Markups and the Welfare Cost of Business Cycles: A Reappraisal

Gali, Gertler, and Lopez‐Salido (2007) recently show quantitatively that fluctuations in the efficiency of resource allocation do not generate sizable welfare costs. In their economy, which is distorted by monopolistic competition in the steady state, we show that they underestimate the welfare cost of these fluctuations by ignoring the negative effect of aggregate volatility on average consumption and leisure. As monopolistic suppliers, both firms and workers aim to preserve their expected markups; the interaction between aggregate fluctuations and price‐setting behavior results in average consumption and employment levels that are lower than their counterparts in the flexible‐price economy. This level effect increases the efficiency cost of business cycles. It is all the more sizable with the degree of inefficiency in the steady state, lower labor–supply elasticities, and when prices instead of wages are rigid.     

An optimum-currency-area odyssey

The theory of optimum-currency-areas was conceived and developed in three highly influential papers, written by (Mundell, 1961) and (McKinnon, 1963) and Kenen (1969). Those authors identified characteristics that potential members of a monetary union should ideally possess in order to make it feasible to surrender a nationally-tailored monetary policy and the adjustment of an exchange rate of a national currency. We trace the development of optimum-currency-area theory, which, after a flurry of research into the subject in the 1960s, was relegated to intellectual purgatory for about 20 years. We then discuss factors that led to a renewed interest into the subject, beginning in the early 1990s. Milton Friedman plays a pivotal role in our narrative; Friedman's work on monetary integration in the early 1950s presaged subsequent optimum-currency-area contributions; Mundell's classic formulation of an optimal currency area was aimed, in part, at refuting Friedman's “strong” case for floating exchange rates; and Friedman's work on the role of monetary policy had the effect of helping to revive interest in optimum-currency-area analysis. The paper concludes with a discussion of recent analytical work, using New Keynesian models, which has the promise of fulfilling the unfinished agenda set-out by the original contributors to the optimum-currency-area literature, that is, providing a consistent framework in which a country's characteristics can be used to determine its optimal exchange-rate regime.     

Search and matching frictions and optimal monetary policy

A recent literature has merged the New Keynesian and the search and matching frameworks, which has allowed the former to analyze the joint dynamics of unemployment and inflation. This paper analyzes optimal monetary policy in this kind of hybrid framework. I show that zero inflation is optimal when all wages are Nash bargained in every period and the economy's steady state is efficient. In the more realistic case in which nominal wage bargaining is staggered, a case against price stability arises: in response to real shocks, the central bank should use price inflation so as to avoid excessive unemployment volatility and excessive dispersion in hiring rates. For a plausible calibration, the welfare loss under the zero inflation policy is about three times as large as under the optimal policy.     

Inflation determination with Taylor rules: Is new-Keynesian analysis critically flawed?

Cochrane (2007) has strongly questioned the basic economic logic of current monetary policy analysis, arguing that New Keynesian (NK) models imply rational expectations paths with explosive inflation that do not imply explosions in real variables relevant for transversality conditions. Consequently, the usual logic does not rule out solutions with explosive inflation. That result does not, however, justify negative conclusions about NK analysis, for a different criterion is logically satisfactory. It is that, to be plausible, a RE solution must satisfy the property of least-squares learnability. Adoption of this criterion serves to justify in principle the bulk of current mainstream analysis.     

Keynesian Inefficiency and Optimal Policy: A New Monetarist Approach

A simple model of monetary/labor search is constructed to study Keynesian indeterminacy and optimal policy. In the model, economic agents have trouble splitting the surplus from exchange appropriately, and we consider monetary and fiscal policies that correct this Keynesian inefficiency. A Taylor rule neither implies determinacy, nor does it support an efficient outcome. An optimal policy yields an efficient and determinate allocation of resources, but equilibrium policy actions, wages, and prices are indeterminate at the optimum.     

风险资产配置与货币政策规则——黏性价格均衡下的宏观资产配置模型初探

本文将一个基于动态新凯恩斯理论的连续时间黏性价格一般均衡模型与随机动态资产配置模型相结合,进而研究基于内生宏观经济动态和货币政策规则进行资产配置的问题。在最优配置策略下,投资者相对风险偏好随无风险名义利率的增大而单调减小,而随通胀率的变化呈“U”型,说明投资者在通胀偏离稳态幅度较大时配置风险资产的相对意愿较高。此外,本文也给出了使用该模型讨论投资者最大化跨期效用对经济反作用这一宏观审慎问题的方式。     

Inflation and output in New Keynesian models with a transient interest rate peg

A familiar result in the canonical Dynamic New Keynesian (DNK) model is that policymakers constrained by the zero bound can improve outcomes by promising to keep rates low after the zero bound is not binding. We examine a general class of interest rate pegs in a variety of DNK models. Standard versions of the model produce counterintuitive reversals where the effect of the interest rate peg can switch from highly expansionary to highly contractionary for modest changes in the length of the interest rate peg. This unusual behavior does not arise in sticky information models of the Phillips curve.     

Comment on: “Inflation dynamics with search frictions: A structural econometric analysis” by Krause, Lopez-Salido and Lubik

The implications of search frictions on the inflation dynamics are shown here for the case with wage adjustments typically belonging to the New Keynesian model, not to the Mortensen–Pissarides framework. In that model variant, I identify the role of search frictions by an additional term entering the slope coefficient of the inflation equation. After a numerical exercise, I find results that are in line with those obtained by Krause et al. [2008. Inflation dynamics with search frictions: a structural econometric analysis. Journal of Monetary Economics 55, doi:10.1016/j.jmoneco.2008.05.003.].     

Labor market reform and price stability: An application to the Euro Area

Central bankers frequently suggest that labor market reform may be beneficial for inflation management. This paper investigates this topic by simulating the effects of reductions in firing costs and unemployment benefits on inflation volatility in the Euro Area, using an estimated New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions. Qualitatively, changes in labor market policies alter the volatility of inflation in response to shocks, by affecting the volatility of the three components of real marginal costs (hiring costs, firing costs and wage costs). Quantitatively, we find, however, that neither policy is likely to have an important effect on inflation volatility, due to the small contribution of hiring and firing costs to inflation dynamics.     

产业结构调整与中国通货膨胀缺口持久性

转轨时期作为中国经济结构最重要内容的产业结构调整可能诱发通货膨胀缺口持久性的变化。本文将通货膨胀缺口作为通货膨胀持久性的替代变量,采用新凯恩斯混合菲利普斯曲线模型对1996～2010年期间中国通货膨胀的持久性特征进行了考察,并运用Blanchard-Quah结构分解方法分析了产业结构调整对通货膨胀缺口持久性的影响。结果表明,与现有研究的结果相比,单变量和多变量模型评估的中国通货膨胀缺口持久性都显著较低。通货膨胀缺口受第一、二、三产业结构冲击减弱至0的时期分别为3、3、2个季度;第一产业的发展对通胀缺口持久性的短期冲击为正,第二、三产业的冲击为负;总体而言,第一和第二产业的发展弱化了通货膨胀缺口持久性,第一产业的作用更为显著,而第三产业则强化了通货膨胀缺口持久性。各产业结构变化对通货膨胀缺口持久性的冲击力度大小分别为第一、三、二产业。因此,治理通货膨胀必须考虑产业结构调整因素的影响。     

Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve in Four Central European Countries

This paper seeks to shed light on the inflation dynamics of four new central European EU members: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. To this end, the New Keynesian Phillips curve augmented for open economies is estimated and additional statistical tests applied, with the following results: (1) the claim of New Keynesians that the real marginal cost is the main inflation-forcing variable is fragile, (2) inflation seems to be driven by external factors, and (3) although inflation holds a forward-looking component, the backward-looking component is substantial. An intuitive explanation for higher inflation persistence may be adaptive, rather than rational price setting of local firms.     

International Evidence on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve Using Aggregate and Disaggregate Data

We present a unique empirical analysis of the properties of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) using an international data set of aggregate and disaggregate sectoral inflation. Our results from panel time‐series estimation clearly indicate that sectoral heterogeneity has important consequences for aggregate inflation behavior. Heterogeneity helps to explain the overestimation of inflation persistence and underestimation of the role of marginal costs in empirical investigations of the NKPC that use aggregate data. We find that combining disaggregate information with heterogeneous‐consistent estimation techniques helps to reconcile, to a large extent, the NKPC with the data.     

Latin American Cycles: Has Anything Changed After the Great Recession?

This paper analyzes the evolution of growth cycles and business cycles in Latin America from 1980 to 2013 by using monthly industrial production. Focusing on both synchronization and other cyclical features, we find evidence of significant cyclical links between the countries of the region, which seem to be highly integrated in this period. Notably, we find that the Great Recession did not lead to any significant impact on the preexisting Latin American cyclical linkages.     

中国MCI指数构建及其反通胀货币政策含义

众多研究表明,我国的菲利普斯曲线是一条兼顾前瞻性和后顾性的新凯恩斯混合型菲利普斯曲线。有鉴于此,本文通过构建新凯恩斯混合菲利普斯曲线模型并基于1994Q1—2010Q3数据估计了我国的标准化和非标准化MCI指数。实证检验表明,新凯恩斯菲利普斯曲线比不合预期的菲利普斯曲线表现出更好的计量经济学特征。本文得到的标准化MCI指数显示,利率变化和;12率变化对通胀的影响力基本相当,但;12率变化对通胀的影响更迅速。本文认为,在利率工具受到制约的通胀背景下,进一步增强人民币汇率弹性,适当利用人民币升值来降低通胀压力,应该是我国反通胀货币政策的一种可行选择。     

Fiscal Multipliers under an Interest Rate Peg of Deterministic versus Stochastic Duration

This paper revisits the size of the fiscal multiplier. The experiment is a fiscal expansion under the assumption of a pegged nominal rate of interest. We demonstrate that a quantitatively important issue is the articulation of the exit from the policy experiment. If the monetary‐fiscal expansion is stochastic with a mean duration of T periods, the fiscal multiplier can be unboundedly large. However, if the monetary‐fiscal expansion is for a fixed T periods, the multiplier is much smaller. Our explanation rests on a Jensen's inequality type argument: the deterministic multiplier is convex in duration, and the stochastic multiplier is a weighted average of the deterministic multipliers. The quantitative difference in the two multipliers also arises in a model with capital, and in the baseline nonlinear model. However, the differences between the two are less pronounced in the nonlinear models. The errors from a linear approximation are much larger for the stochastic exit model then for the deterministic exit model.     

经济周期、金融周期动态演变下企业杠杆率探析——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

将经济周期和金融周期的变化同时纳入杠杆率模型,分别建立中国上市公司的衰退模型和扩张模型,结合企业融资约束,研究经济周期、金融周期的周期异步性对企业杠杆率的直接效应和间接效应。研究发现:周期异步性对企业杠杆率的直接效应呈逆周期性特征,间接效应呈顺周期性;衰退期时,再融资企业杠杆率对周期性变动比融资受限企业更为敏感。研究对于监管当局综合经济周期、金融周期,制定、调整、完善企业债务融资政策,帮助企业深入理解债务融资环境,提升债务融资能力具有参考和借鉴意义。     

Business Cycle Synchronization of Turkey with the Eurozone and the United States: What Has Changed Since 2001?

Using wavelet methodology, we make a detailed spectral analysis of the business cycle synchronization of the Turkish economy with the eurozone and the United States. We take into account the dramatic change in the main economic indicators in the Turkish economy after the 2001 financial crisis. We find that the correlation of Turkish cycles with the cycles of the eurozone and the United States increased substantially after 2001. Moreover, the correlation of the Turkish cycles with the U.S. cycles is not lower than that with the euro cycles after 2001. Accordingly, analyzing the effect of international developments should not be confined to the trade channel. We submit that capital flows offer a reasonable explanation for the high correlation with the United States.