Expectations Formation,Sticky Prices,and the ZLB

At the zero lower bound (ZLB), expectations about the future path of monetary or fiscal policy are crucial. We model expectations formation under level- $$ thinking, a form of bounded rationality formalized by García-Schmidt and Woodford (2019) and Farhi and Werning (2019), consistent with experimental evidence. This process does not lead to a number of puzzling features from rational expectations models, such as the reversal puzzle, or implausible large fiscal multipliers. Optimal monetary policy at the ZLB under level- $$ thinking prescribes keeping the nominal rate lower for longer, but short-run macro-economic stabilization is less powerful compared to rational expectations.     

The effect of output growth volatility on output growth: empirical evidence from Turkey

This article assesses the effect of output growth volatility on output growth within a stochastic-volatility-in-mean model with a time-varying framework for an open small economy: Turkey. Until now, the empirical evidence on industrial production mainly reveals that this relationship is negative. However, in further examining different sectors and sub-sectors of industrial production, we find the sign of the relationship changes depending on the sector. Moreover, there is limited evidence that the sign of the relationship changes over time. Thus, the evidence reveals that the nature of the output growth volatility–output growth relationship is not uniform across sectors.     

Land Value: Seven Major Questions in the Analysis of Urban Land Values

A review of the literature on land and its value reveals seven sources of ambiguity: 1) a precise definition of the type of land under investigation is frequently absent, 2) the temporal, and 3) the spatial aspects of the land value attributes might be inconsistently specified, 4) the relevance of the valuation methods used is often overlooked, 5) the separate land value is a mere by‐product of the total property value as a rule, and thus lacks proper focus, 6) the different agents involved in land markets are not always taken into account, and finally, 7) the explanations for the unpredictable aspects of land value are sporadic. This article explores each of these areas of ambiguity.     

The WACC Fallacy: The Real Effects of Using a Unique Discount Rate

In this paper, we test whether firms properly adjust for risk in their capital budgeting decisions. If managers use a single discount rate within firms, we expect that conglomerates underinvest (overinvest) in relatively safe (risky) divisions. We measure division relative risk as the difference between the division's asset beta and a firm‐wide beta. We establish a robust and significant positive relationship between division‐level investment and division relative risk. Next, we measure the value loss due to this behavior in the context of acquisitions. When the bidder's beta is lower than that of the target, announcement returns are significantly lower.     

Efficient Management of Insecure Fossil Fuel Imports through Taxing Domestic Green Energy?

A small open economy produces a consumer good as well as renewable (green) and fossil fuel based (brown) energy. It imports fossil fuel at an uncertain price and suffers from carbon emission damages. Unregulated competitive markets are shown to be inefficient. The implied market failures are due to the agents' attitudes toward risk, to risk shifting, and the uniform price for both types of energy. Under the plausible assumptions that consumers are prudent and at least as risk‐averse as the producers of brown energy, the risk can be efficiently managed by placing a tariff on fuel imports (which is equivalent to taxing carbon emissions in the model at hand) and taxing green energy. The need to tax green energy contradicts the widespread view that subsidization of green energy is an appropriate means to enhance energy security in countries depending on risky fossil fuel imports.     

Asset price bubbles and crashes with near-zero-intelligence traders

Summary. We examine whether a simple agent-based model can generate asset price bubbles and crashes of the type observed in a series of laboratory asset market experiments beginning with the work of Smith, Suchanek and Williams (1988). We follow the methodology of Gode and Sunder (1993, 1997) and examine the outcomes that obtain when populations of zero-intelligence (ZI) budget constrained, artificial agents are placed in the various laboratory market environments that have given rise to price bubbles. We have to put more structure on the behavior of the ZI-agents in order to address features of the laboratory asset bubble environment. We show that our model of near-zero-intelligence traders, operating in the same double auction environments used in several different laboratory studies, generates asset price bubbles and crashes comparable to those observed in laboratory experiments and can also match other, more subtle features of the experimental data.Received: 15 July 2003, Revised: 28 September 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D83, D84, G12. Correspondence to: John DuffyWe would like to thank an Anonymous referee, Guillaume Frechette, David Laibson, Al Roth and participants in Harvard Experimental and Behavioral Economics Workshop for their comments, and Charles Noussair for providing his data set.     

Asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on economic performance: empirical evidence from Turkey

This study investigates the asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on the macroeconomic variables of exchange rate, output and inflation for an emerging economy ? Turkey ? by using monthly data between 1990 and 2014. We employ the innovative nonlinear vector autoregressive model of Kilian and Vigfusson (2011), which allows us to observe the effect of different stances (tight or loose) and different sizes (small or large) of monetary policy actions. Our empirical evidence reveals that tight monetary policy, which, in this case, is captured with a positive shock to interest rate, decreases exchange rate, output and prices, as economic theory suggests. Loose monetary policy, which is captured with a negative shock to interest rate, has the opposite effect on these variables. However, the effects of loose monetary policy are weaker than the effects of tight monetary policy because loose monetary policy shocks are less effective than tight monetary policy shocks. Moreover, as the magnitude of a shock increases, the difference between the effects of tight and loose monetary policy policies also increases.     

Lumpy Investment,Lumpy Inventories

The link between the microenvironment (frictions and heterogeneity) and the macroeconomic dynamics of general equilibrium macromodels is influenced by exactly how general equilibrium closes the model. We make this observation concrete using the recent literature on how nonconvex capital adjustment costs influence aggregate investment dynamics. We introduce inventories into a two‐sector lumpy investment model and find that nonconvex capital adjustment costs dampen and propagate investment impulse responses, more so than without inventories. With two means of transferring consumption into the future, fixed capital and inventories, the tight link between aggregate saving and fixed capital investment is broken.