The Hayekian Puzzle: Spontaneous Order and the Business Cycle

In his early years, F. A. Hayek focused his research on the theory of capital and the business cycle. Later he turned to social philosophy and the theory of a spontaneous economic order. The two phases, it is argued in this paper, correspond to two basically incompatible research programs—general equilibrium theory vs. a theory of adapting, collective learning, and expectation formation. Hayek never reconsidered business cycle theory in the light of his later thought. The paper asks why and discusses what role cyclical fluctuations in aggregate economic activity may have to be play in the theory of spontaneous economic order.     

世界经济周期研究述评

本文对世界经济周期的概念、存在与否、产生原因、中国经济与世界经济的协同性等方面的研究成果进行了综述,并提出了进一步研究的方向。     

Inventories and the Business Cycle*

This paper examines the relationship between the inventory cy and the business cycle using both macroeconomic and survey da It is argued that over the past decade and a half, the changes inventory management have reduced the amplitude of the inventc cycle. The paper also argues that the behaviour of inventories consistent with demand shocks being an important source of business cycle fluctuations.     

Foreign Aid and the Business Cycle

This paper documents empirical regularities in the foreign aid flows to developing countries over three decades. In spite of a large body of literature on foreign aid and its impact on recipients, surprisingly little is known about its business cycle characteristics. The authors show that for the vast majority of African recipients, aid flows are a major source of income that is highly volatile and, most importantly, overwhelmingly procyclical. For recipients outside of Africa, there is a similar—if somewhat less pronounced—pattern of aid procyclicality. In contrast, there is little evidence of aid procyclicality with the business cycle of donors. In light of the very high volatility of output in developing countries, the procyclicality of foreign aid flows from the recipients' perspective raises serious questions related to their welfare and growth.     

技术冲击与中国经济周期波动

本文基于一个较为一般的动态一般均衡框架,从理论上探讨了技术冲击的长期影响。以此为基础,我们使用SVAR方法识别出导致中国经济周期波动的技术冲击,并且估计了它们对产出和通胀的动态影响,以及对二者波动的贡献率。结果发现,技术冲击虽然是中国经济周期波动的主要成因,但其贡献要远小于现有的其他实证结果。     

Real Business Cycle Models: An Introduction

In this article we present a simple real business cycle (RBC) model, in order to show that these models capture many of the features of business cycles in the real economy. While these models are very abstract, we argue that they are a useful way of thinking about the macro-economy. RBC models have also been influential in refocusing attention on supply issues in macroeconomics, after a long postwar focus on aggregate demand management in Australia and most other western economies. Policies such as structural reform and labour market reform are clearly aimed at influencing the supply side of the economy and productivity, and can be understood within the framework of RBC theory. RBC models have developed rapidly recently, yet there remains a good deal of misunderstanding about the methods and aims of these models. In this article we present a review of the literature and examine a simple model, using graphical techniques, to clarify some issues. We also argue that these models, while having limitations, have caused a fruitful re-examination of supply issues in economics, after the almost exclusive focus on aggregate demand in macroeconomics until the late 1970s.     

The Multi-Sector Business Cycle Model and Aggregate Shocks: An Empirical Analysis

This paper discusses the applicability of a multi-sector business cycle model to the Japanese economy. Through dynamic factor analysis, output fluctuations are broken down into aggregate and sectoral shocks. It is shown that independent sectoral shocks are more significant than common shocks, which is consistent with the model proposed by Long and Plosser (1983). In addition, the paper reveals that the importance of aggregate shocks increased during the so-called "Bubble" period in the late 1980s.     

Rationalizing the Political Business Cycle: A Workhorse Model

An incumbent policymaker has incentives to expand the money supply prior to elections to stimulate the economy and thereby further her chances of re-election. In its original formulation, the Nordhaus political business cycle hypothesis relies on adaptive inflation expectations and naive retrospective voting.
This article develops a simple model of a political cycle in inflation and output growth, assuming rational inflation expectations and rational retrospective voting. Voter scrutiny of the incumbent's economic performance has policy and selection effects, with ambiguous consequences for welfare: the policymaker manipulates the money supply for electoral purposes, but an incumbent of above average quality is more likely to remain in office.     

Macroeconomic Coordination of Exchange Rate and Wage Movements under Quasi-Sterilization: Singapore Experience

This paper analyzes Singapore's two-pronged macroeconomic strategy of low-inflation characterized by the quasi-sterilization mechanism and the coordination of exchange rate and wage movements. The monetary authority's inflation-averse attitude holds the key to the existence of a stable Nash equilibrium of the exchange rate and wages. During both economic upturns and downturns, the exchange rate moves one for one inversely with the growth of wages in the long run. The required steady monetary growth is underpinned by the quasi-sterilization mechanism whereby every dollar increase in net foreign reserves leads to a decrease of 0.84 dollars in net domestic credit.     

The microfoundations of the microfoundations of Austrian Business Cycle Theory

The Review of Austrian Economics - The Austrian School interpretation of the Keynes-Hayek debate runs counter to the conventional wisdom that Hayek “lost” the debate. Austrians maintain...     

International Business Cycles and Exchange Rates

Models of international real business cycles are not able to account for the high volatility of exports, imports, the trade balance, and the terms of trade. By introducing exogenous exchange rate movements in addition to standard technological shocks, the model presented here comes much closer to replicating the relatively high volatility observed in the data while also improving other moments.     

美国经济周期波动与货币政策

本文首先考察了战后美国经济周期波动和货币政策的演变历史,并利用HP滤波法分离出20世纪60年代以来美国GDP和广义货币供应量的波动成分,通过对比分析发现,在更多的时候,反周期的货币政策反而成为经济波动的触发因素之一。因此,在利用货币政策熨平经济周期性波动的同时要注意处理好短期和长期的关系,特别是要避免因调控产生新的市场扭曲,从而引发新一轮的经济波动。     

The Australian Business Cycle: Joe Palooka or Dead Cat Bounce?

We address the question of whether asymmetry in the business cycle and asymmetry in the persistence of negative versus positive shocks characterises Australian output growth. Using nonlinear time series models we provide some evidence consistent with the idea that Australian output growth is characterised by three distinct phases: contractions, high-growth recovery periods and 'normal' or moderate growth periods. This implies that Australian output fluctuations have a significant transitory component and is supportive of the 'output-gaps' view and 'plucking' model view of economic fluctuations. In contrast to recent evidence for the US and Canada however, we find that Australian GDP growth does not exhibit important asymmetries in the responses of output growth to positive and negative shocks.     

Wage Setting, Wage Curve and Phillips Curve: The Italian evidence

The purpose of this paper is to investigate some issues of wage setting in order to assess if nominal inertia and wage flexibility characterise the Italian supply side, using multivariate cointegration models. Our estimates indicate that an explicit distinction between stationary and non-stationary variables and a joint analysis of long-run and short-run structure is crucial for achieving clearer results. To this end, we use quarterly time series data for industry sector 1976:1–1993:4. Interesting results have been found concerning the empirical evidence of a long-run wage curve and the existence of a Phillips curve, through adopting alternative order reduction of the I(2) wage and price variables. Moreover, some insights on regional (North-South) unemployment effects are pointed out and discussed.     

Business Cycle Correspondence in the European Union

This paper examines whether there exists a close correspondence in the business cycles of the EU economies. We focus on the timing and magnitude of business cycles and propose criteria for defining close correspondence. We suggest that any correspondence that does exist is confined to the EU core and that, contrary to some of the existing literature, there exists a clear core-periphery distinction. This makes us less optimistic about the prospects for EMU if it is not accompanied by institutional arrangements that take into account the differences between EU economies.     

经济周期定期方法与研究进展

经济波动一直是宏观经济分析与预测中的经典问题,而经济周期拐点的及时识别对政府前瞻性经济政策的制定和企业投资经营战略的调整具有重要意义。鉴于我国目前尚没有权威机构对经济周期进行实时监测和发布,因而在划分经济周期和拐点识别时,往往局限于一种方法,不同方法有效性的比较缺乏一个基准参考。文章对国内外研究经济周期及其周期拐点定期的方法进行梳理和分析,依据经济周期定期方法的研究脉络,对主流的方法进行评述,并对我国经济周期定期进行展望,希望能在分析中国宏观经济波动特征和经济走势预测方面提供一些方法论参考和借鉴。