Währungspolitische Zielfunktionen und die Ziele der österreichischen Währungspolitik

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Währungsreserven und Zahlungsbilanzausgleich Ein Überblick über einige Neuerscheinungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Asian currency crash: were badly driven fundamentals to blame?

This paper examines the extent to which a number of currencies central to the Asian currency crisis were misaligned at the end of 1996. A well-known fundamentals-based exchange rate model, the monetary approach to exchange rate behavior, is used to produce estimates of equilibrium exchange rates for a number of Asian currencies. The estimates, calculated using panel methods, are shown to be consistent with the underlying model. Most significantly, very little evidence of misalignment is found to exist in 1996. This suggests that the cause of the Asian crash cannot be attributed to traditional fundamentals.     

IMF Support and Inter-Regime Exchange Rate Volatility

It is widely agreed that when moving from fixed to floating exchange rates the increase in exchange rate volatility is not matched by an equivalent rise in the volatility of fundamentals. We argue and demonstrate that in inter-regime comparisons one has to account for ‘missing variables’ that compensate for the fundamental variables’ volatility under fixed exchange rates. Previous studies have often used foreign exchange reserves, but without much success. We argue why reserves are not a reliable measure, while IMF credit support is. Our empirical analysis identifies IMF support as a crucial and significant compensating variable.     

Something unforeseeable happened? Natural rate theory and economic crisis

“Natural rate theory” — the application of the efficient market hypothesis to labour markets — has guided economic policy since the 1970s and laid the foundations for the design of major European institutions in the 1990s. Unfettered markets were declared to be stable, and consequently public policies and regulations were regarded as distortions. This led to a division of labour in which central banks were responsible only for price stability, governments for labour market reforms and unions for low wages. The European discussion focused almost exclusively on labour market reforms to reduce unemployment. Against the background of the recent dramatic drop in economic activity, this paper confronts natural rate theory with actual economic trends and argues that the predictions of the theory hardly fit the facts.     

A Fluency Heuristic Account of Supraliminal Prime Effects on Product Preference

The effects of supraliminal primes on product preference have been explained by two activation mechanisms, goal activation and trait activation. In this research, an additional activation mechanism not explained by goals or traits is identified. Using the implicit association test as a process measure, this article provides evidence that the effect of supraliminal primes on product preference is the result of conceptual fluency and the fluency heuristic. To provide evidence that this mechanism affects preference nonconsciously, this article proposes a dual‐processing framework where conscious effects are mediated by explicit attitude and nonconscious effects are mediated by implicit attitude and moderated by the motivation and opportunity to process information. The experimental findings support the authors’ propositions, which provide a number of theoretical, methodological, and practical implications.     

The Year in Review: Economics at the Antitrust Division 2012–2013

During 2012–2013, the Antitrust Division brought a wide range of litigated matters to successful conclusions. Litigation puts the economic analysis of an antitrust investigation to the ultimate test, and the Division continues to rely on its first-rate economic staff to help explain a wide range of matters to the courts. The four cases discussed below demonstrate the diverse set of issues the Division examines every year.     

The Fed as the Engine of Worldwide Inflation

The United States is a sovereign country that has the right to follow its own monetary policy. By an accident of history, since 1945 it is also the center of the world dollar standard—which remains surprisingly robust to the present day. So the choice of monetary policy by the U.S. Federal Reserve can strongly affect its neighbors for better or for worse. Beginning with the Nixon shock in 1971, American policy makers have frequently ignored foreign complaints. But by ignoring feedback effects from the rest of the world, the Fed has made both the world and American economies less stable.     

A‐pool: An agent‐oriented open system shell for distributed decision process modeling

An agent‐oriented open system shell, A‐Pool, for distributed decision process modeling in the Internet domain is presented. Unlike most decision support systems, A‐Pool provides a testbed for modeling and understanding the cognitive aspects of distributed decision processes themselves rather than for domain‐specific problem solving. This is achieved with a pool of virtual agents and a pool of cognitive maps of the agents at each A‐Pool node. The virtual agent scheme extends object‐oriented programming to the Internet domain and supports different communication and collaboration protocols with virtual communities, virtual sessions, and virtual conferences. The cognitive map scheme supports perspective sharing and various conflict integration and resolution strategies through cognitive map composition, derivation, and focus generation. Thus each A‐Pool node provides an architecture for modeling interdependencies and for ensuring global coherence; in addition, the communication is asynchronous and the control is distributed, allowing a large degree of autonomy and the examination of various thoughts and social protocols involved in strategic planning in an open system environment. Basic ideas are illustrated with a running example.