Monetary policy reaction functions and saving-investment correlations: Some cross-country evidence

Zusammenfassung Reaktionsfunktionen für die Geldpolitik und Korrelationen zwischen Ersparnis und Investitionen: Evidenz aus einer Querschnittsuntersuchung. — In diesem Artikel wird untersucht, wie stark die Geldpolitik auf Ver?nderungen in der Handelsbilanz reagiert. Verschiedene Sch?tzungen der linearen Reaktionsfunktionen mit Quartalsdaten für Deutschland, Italien, Japan und die USA zeigen, da\ in allen L?ndern mit Ausnahme der USA ein Defizit in der Handelsbilanz zu einer restriktiven Geldpolitik führt. Ein spezielles Sch?tzverfahren erlaubt den Schlu\, da\ die Reaktionsfunktionen nicht-linear sind, soweit es sich um die Handelsbilanzvariable handelt. Auch zeigt sich, da\ die Geldpolitik st?rker auf Defizite als auf überschüsse reagiert. Sobald Asymmetrie zugelassen wird, verbessern sich die Reaktionsfunktionen und die Parametersch?tzungen werden pr?ziser.

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Résumé Les fonctions de la réaction de la politique monétaire et les correlations entre épargne et investissements: quelque évidence d’une étude de plusieurs pays. — Dans cet article les auteurs examinent le degré avec lequel la politique monétaire a réagi à la balance courante. L’OMC, robustes et paramètres-variables estimations des fonctions de réaction linéaires avec des données trimestrielles de l’Allemagne, l’Italie, du Japon et des Etats Unis proposent pour les pays sauf les Etats Unis que le déficit de la balance courante mène à une politique monétaire restrictive. Les résultats d’une estimation spécifique indiquent que les fonctions de réaction sont non-linéaires aux termes de la variable pour la balance courante. La politique monétaire réagit plus fortement aux déficits qu’aux surplus. En outre, l’admission de l’asymétrie améliore la performance des fonctions de réaction et produit des paramètres estimés plus précis.

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Resumen Funciones de reacción de politica monetaria y correlaciones entre ahorro e inversión: alguna evidencia para una muestra de países. — En este trabajo se examina el grade en el cual la politica monetaria ha reaccionado a la cuenta corriente. Estimaciones MCC y de parametres robustos y variables de las funciones lineares de reacción con datos trimestrales de Alemania, Italia, Japon y de los Estados Unidos sugieren — los Estados Unidos siendo la excepción — que, ceteris paribus, el déficit de cuenta corriente resulta en una oferta monetaria restrictiva. Los valores criticos de la estimación (threshold estimation) indican que las funciones de reacción son no lineares en cuanto a la variable de la cuenta corriente, y que la política monetaria reacciona más a los déficits que a los superávits. Además, al incorporar la asimetricidad se mejora la performance de las funciones de reacción y se las estimaciones de los parámetros resultan más precisas.

     

Workers' investment funds and the dynamic inefficiency of capitalism

This paper examines the effects of the partial transfer of control over the investment decision from capitalists to workers, which is an essential feature of plans to establish workers' investment funds, in a two-class model of capitalism formulated as a differential game. It is shown that the institutional change which provides the workers with means to invest their savings directly, instead of having to use the capitalists as agents for accumulation, improves economic efficiency. As a consequence, the economy saves, invests, grows and consumes more than the pure capitalist society, which is characterized by the Keynesian separation of saving and investment decisions.     

Publicly Provided Private Goods and Redistribution: A General Equilibrium Analysis

Public provision of private goods is examined within a self-selection framework where production depends on labour supply of different households and the level of public provision. It is shown that productivity and wage-structure effects can create a role for public provision, even if preferences are weakly separable between goods and leisure. Public provision of education may offer an intuitively appealing case for the production-side impacts. We also address the reasons for public provision in a dynamic, overlapping generations economy, whereby public provision may affect efficiency and social costs of redistribution of future generations as well.
JEL classification : H 23; H 42     

Product profitability: Causes and effects

The aim of this study was to determine the extent and the reasons for variation in the profitability of a product. The underlying hypothesis was that all products are not profitable. Furthermore, it was assumed that activity-based costing (ABC) would indicate greater differences in the profitability of products than the previously used marginal costing system. The case study was conducted in a company in the metal industry that manufactures and assembles industrial goods. First, the activity chains were modeled and the activity-based costs were calculated. Second, the activity-based cost of the final products was compared with the selling prices to determine the profitability. The results show that the profitability varies significantly. The most profitable 20% of the products generate more than 150% of the profits and 50% of the net sales. Finally, the study identifies the characteristics of the most profitable products and discusses the reasons for the profitability.     

Mobilizing change through the management control of intangibles

This qualitative study explores the management control of intangibles in three Swedish companies. The present analysis is discussed in terms of four theoretical perspectives, namely, evolutionary, action, organizational learning and structuration theory. The results indicate that such enablers of performance as customer and employee perceptions of individuals and organizational and relational competence are the key attributes that firms address. Equally important, however, are different routines that facilitate learning and the transformation of knowledge into action. Routines additional to surveys include statistical analysis, benchmarking, dialogues, salary bonuses, and contracts.     

How value and trust influence loyalty in wireless telecommunications industry

Despite making significant investments in enhancing the customer service experience, long-term customer loyalty remains an elusive dream for many service providers. Particularly in the telecommunications industry, switching providers even from within continuous contract relationships is easy and companies struggle to retain their customers. Trust and value are considered cornerstones of long-term relationships, so it is perhaps surprising that previous research on how relationship age and usage level actually affect value, trust and loyalty is inconclusive. The current research is set in the telecommunications services field and draws on a large-scale survey undertaken in Finland. The findings support the contention that perceived value relates positively to loyalty, and that trust mediates that relationship. Surprisingly, in the telecommunications industry, increasing relationship age and usage level strengthen neither value and loyalty nor the links between trust and loyalty. The results may be explained by the unique characteristics of the highly competitive mobile telecommunications sector, and confirm the view that loyalty does not pay without strategies that value long-term customers and thereby build trust with new customers.     

Poverty alleviation and tax policy

This paper examines public good provision and tax policy—optimal non-linear income taxation and linear commodity taxation—when the government departs from purely welfarist objective function and seeks to minimise poverty. This assumption reflects much policy discussion and may help understand some divergences of practical tax policy from lessons in optimal tax analysis. In contrast to Atkinson and Stiglitz (J. Public Econom. 6 (1976) 55), it may be optimal to use differentiated commodity tax rates, including the taxation of savings, even if preferences are separable in goods and leisure. The optimal effective marginal tax rate at the bottom of the distribution may be negative, suggesting that wage subsidy schemes can be optimal. Finally, optimal provision of a public good is analysed under poverty minimisation.     

New international evidence on output-inflation tradeoffs: A note

This note presents some new international evidence for the variance hypothesis by Lucas according to which the output-inflation tradeoff varies inversely with the variance of nominal aggregate demand. The annual cross-country data on 18 countries are used. Over the period 1952–1967 the variance hypothesis gets support, and allowing for serial and contemporaneous correlation of error terms leaves the results practically unaffected. Over the period 1952–1977, however, the variance hypothesis gets stronger support, which is even reinforced by allowing for serial and contemporaneous correlation of error terms between the OLS residuals.