The business cycle with nominal contracts

Summary In this paper we study the quantitative implications of nominal wage contracts for business cycle fluctuations. We address this issue using a model economy based on the neoclassical growth model supplemented by the assumption that cash is needed to purchase goods. We consider a variation of the standard recursive competitive equilibrium concept that is intended to capture the important features of wage contracting. We use this equilibrium construct to address three issues. First, we consider whether monetary shocks, propagated by nominal contracts, constitute a viable alternative to technology shocks as a source of aggregate fluctuations. Our results suggest that, while monetary shocks and nominal rigidities succeed in causing output volatility of the required magnitude, the resulting data have properties that are inconsistent with several key features of U.S. data. Second, we consider how the behavior of the economy varies with contract length. We find that the volatility induced by both monetary and technology shocks increases sharply with contract length. Finally we consider how much rigidity would be necessary to match the volatility of U.S. output. We find that only a very small amount of rigidity would be necessary to cause output volatility of the magnitude observed.We have received helpful comments from David Chapman, Paul Gomme, Jeremy Greenwood, Gary Hansen, Michael Keane, Tim Kehoe, Lee Ohanian, Edward Prescott, and Warren Weber. The usual disclaimer applies. This research is supported in part by NSF Grant SES-8921346 and the John M. Olin Foundation.     

Announced layoffs: Their effect on corporate financial performance

Conventional wisdom holds that when a firm gets into trouble due to lagging sales and rising costs, cutting the size of the organization to reduce fat and waste is a normal and effective response. In this study, evidence was found to suggest that just the opposite might be true. The financial performance of Fortune 100 companies was tracked over a five-year period—two years prior to the announced layoff, the year of the layoff announcement, and two years following it. Contrary to expectations, the results indicate that financial performance worsened, rather than improved, following announced layoffs. Strategic and human resource implications for the management of corporate downsizing are provided.     

This is what the leading indicators lead

We propose an optimal filter to transform the Conference Board Composite Leading Index (CLI) into recession probabilities in the US economy. We also analyse the CLI's accuracy at anticipating US output growth. We compare the predictive performance of linear, VAR extensions of smooth transition regression and switching regimes, probit, non‐parametric models and conclude that a combination of the switching regimes and non‐parametric forecasts is the best strategy at predicting both the NBER business cycle schedule and GDP growth. This confirms the usefulness of CLI, even in a real‐time analysis. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring optimization through hierarchies and ratio scales

This paper explores the concept of optimization by solely using the AHP and compares outcomes with those obtained in traditional optimization theory without and with constraints. The difference is essentially in the absence of the traditional black box involving complex manipulations in algebra or the calculus on an assumed linear or nonlinear mathematical structure. This paper is an exploratory attempt to use an individual's understanding together with a way to convert his judgments to ratios to deal with optimization. At first sight it may go contrary to the reader's (learned) intuition, but in the end he must face the question of whether the magic of traditional manipulations gives rise to better answers than one's actual and complete understanding in which one does not abdicate judgmental control of the solution, and why. This idea is ripe for deeper and more detailed exploration.     

The measurement of marketing efficiency in the presence of spillovers: theory and evidence

We develop a model of marketing efficiency based on a directional distance function that allows for marketing spillovers. A parametric model is used to test for spillovers from rival marketing and from a firm's marketing activity of its other related products. We then show how this information can be incorporated into a non‐parametric model and used to estimate marketing inefficiency. We apply brand level data from the US brewing industry to the non‐parametric model to determine the effectiveness of television, radio, and print advertising. We find that advertising spillovers are important in brewing and show that efficiency estimates are inaccurate when spillover effects are ignored. Our results also suggest that marketing efficiency may be an important component to firm success in brewing, a result that may apply to other consumer goods industries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competitive equilibrium when preferences change over time

Summary. We show the existence of a competitive equilibrium in an economy with many consumers whose preferences may change over time. The demand correspondence of an individual consumer is determined by the set of subgame-perfect equilibrium outcomes in his intrapersonal game. For additively separable preferences with concave period utility functions that are unbounded above, this demand correspondence will satisfy the usual boundary conditions. Whenever consumers can recall their own mixed actions, this correspondence is convex-valued. This ensures the existence of a symmetric competitive equilibrium.Received: 29 July 2004, Revised: 17 November 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D51, D91, C73. Correspondence to: Thomas MariottiWe thank Michele Piccione for useful comments and suggestions. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis or the Federal Reserve System.     

Keynes' theory of money and his attack on the classical model

This paper centers on Keynes' theory of money and his attack on the classical model. Keynes criticized the self-correcting model of the British orthodoxy along two separate lines. In the first, in which Keynes' theory of money was crucial, he took the institutional variables as given and examined the functional relationships. Keynes' burden was to undermine what he termed the "classical dichotomy," where money was a veil, playing no role in determining output and employment. Two key features of the orthodox model were loanable funds and quantity theories, and Keynes' theory of money emerged from the rejection of these theories. The key to his attack on the classical dichotomy was the speculative demand for money, which he presented as an indirect, unstable function of the interest rate. Hence, Keynes linked money demand to the interest rate. The interest rate was thus determined by monetary variables rather than real factors, contrary to British orthodox opinion. Keynes then demonstrated that intended investment and saving need not be equal at a full employment equilibrium.A previous version of this paper was presented at the Fiftieth International Atlantic Economic Conference, October 15–18, 2000, Charleston, South Carolina. The authors are grateful to participants for their helpful suggestions. The authors are responsible for any remaining errors.