Entry, exit and business cycles in a general equilibrium model

This paper studies the role of entry and exit in the short run behavior of a general equilibrium model with industry dynamics. For tractability, and to preserve potential asymmetries in the impulse responses, I focus on the transition dynamics of the economy after shocks. Entry and exit are found to be insensitive to productivity shocks of reasonable magnitude. Moreover, the dynamics of GDP are insensitive to fluctuations in entry and exit rates, and any asymmetries are negligible. As an application of the model, the paper also asks whether firing costs may interact with entry and exit to affect transition dynamics after shocks, finding that they do not.     

ANALYTICAL MARXISM

Abstract This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the literature on Analytical Marxism (AM) and analyses its relevance for social theory. AM is precisely defined and distinguished from Rational Choice Marxism (RCM). The different substantive implications of the two approaches are discussed: according to RCM, the role of Marxism in the social sciences is exhausted, whereas AM has reconstructed a set of propositions that aim to provide the foundations of a distinctive approach in social theory. The methodological debate around and within AM is analysed and the shortcomings of methodological individualism and rational choice theory are stressed, raising doubts on the claim that RCM is the only scientific approach to Marx's theory. Yet, wholesale rejections on a priori methodological or exegetical grounds are questioned. A focused, immanent critique of RCM is developed, which emphasizes the lack of an adequate analysis of structural constraints and endogenous preferences in RCM models. It is argued that the analysis of endogenous preferences and structural constraints is consistent with an anti‐reductionist AM approach and it may provide the outline of a fertile, distinctive research programme in explanatory social theory that builds on the core of Marxism identified by AM.     

The condominium problem; auctions for substitutes

This paper considers the problem of designing selling procedures for substitutes (like condominium units). Oral, ascending auctions for the right to choose are efficient. This is a common type of auction used for the sale of real estate. Efficiency is not optimal from the seller’s viewpoint. An optimal procedure distorts the right-to-choose auction to favor in late rounds bidders whose preferred object has already been sold. This optimal auction is complex. A revenue improving departure from efficiency can be achieved by simply auctioning all the rights to choose before any of them is exerted.Received: 5 February 2003, Accepted: 15 February 2005, JEL Classification: D44I acknowledge very helpful comments by Joe Harrington, Ken Hendricks, and anonymous referees. Financial aid from the European Commission through the TMR Program (contract FMRX-CT98-0203) and the Spanish MCyT (Grants SEC 2002-02506 and SEC 2003-08080) is also gratefully acknowledged.     

Capital inflows: Macroeconomic implications and policy responses

This paper examines the macroeconomic implications of and policy responses to surges in private capital inflows across a large group of emerging and advanced economies. In particular, we identify 109 episodes of large net private capital inflows to 52 countries over 1987–2007. Episodes of large capital inflows are often associated with real exchange rate appreciations and deteriorating current account balances. More importantly, such episodes tend to be accompanied by an acceleration of GDP growth, but afterwards growth has often dropped significantly. A comprehensive assessment of various policy responses to the large inflow episodes leads to three major conclusions. First, keeping public expenditure growth steady during episodes can help limit real currency appreciation and foster better growth outcomes in their aftermath. Second, resisting nominal exchange rate appreciation through sterilized intervention is likely to be ineffective when the influx of capital is persistent. Third, tightening capital controls has not in general been associated with better outcomes.     

People, cities, growth and technological change : From the golden age to globalization

The concept of economic development appeared during the postwar period as the basis and the source of a very strong hope of eradicating extreme poverty from the face of the Earth. All along the three first decades of this period—the second half of the 20th century—this promise did not seem questionable. It was thought that there were clear signs that material progress reaching larger sectors of the population and economic growth were parallel processes, linked to urbanization. A new style was thus established—that of modern large cities. However, the dynamics of this period appears to be strongly associated with the economic activity related to the basic construction of one's own lifestyle. The effects of structural market saturation and the limits of the redistribution of income began to be noticed in as far back as the end of the 1960s, and even more clearly so towards the end of the 1970s. That was the moment when population growth in the megalopolises and large cities in general began to become stable and even to decline in absolute value. It was also the time when the acceleration of technological innovation began to play a major role in development policies, while low social inclusion and marginalization problems became evident. This paper delves into this hypothesis on the basis of ample empirical evidence. Numerous conclusions are drawn from the analysis, which are useful for a serious restatement of the controversial issue of Sustainable Development.     

Whom do you distrust and how much does it cost? An experiment on the measurement of trust

We advance the measurement of trust in economics in two ways. First, we highlight the importance of clearly identifying the target of trust, particularly for obtaining concordance between attitudinal and behavioral measures of trust. Second, we introduce a novel behavioral measure of (dis)trust, based on individuals? willingness to pay to avoid being vulnerable to the target of trust. We conduct an experiment in which we vary the target of trust among passersby at several locations around a city, measuring both behavioral distrust and trust attitudes towards these varying targets. We find that subjects discriminate based on perceived characteristics of different targets in determining whether to trust, in a manner consistent with trust elicited using attitudinal measures and with actual trustworthiness. Risk aversion and altruism do not correlate highly with our measure of distrust.     

Timing and Virtual Observability in Ultimatum Bargaining and “Weak Link” Coordination Games

Previous studies have shown that simply knowing one player moves first can affect behavior in games, even when the first-mover's moves are known to be unobservable. This observation violates the game-theoretic principle that timing of unobserved moves is irrelevant, but is consistent with virtual observability, a theory of how timing can matter without the ability to observe actions. However, this previous research only shows that timing matters in games where knowledge that one player moved first can help select that player's preferred equilibrium, presenting an alternative explanation to virtual observability. We extend this work by varying timing of unobservable moves in ultimatum bargaining games and “weak link” coordination games. In the latter, the equilibrium selection explanation does not predict any change in behavior due to timing differences. We find that timing without observability affects behavior in both games, but not substantially.     

Stocks,bonds, money markets and exchange rates: measuring international financial transmission

Understanding the complexity of the financial transmission process across various assets—domestically as well as within and across asset classes—requires the simultaneous modeling of the various transmission channels in a single, comprehensive empirical framework. The paper estimates the financial transmission between money, bond and equity markets and exchange rates within and between the USA and the euro area. We find that asset prices react strongest to other domestic asset price shocks, but that there are also substantial international spillovers, both within and across asset classes. The results underline the dominance of US markets as the main driver of global financial markets: US financial markets explain, on average, around 30% of movements in euro area financial markets, whereas euro area markets account only for about 6% of US asset price changes. Moreover, the methodology allows us to identify indirect spillovers through other asset prices, which are found to increase substantially the international transmission of shocks within asset classes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Coincident Index,Common Factors,and Monthly Real GDP*

The Stock–Watson coincident index and its subsequent extensions assume a static linear one‐factor model for the component indicators. This restrictive assumption is unnecessary if one defines a coincident index as an estimate of monthly real gross domestic products (GDP). This paper estimates Gaussian vector autoregression (VAR) and factor models for latent monthly real GDP and other coincident indicators using the observable mixed‐frequency series. For maximum likelihood estimation of a VAR model, the expectation‐maximization (EM) algorithm helps in finding a good starting value for a quasi‐Newton method. The smoothed estimate of latent monthly real GDP is a natural extension of the Stock–Watson coincident index.     

A two-step approach to account for unobserved spatial heterogeneity

A two-step approach to account for unobserved spatial heterogeneity. Spatial Economic Analysis. Empirical analysis in economics often faces the difficulty that the data are correlated and heterogeneous in some unknown form. Spatial econometric models have been widely used to account for dependence structures, but the problem of directly dealing with unobserved spatial heterogeneity has been largely unexplored. The problem can be serious particularly if we have no prior information justified by economic theory. In this paper we propose a two-step procedure to identify endogenously spatial regimes in the first step and to account for spatial dependence in the second step. This procedure is applied to hedonic house price analysis.