Cyclically adjusted provisions and financial stability

This paper studies the extent to which alternative loan loss provisioning regimes affect the procyclicality of the financial system and financial volatility. It uses a DSGE model with financial frictions (namely, collateral effects and economies of scope in banking) and a generic formulation of provisioning regimes. Numerical experiments with a parameterized version of the model show that cyclically adjusted (or, more commonly called, dynamic) provisioning can be highly effective in terms of mitigating procyclicality and financial risks, measured in terms of the volatility of the credit-output ratio and real house prices, in response to financial shocks. The optimal combination of simple cyclically adjusted provisioning and countercyclical reserve requirement rules is also studied. The simultaneous use of these instruments does not improve the ability of either one of them to mitigate financial volatility, making them (partial) substitutes rather than complements.     

Inflation Band Targeting and Optimal Inflation Contracts

In this paper we provide a theoretical treatment of how inflation target ranges cope with the time-inconsistency problem arising from incentives for the monetary policymaker to exploit the short-run trade-off between employment and inflation to pursue short-run employment objectives, as in a Barro-Gordon (1983) model. Inflation band targets are able to achieve many of the benefits that arise under practically less attractive solutions such as the conservative central banker and optimal inflation contracts. Our theoretical model also shows how an inflation targeting range should be set and how it should respond to changes in the nature of shocks to the economy.     

高货币化、通货膨胀预期与通货膨胀

通货膨胀成为信用货币经济中循环往复的问题,货币是症结关键。通过建立包含货币缺口和收入差距的凯恩斯Phillips曲线理论模型,利用中国1979-2010年的数据实证得出:货币化通过两种途径作用于通货膨胀,一是通过扩大货币缺口、直接推动当期物价上升,二是高货币化导致了较高的通货膨胀预期,这种预期又推动了通货膨胀的自我实现。因此,在经济平稳发展情况下,货币化是一个金融发展程度指标,但在严重依赖货币扩张推动经济增长的情况下,货币化却可能是货币超发的指标,与通货膨胀存在着密切关系。     

Signaling,Financial Slack and Corporate Acquisitions

This paper shows that under certain conditions a firm's decision concerning the optimal medium of exchange to use in acquiring another firm is related to the decision of which source of capital should be used to finance long-term projects. An example of this type of interaction occurs when the firm's only source of financing a positive net present value project is an equity issue. In a Myers and Majluf (1984) world of asymmetric information the value maximizing strategy for the firm is to forego the public equity offering and instead use a stock offer to acquire a firm possessing financial slack. The process is modeled using an extension of the Myers and Majluf (1984) model and demonstrates how the acquisition alternative allows managers to separate the signals regarding the investment and financing decisions. Including net pension assets into our measure of financial slack, we provide empirical supports for the ability of the extended model to explain observed merger activity.     

News on Inflation and the Epidemiology of Inflation Expectations

This paper examines the nexus between news coverage on inflation and households’ inflation expectations. In doing so, we test the epidemiological foundations of the sticky information model (Carroll 2003, 2006 ). We use both aggregate and household‐level data from the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. We highlight a fundamental disconnection among news on inflation, consumers’ frequency of expectation updating, and the accuracy of their expectations. Our evidence provides at best weak support to the epidemiological framework, as most of the consumers who update their expectations do not revise them toward professional forecasters’ mean forecast.     

Interwar Inflation,Unexpected Inflation,and Output Growth

Interwar macroeconomic history is a natural place to look for evidence on the correlation between output growth and inflation or unexpected inflation. We apply time‐series methods to measure unexpected inflation for more than 20 countries using both retail and wholesale prices. There is a significant, positive correlation between output growth and inflation for the entire period. There is little evidence that this correlation is caused by an underlying role for unexpected inflation. For wholesale price inflation in particular, the output declines associated with deflations were larger than the output increases associated with inflations of the same scale.     

Survey Measures of Expected Inflation and the Inflation Process

The accuracy of inflation forecasts obtained from household and professional surveys has deteriorated noticeably of late, to the extent that a simple autoregressive specification outperforms survey forecasts. The decline in (absolute and relative) accuracy has taken place at about the same time as an apparent change in the inflation process. Projections of household forecasts on realized inflation suggests that households have not recognized this change. For the professionals, projections of expected inflation on headline inflation have changed, but on core inflation have not. By contrast, projections of realized headline inflation on core have changed sharply.     

Inflation and inequality

Cross-country evidence on inflation and income inequality suggests that they are positively related. This article explores the hypothesis that this correlation is the outcome of a distributional conflict underlying the determination of government policies. A political economy model is presented in which equilibrium inflation is positively related to the degree of inequality in income due to the relative vulnerability to inflation of low income households.     

Inflation and stagflation

This paper reports on the author's theoretical and empirical research which has supported the following propositions. First, the change in the rate of inflation from one year to the next depends upon the growth of the money supply less the current rate of inflation. The current unemployment rate does not significantly affect whether the rate of inflation will rise or fall. If the monetary authorities raise the rate of monetary expansion above the current rate of inflation, the latter will rise regardless of the slack in the economy. Second, the change in the unemployment rate from one year to the next depends upon: (a) the deviation of the current unemployment rate from its equilibrium value and (b) the growth of the money supply less the current rate of inflation. The first effect concerns wage flexibility and the second effect concerns the shift of the aggregate demand (C+I+G) curve.     

A New Model of Inflation,Trend Inflation,and Long‐Run Inflation Expectations

This paper develops a bivariate model of inflation and a survey‐based long‐run forecast of inflation that allows for the estimation of the link between trend inflation and the long‐run forecast. Thus, our model allows for the possibilities that long‐run forecasts taken from surveys can be equated with trend inflation, that the two are completely unrelated, or anything in between. Using a variety of inflation measures and survey‐based forecasts for several countries, we find that long‐run forecasts can provide substantial help in refining estimates and fitting and forecasting inflation. It is less helpful to simply equate trend inflation with the long‐run forecasts.     

Inflation Dynamics When Inflation Is Near Zero

We discuss the likely evolution of U.S. inflation in the near and medium terms on the basis of (i) past U.S. experience with very low levels of inflation, (ii) the most recent Japanese experience with negative inflation, and (iii) some preliminary U.S. micro evidence on downward nominal wage rigidity. Our findings question the view that stable long‐run inflation expectations and downward nominal wage rigidity will necessarily provide sufficient support to prices to avoid further declines in inflation. We show that an inflation model fitted on Japanese data over the past 20 years, which accounts for both short‐ and long‐run inflation expectations, matches the recent U.S. inflation experience quite well. While the model indicates that U.S. inflation might be subject to a lower bound, it does not rule out a prolonged period of low inflation or even mild deflation going forward. In addition, micro‐level data on wages suggest no obvious downward rigidity in the firm's wage bill, downward rigidity in individual wages notwithstanding. As a consequence, downward nominal wage rigidity may not be enough to offset deflationary pressures in the current situation.     

研发投入、冗余资源与企业绩效的关系研究

采用创业板企业2010～2014年数据为研究对象,实证分析研发投入与企业绩效的关系,探讨冗余资源对于二者关系的调节效应.结果表明,我国创业板企业研发投入强度与当期绩效显著负相关,而与滞后一至三期企业绩效显著正相关.考虑企业冗余资源的影响,进一步研究发现,沉淀性冗余资源和非沉淀性冗余资源对研发投入强度与企业绩效的关系分别具有负向和正向的调节效应,说明沉淀性冗余资源不利于企业研发绩效的提升,而非沉淀性冗余资源则可以有效促进企业进行创新研发,提高研发效率,最终提升企业绩效.     

Real Rates, Expected Inflation, and Inflation Risk Premia

This paper studies the term structure of real rates, expected inflation, and inflation risk premia. The analysis is based on new estimates of the real term structure derived from the prices of index-linked and nominal debt in the U.K. I find strong evidence to reject both the Fisher Hypothesis and versions of the Expectations Hypothesis for real rates. The estimates also imply the presence of time-varying inflation risk premia throughout the term structure.     

政府补贴、财务冗余对高新技术企业双元创新的影响

高水平的财务冗余政策与创新战略相协调,对企业持续保持竞争优势至关重要。政府补贴作为企业获得的外部资金支持,是创新资源的重要补充。本文以上市高新技术企业为样本,研究财务冗余、政府补贴对企业双元创新投资的直接作用和互补作用。研究主要发现:较之于对开发式创新的影响,政府补贴、财务冗余对企业探索式创新投资具有显著的促进作用,财务冗余与政府补贴对激励探索式创新投资具有一定的互补作用;相对于国有企业,民营企业的财务冗余与探索性创新投资的相关性较弱,政府补贴与财务冗余激励探索性创新投资的互补作用更加显著。     

Do Banks Provide Financial Slack?

We study the decision to choose bank debt rather than public securities in a firm's marginal financing choice. Using a sample of 500 firms over the 1980 to 1993 time period, we find that firms are relatively more likely to choose bank loans when variables that measure asymmetric information problems are elevated. The sensitivity of the likelihood of choosing bank debt to information problems is greater for firms with no public debt outstanding. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that banks help alleviate asymmetric information problems and that firms weigh these information benefits against a wide range of contracting costs when choosing bank financing.     

货币流动性与通货膨胀

货币流动性与通货膨胀是我国目前经济运行中较为突出的两个问题.及时开展货币流动性与通货膨胀之间关系的研究,厘清二者之间的相互引导关系,探寻二者之间的传导机制和形成机理,测定二者之间的传导时滞及影响力,这对中央银行有效调控流动性,有效预防、控制通货膨胀,进而促进国民经济的健康发展,都具有十分重要的现实意义.     

"通货膨胀目标法"

一种货币政策框架 在强有力的经验实证支持下,学者、决策者和其他相关人士在以下问题上达成了共识,即高通货膨胀(及其相关的易变性)扭曲了私营部门在投资、储蓄和生产方面的决策,最终将导致经济增长率下降.     

"通货膨胀目标制度"新在哪?

自1990年3月以来,"通货膨胀目标"作为一种新的货币政策中介目标,逐渐引起各国货币当局的密切关注.