliberate policy choice not to stimulate sufficiently demand via fiscal measures. Learning from the experience of the Great Depression, Michal Kalecki had offered an explanation for this type of policy response in favor of rising long-term unemployment. This article recognizes the relevance and appropriateness of Kalecki's analysis and seeks to determine whether the Minskian institutional proposal for achieving effective full employment (via government as the employer of last resort) would withstand an original Kaleckian critique.     

Unemployment, Real Wages and the Money Supply in Australia*

Many observers have attributed the high unemployment experienced in Australia in the 1970s to the rises in real wages which have occurred in the decade. An alternative or additional hypothesis is that unemployment has resulted from policy directed at controlling inflation and that this has been exacerbated by the occurrence of adverse external factors, particularly bul not solely the oil price shocks, which have made inflation more difficult than otherwise to control .
The results of econometric tests suggest that a significant portion of fluctuations in the unemployment rate can be explained by real wage movements, and as well monetary policy through its effects on the real money supply also seems to affect unemployment. Both real wage rises and monetary restrictions appear to have contributed to the jump in unemployment in 1974–75, and since then the continuing high and rising unemployment rate is closely associated with the low growth rate of the real money supply .     

我国积极财政政策"紧缩效应"的形成机制及其检验

积极财政政策的扩张性效果依赖经济周期的阶段性,积极财政政策也有可能通过货币需求的利率渠道和汇率渠道等,产生对于实际产出的紧缩影响.本文利用误差修正模型和时变参数模型,通过估计货币需求相对于实际产出的弹性系数,发现我国的财政政策仅在1996年前体现出显著的"紧缩效应",而在1996年后"紧缩效应"逐渐减弱和消失,这说明在我国宏观经济调控中,积极财政政策和稳健货币政策的组合方式和期限结构发挥了比较稳定的政策效果.     

An Evaluation of Unemployment Policy in Australia Using the Range of Equilibria

The major failures of macroeconomic policy in the last 40 years are the huge increases in unemployment and inflation in the 1970s and the persistence for 25 years of the former. This article uses econometric estimates of a model of the range of equilibria for Australia for the period 1965:4 to 2003:3 to evaluate the role of macroeconomic policies in these failures. Our analysis distinguishes the roles of aggregate supply policies and aggregate demand policies. We conclude from our analysis that macroeconomic outcomes would have been better over this period had monetary policy been guided by a hierarchical inflation target, which is to be set so as to achieve the highest level of activity subject to satisfying the inflation target.     

Cyclical fiscal rules for oil-exporting countries

Budget-balance tax-gap rules are preferred to other fiscal policy rules to stabilize the macroeconomic volatility and welfare in oil-exporting countries. The output-inflation trade-off is of particular concern for oil exporters relative to non-oil commodity exporters due to the pass through of oil prices into headline inflation which warrants fiscal reaction to crude oil revenue. This result is robust to several instruments satisfying the rule but with reduced efficiency for those instruments that impact potential output such as government investment and capital taxes. These rules are desirable for fixed exchange rate regimes but are unable to achieve the same degree of stability as when coordinated with inflation-targeting monetary policy. Even under optimal inflation-targeting regimes, the adoption of budget-balance tax-gap rules can produce reductions in macroeconomic volatility and welfare gains.     

HYSTERESIS IN UNEMPLOYMENT REVISITED: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL LM UNIT ROOT TESTS WITH HETEROGENEOUS STRUCTURAL BREAKS

This paper applies the panel LM unit root tests with heterogeneous structural breaks in level by Im  et al. ( Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics , 67 (2005), pp. 393–419) to re-examine the validity of hysteresis in the unemployment rates of 19 OECD countries. Our empirical findings are favourable to the stationarity of the unemployment rates, i.e., the unemployment hysteresis hypothesis is strongly rejected. Our results suggest that shocks to unemployment rates are temporary and soon converge when we control for breaks. A major policy implication of the study is that a fiscal or monetary stabilization policy would not have permanent effects on the unemployment rates of the 19 OECD countries.     

Macroeconomic policy lessons of labor market frictions

The paper explores the consequences of macroeconomic policy for labor market outcomes in the presence of frictions. It shows how policy may be useful in over-riding frictions, as well as how it might generate adverse outcomes. A partial-equilibrium, empirically grounded model is used to simulate policy effects.The key results are that policy has effects on the stochastic behavior of key variables - measures that reduce unemployment also reduce its persistence and increase the volatility of vacancies. Hiring subsidies and unemployment benefits have substantial effects on labor market outcomes, while employment subsidies or wage tax reductions are not very effective policy instruments.     

MONETARY–FISCAL INTERACTIONS WITH A CONSERVATIVE CENTRAL BANK

We study macroeconomic stabilization when monetary and fiscal policies interact via their effects on output and inflation and the monetary authority is more conservative than the fiscal. We find that monetary–fiscal interactions result in poor macroeconomic stabilization. With both policies discretionary, the Nash equilibrium is suboptimal with higher output and lower inflation than optimal; the Nash equilibrium may be extreme with output higher and inflation lower than either authority want. Leadership equilibria are not second best. Monetary commitment is completely negated by fiscal discretion and yields the same outcome as discretionary monetary leadership for all realizations of shocks. But fiscal commitment is not similarly negated by monetary discretion. Optimal macroeconomic stabilization requires either commitment of both monetary and fiscal policies, or identical targets for both authorities – output socially optimal and inflation appropriately conservative – or complete separation of tasks.     

Macroeconomic Policies for Slovenia in the “Great Recession”

The paper analyzes the effects of different reactions of fiscal (and to some extent monetary) policies to the Great Recession in Slovenia. We use the model SLOPOL8.1, an econometric model of the Slovenian economy, to simulate the effects of the global crisis under the assumption of no-policy reactions, i.e. assuming that macroeconomic policies are conducted without attempting to deal with the effects of the recession. Moreover, we investigate whether (and if so, how) fiscal policy can reduce or even annihilate the macroeconomic effects of the recession. It turns out that in order to achieve reasonable rates of growth and of unemployment, a highly expansionary design of fiscal policies is required, which is neither realistic nor sustainable. There are strong trade-offs between countercyclical fiscal policies and the requirements of fiscal solvency. Acceptable fiscal policies are mildly countercyclical and are not able to shelter the Slovenian economy from the negative effects of a slump like that occurring during the Great Recession.     

Paradox of plenty: Norway’s macroeconomic policy dilemmas during the oil price crash, 2014-15

Norway, a country at the top of global rankings in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and human development was also in an enviable position with large current account and fiscal surpluses, as well as a massive stock of public assets. Then came a shock; between June 2014 and early 2016 oil prices tumbled by more than 70 percent. As a major oil exporter, Norway’s current account was severely impacted but could this actually draw Norway into a macroeconomic crisis? Couldn’t it just fund its way out of the contractionary pressures building up in the economy using its stock of foreign currency reserves being held in a sovereign wealth fund? This article explores the fiscal and monetary policy challenges that Norway faced in preempting falling GDP growth and rising unemployment while at the same time, warding off a housing bubble going bust.     

Output volatility in Australia

A number of papers have documented a significant decline in real GDP volatility in several major OECD economies. Some authors have presented evidence to suggest that this is the outcome of a one-off structural break from a high to low volatility state whilst others have estimated regime switching models that indicate low volatility regime states have dominated in recent years. This article provides further evidence on the general properties of output volatility for Australia, including evidence of a significant moderation in output volatility for the country that occurred in the early 1980s. Estimates of various GARCH models of real GDP growth are also provided to further examine shorter term volatility features of the Australian economy that are associated with its business-cycle. A regime shift dummy is maintained in all models of the conditional variance in order to account for the regime shift in volatility and evidence is found of significant business-cycle effects, including leverage effects and asymmetries that suggest recessions are times of higher output volatility than economic expansions. Overall, it is concluded that the so-called ‘Great Moderation’ in macroeconomic instability, as documented here for Australia, is a result of a myriad of economic, institutional and policymaking changes.