UNIQUENESS OF EQUILIBRIUM PAYOFFS IN FINITELY REPEATED GAMES WITH IMPERFECT MONITORING*

This paper examines when a finitely repeated game with imperfect monitoring has a unique equilibrium payoff vector. This problem is nontrivial under imperfect monitoring, because uniqueness of equilibrium (outcome) in the stage game does not extend to finitely repeated games. A (correlated) equilibrium is equilibrium minimaxing if any player's equilibrium payoff is her minimax value when the other players choose a correlated action profile from the actions played in the equilibrium. The uniqueness result holds if all stage game correlated equilibria are equilibrium minimaxing and have the same payoffs. The uniqueness result does not hold under weaker conditions.     

Monitoring and Forecasting Currency Crises

Can we improve forecasts of currency crises by using a large number of predictors? Which predictors should we use? This paper evaluates the performance of traditional leading indicators and a new Diffusion Index (DI) method as Early Warning Systems to monitor the risk and forecast the likelihood of the recent currency crises in East Asia. We find that the DI performs quite well in real time. For most countries, the forecasted probabilities of a crisis increase substantially around the actual time of the crisis. The economic variables that help in forecasting future crises are output growth, interest rates and money growth.     

Heterogeneous Consumers and Fiscal Policy Shocks

This paper studies empirical facts regarding the effects of unexpected changes in aggregate macroeconomic fiscal policies on consumers that differ depending on individual characteristics. We use data from the Consumption Expenditure Survey to estimate individual‐level responses and multipliers for government spending. We find that unexpected fiscal shocks have substantially different effects on consumers depending on their income and age levels: the wealthiest individuals tend to behave according to predictions of standard Real Business Cycle (RBC) models, whereas the poorest ones behave according to standard IS–LM (non‐Ricardian) models, most likely due to credit constraints. Furthermore, government spending policy shocks tend to decrease consumption inequality.     

CAPITAL ADEQUACY REQUIREMENTS AND THE FINANCIAL ACCELERATOR CAUSED BY BANK CAPITAL

This paper develops a computable dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous banks, a portion of which may be constrained by capital adequacy requirements and the remainder of which may not, in order to examine what effects the capital requirements and bank capital induce in the macroeconomy. Applying the parameterized expectations algorithm, the model economy shows that binding bank capital constraints induce the financial accelerator, the hump‐shaped dynamic behaviour of output, and ineffectuality of monetary policy, and that all the results are derived from the individual banks’ cross‐sectional asymmetric responses that are consistent with the empirical evidence.     

MEAN‐PLUS‐NOISE FACTOR MODELS: AN EMPIRICAL EXPLORATION

In this paper I propose an alternative factor model whose common factor follows a mean‐plus‐noise process. While the existing methods for factor models should be valid for this model, their performance may be misleading in small samples. Because the likelihood function of this model is not tractable, I estimate this model by Bayesian methods. When applied to US macroeconomic time series, we find that the estimated mean‐plus‐noise factor is useful for predicting real personal income, industrial production and unemployment at long prediction horizons.     

“INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY” AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

At present, when more than half of the “Development Decade” has passed, the economic development of developing countries is far behind the targets set forth at the beginning of this decadc. The author analyses this problem, particularly from the viewpoint of capital movements, and comes to the conclusion that the existing system of capital movements to developing countries today must be re-examined; a new world loans or grants system should be established in combination with efforts in the direction of total disarmament.     

EC INTEGRATION AND JAPANESE FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE EC

This study proposes two hypotheses to identify the cause(s) behind the short-term cyclical Japanese manufacturing foreign direct investment in the European Community (EC) in the late 1980s and early 1990s: (i) a catch-up process of Japanese firms in anticipation of EC single market integration in 1993 and (ii) the so-called bubble economic phenomenon caused by the overheated economy following expansionary monetary policy in Japan in the late 1980s. Applying multinomial logit models to the data on parent firms of 283 Japanese manufacturing subsidiaries established in the EC from 1988 to 1992 reveals strong support for the bubble economy hypothesis but not for the catch-up hypothesis. Results also show that under a bubble economy situation, tax-related incentive policies in host countries—e.g., an investment tax allowance for foreign direct investment—are quite important in attracting Japanese firms.     

PARENTS’ EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND,SUBJECTS “GOOD‐AT” IN SCHOOL AND INCOME: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY*

We analyze the effects of studying mathematics and of parents’ academic profile on the annual labour income of their children in later life. Data was obtained from graduates of departments of economics at major private universities in Japan. They show that respondents who are good at mathematics (and English) have a higher average income, and that the more educated the parents, the more children tend to excel in mathematics.     

OPTIMAL FOREIGN BORROWING REVISITED

Foreign capital has become increasingly important in financing investment and growth in developing countries. Foreign capital flows, however, can be volatile as is evident from the recent financial crises. It has also recently been noted by researchers that there is little systematic empirical evidence that foreign capital contributes to the economic growth of developing countries. In this context, this paper attempts to theoretically reevaluate the borrowing behaviour of a developing economy that relies on foreign borrowing for its capital formation. In particular, this paper investigates the implications of different lending policies of international financial institutions. It is found that no matter whether the borrowing interest rate increases with the level of foreign debt per capita or with the foreign‐capital/total‐capital ratio, the economy always moves toward the stationary state. The result holds even when the representative agent regards the interest rate given as constant. This implies that foreign borrowing does help economic growth, irrespective of lending policies of international financial institutions.