New tips from TIPS: Identifying inflation expectations and the risk premia of break-even inflation

This paper decomposes the break-even inflation rates derived from inflation-indexed bonds into inflation risk premia, liquidity risk premia, and inflation expectations. I estimate a common factor model with autoregressive conditionally heteroscedastic (ARCH) errors that extracts co-movements from twenty-two monthly and quarterly indicators to identify these three components. The results indicate that the sharp declines in the 10-year and 5-year break-even inflation rates in 2009 reflect a substantial increase in liquidity risk rather than a decrease in inflation expectations. Break-even inflation rates underestimate inflation expectations over nearly the entire sample due to the liquidity risk premia carried by the inflation indexed bond yields. Also, the model-implied inflation expectations show better forecast performance for the average annual inflation rates than raw break-even inflation rates, the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and the Surveys of Consumers inflation forecasts.     

中国对外开放度和通货膨胀率关系的实证检验

本文通过建立误差修正模型分析我国对外开放度不断提高的情况下影响通货膨胀率的因素。计量结果表明:前期通货膨胀率、货币供给量和对外开放度是影响当期通胀率的主要因素。特别是,开放度的提高使得扩张货币的效应会更多的体现在更高的通货膨胀率上。     

Is Chinas Fiscal policy Sustainable： An Empirical Research

本文简要回顾了财政可持续性（Fiscal Sustainability）相关研究文献，选择国际标准的计量经济学分析工具，选取适当模型对中国财政可持续性进行检验，并就不同情形下的财政可持续性所对应的赤字率进行模拟分析，具体分析了不同情境下通胀、经济增长、利息支付、铸币税等因素对可持续性财政赤字率的影响。综合分析后可以判断中国目前的财政状况基本属于可持续性状态，中国财政整体上仍处于健康状态，积极财政政策仍有作为的空间，但是对于地方政府债务等需要引起高度重视。最后，本文就财政政策调整提出合理的建议。     

Has the Fed improved U.S. economic performance?

This paper finds that U.S. economic performance has not generally improved under the Federal Reserve, with the possible exception of the Great Moderation. We analyze the Fed and pre-Fed periods in terms of the rates and volatilities of inflation and real GDP growth. Comparing the pre-Fed periods to the post-World War II period and the Great Moderation, we find that real GDP growth has been lower under the Fed, while inflation has been higher. The volatilities of inflation and GDP growth have both declined under the Fed, but the reductions occurred mostly during the Great Moderation.     

What do scientists know about inflation hedging?

In this article, we give an overview of the state of scientific knowledge on inflation hedging. Specifically, we distill the results of several decades of research analysing the relationship between major asset classes (common stocks, gold, fixed income securities, real estate) and inflation. Even though previous studies have brought forth important facts characterising the interplay of asset returns and inflation rates (e.g., time-dependency, asymmetry, outlier-sensitivity and a tendency towards long-term but limited short-term inflation protection), there is still no consensus on the subject because sample, data and methodology issues preclude strict comparison of most studies. Thus, from a synthesis of the insights gained from our review, we also outline possible directions for future research that may help to establish consensus among researchers.     

公众预期、通胀成因与经济波动牵扯

针对金融危机冲击下各国宏观经济政策所导致的新的世界经济波动,结合中国当前通货膨胀两难局面,运用古典模型中的二分法解构中国通货膨胀,得出名义变量引致了通胀的结论,并将古典增长模型与利率平滑规则有机结合,推断出现阶段通胀背景下仍应坚持适度从紧的货币政策规则,引导公众心理形成稳定的期望收入预期,才能真正意义上在稳定通胀的同时,形成社会理性消费预期,从而使扩大内需成为可能,这才是解决现阶段增长困境所在。     

Bankruptcy and firm finance

This paper analyzes how an enforcement mechanism that resembles a court affects firm finance. The court is described by two parameters that correspond to enforcement costs and the amount of creditor/debtor protection. We provide a theoretical and quantitative characterization of the effect of these enforcement parameters on the contract loan rate, the default probability and welfare. We analyze agents’ incentive to default and pursue bankruptcy and show that when the constraints that govern these decisions bind, the enforcement parameters can have a sharply non-linear effect on finance. We also compute the welfare losses of “poor institutions” and show that they are non-trivial. The results provide guidance on when models which abstract from enforcement provide good approximations and when they do not.      

新兴市场经济国家通货膨胀与汇率制度选择

本文利用23个新兴市场经济国家20年间的面板数据,对汇率制度和通货膨胀的关系进行实证研究,对我国汇率改革实践进行了考察。从我国的实际情况看,汇率波动的幅度越大则通胀率均值越大,2005年实行管理浮动以来我国通胀率处于明显的上升趋势。我国应该限制人民币升值幅度,发挥汇率的"名义驻锚"的作用,以此遏制通胀的进一步发展。     

当前世界经济面临的风险及其影响

2008年全球经济面临的风险是亚洲金融危机以来最严重的一次。全球经济减速，次贷危机继续恶化，油价上涨，美元贬值压力加大，通货膨胀死灰复燃。他们相互交织在一起对各国经济决策构成了极大的挑战。本文对其未来的发展趋势及其对中国经济的影响做出了一种分析。     

Political Macroeconomics: A Survey of Recent Developments

The paper surveys political macroeconomics, covering its development from Rogoff's conservative central banker to the most recent discussions of monetary policy and institutional design. Topics include the inflation-stabilization trade-off, central bank independence with escape clauses and overruling with costs, inflation targets, performance contracts for monetary authorities, and the consequences of output persistence for these issues. Further topics are the political business cycle when output is persistent, the political macroeconomics of fiscal policy, the government spending bias, and the game-theoretic interaction between fiscal and monetary policy. All work is discussed within a coherent analytical framework.