Pierson on scarcity of gold and changes in the general price level

This paper is a historical reflection on the monetary view of Pierson. (1838–1910) a nineteenth-century Dutch economist, Bank president and prime minister, and his writing on the appropriateness of index numbers to measure inflation. Two aspects are conisdered. First, a policy of price stability should not focus solely on a general price index because this does not take inot account monetary factors sufficiently. Second, a pure monetary explanation as in the gold debate of the 1880s falls short of the mark and might conceal what really is going on, e.g. deflation.     

An experimnetal look at seasonal adjustment

Summary This paper offers an empirical appraisal of nine seasonal adjustment methods on the basis of seven criteria (percentage change, orthogonality, idempotency, two tests on residuals, stability, estimation accuracy of known seasonals).The results hardly favour any method explicitly but suggest that the user has to think about the purposes in his mind. Our tests offer the ingredients for an appropriate decision framework.If e.g. predictive power, i.e. stability, along with absence of residual seasonal and trend-cycle movement is wanted, the X-11 method of the Bureau of the Census and the Burman procedure of the Bank of England should be preferred.This paper has been presented at the meeting of the Econometric Society, Oslo, August 1973. We are indebted to Mr. N. J. A. van der Hoeven for his excellent research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge the help obtained the Dutch Central Planning Bureau, and Mr. M. Mesnage of the Statistical Office of the EEC in running our series. Dr. Burman was also kind enough to comment on an earlier draft of this paper presented to the OECD group of financial statisticians held in Paris, October 1972. Of course, the responsibility for the results is solely ours.     

Simon Kuipers: An Economist in Search of Rigour and Relevance

At the end of 1997 and after twenty-five years of duty, Professor Simon Kuipers retired as managing editor of De Economist. As a token of indebtedness and gratitude, this article reviews Kuipers' written work. The article focuses on two topics that dominate Kuipers' endeavours. First, his contributions to macroeconomic theory, with particular emphasis on his (neo-)Keynesian approach are examined. Second, Kuipers' contributions to actual monetary and economic policy are discussed, emphasis being placed on his empirical work.     

Baumol's Law and Verdoorn's Regularity

This paper tests the laws of Verdoorn and Baumol for the Netherlands in order to assess whether these laws provide an appropriate framework to interpret developments of output, employment, and wages and prices in the manufacturing industry and the services sector. The empirical evidence is not conclusive with respect to Verdoorn's law, but strongly supportive of Baumol's law.     

Notes and Communications

Summary This essay explores the occurrence of illusionary images or trompe-l’oeil in economics and their role in economic policy design. In this context four specific examples are discussed, relating to money illusion, the bias in the consumer price index to measure purchasing power, the econometrics of hyperinflation and the measurement of scholarly productivity. Fellow Tinbergen Institute and the Managing editor of De Economist. Until 2001 deputy executive director as well as head of research with De Nederlandsche Bank and from January 2003 professor emeritus in monetary economics, University of Amsterdam. I am grateful to professor J.S. Cramer and dr Peter van Els for their useful comments.     

De Vraag Naar Liquiditeiten in Nederland, 1952–1971

Summary This study examines the demand for money (broadly defined) in the Netherlands. The basic model assumes the long run demand for money to depend upon expected real income and prices, the rate of interest and a cyclical indicator. The actual money balances approach equilibrium with an exponentially distributed lag. The model is estimated with seasonally adjusted quarterly data covering the period 1952: I-1971:IV. We found an income elasticity of 0.85 and an interest elasticity of –0.20, a price elasticity close to 1 and a negative correlation between the demand for money and the cyclical indicator. We also found some statistical evidence for the hypothesis that the demand function is stable over time.

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De auteurs zijn hoofd resp. medewerker van de sectie wetenschappelijk onderzoek en econometrie op De Nederlandsche Bank N.V. Ze zijn de heer N. J. A. van der Hoeven veel dank verschuldigd voor zijn hulp bij de uitvoering van de berekeningen.     

The demand for financial assets: Time series evidence for The Netherlands: 1963:II 1975:IV

This paper provides a systems approach to a set of four demand-for-liquid-assets equations in The Netherlands, using quarterly data over the period 1963 1975. The main findings are firstly: the estimated cross-elasticity of time and savings deposits reveals complementarity, and secondly: cyclical shifts in the demand equations are particularly evident in time and savings deposits. This indicates that the velocity of circulation for these assets varies with the level of economic activity, while it does not vary for the two other assets considered ‘money’ and ‘other near moneys’.