Predicting relative forecasting performance: An empirical investigation

The relative performances of forecasting models change over time. This empirical observation raises two questions. First, is the relative performance itself predictable? Second, if so, can it be exploited in order to improve the forecast accuracy? We address these questions by evaluating the predictive abilities of a wide range of economic variables for two key US macroeconomic aggregates, namely industrial production and inflation, relative to simple benchmarks. We find that business cycle indicators, financial conditions, uncertainty and measures of past relative performances are generally useful for explaining the models’ relative forecasting performances. In addition, we conduct a pseudo-real-time forecasting exercise, where we use the information about the conditional performance for model selection and model averaging. The newly proposed strategies deliver sizable improvements over competitive benchmark models and commonly-used combination schemes. The gains are larger when model selection and averaging are based on both financial conditions and past performances measured at the forecast origin date.     

央行货币政策操作特征检验:线性抑或非线性

本文在一般均衡框架下拓展了线性理性预期模型,将通胀惯性引入菲利普斯曲线,构建了非线性的逻辑平滑转换回归模型,通过对货币政策的线性函数和非线性函数估计结果的比较,发现我国货币政策以预期通胀率作为转移变量的非线性特征非常明显,转移变量的阈值和转移速度的变化更符合我国实际的货币政策操作事实,同时货币政策中有明显的利率惯性和平滑效应特征。     

Technological capability,strategic flexibility,and product innovation

This paper examines the role of technological capability in product innovation. Building on the absorptive capacity perspective and organizational inertia theory, the authors propose that technological capability has curvilinear and differential effects on exploitative and explorative innovations. The findings support the proposition that though technological capability fosters exploitation at an accelerating rate, it has an inverted U‐shaped relationship with exploration. That is, a high level of technological capability impedes explorative innovation. Strategic flexibility strengthens the positive effects of technological capability on exploration, such that when strategic flexibility is high, greater technological capability is associated with more explorative innovation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

In search of the Phillips curve for India

The economics literature suggests that the Phillips curve is nonexistent in India. This study finds that supply shocks, namely droughts and oil crises, and the liberalization-policy shock of the early 1990s are the main reasons for the absence of the Phillips curve in India. Once I account for these shocks by reconstructing the data of inflation and the output gap in crop year instead of fiscal year, and move to the industrial sector, the Phillips curve emerges in the conventional fashion. Thus, the short-run tradeoff between inflation and industrial output is still possible in India, as it is in other developed economies.     

不同货币政策工具作用下国债收益率曲线对通货膨胀预测能力分析

本文采用2002年1月至2010年2月我国通货膨胀率月度数据,实证检验了不同货币政策工具作用下,银行间债券市场的国债收益率曲线是否有助于预测通货膨胀率。实证结果表明:当资本市场属性占主导地位时,国债收益率曲线在价格型货币政策工具作用下,对通货膨胀率的预测能力较强;当货币市场属性占主导地位时,国债收益率曲线在数量型货币政策工具作用下,对通货膨胀率的预测能力较强。本文认为造成这种现象的根源是我国银行间债券市场具有货币市场和资本市场双重属性,并且其资本市场属性呈时强时弱的变化态势,导致该市场上占主导地位的市场属性也不稳定,进而出现预测能力随货币政策工具与市场属性匹配程度而改变的情况。     

中国通货膨胀率与其不确定性之间的非线性动态关系

通货膨胀率和通货膨胀不确定性之间相互影响,二者之间的内在关系对政府运用货币政策具有重要的现实意义。本文采用1990年1月以来居民消费价格指数(CPI)的月度数据,结合随机域回归模型、系列随机域的非线性检验方法、最大似然估计及贝叶斯估计方法,对我国通货膨胀率与通货膨胀不确定性的关系进行了实证分析。实证研究发现,通货膨胀率引起了通货膨胀不确定性,两者呈现非线性的U型关系,支持了Friedman假说;大的通货膨胀不确性引起通货膨胀率先升后降,呈现非线性倒U曲线关系,Cukierman-Meltzer假说在U型左侧范围内成立,于U型右侧Holland结论成立。     

REITs:后金融危机时期对冲通胀的有效金融工具探讨

REITs(房地产投资信托基金),在后金融危机时期通胀升温的情况下,为投资者和房地产商提供了良好的对冲通胀和投资风险的金融工具。本文用最新的美国NAREITS数据分析了REITS具有对冲通胀的特性和原因,并提出了多项制度设计。     

PRICE-LEVEL TARGETING AND STABILISATION POLICY: A SURVEY

Abstract.  This paper surveys recent articles on the costs and benefits of price-level targeting, focusing its use as a tool for stabilisation policy. It discusses how price-level targeting can affect the short-run trade-off between output and inflation variability by influencing inflation expectations. It reviews how assigning an explicit price-level target to a central bank that is unable to commit to its future policies can improve economic performance. It surveys other potential benefits and costs. Among the costs, it underlines the importance of perfectly rational expectations for the optimality of price-level targeting, and an exacerbation of the time inconsistency problem.     

Modeling US inflation dynamics: persistence and monetary policy regimes

This paper employs the recently developed structural stability test with multiple regime shifts and grid bootstrapping methods to model US inflation dynamics over the past half century. Our empirical results suggest that the persistence of inflation has witnessed significant declines over the most recent period of low inflation and this helps to embed a low inflation environment. The finding is robust to a variety of measures of the inflation series and offers new insight on understanding the stationarity issue of the US inflation series. The authors gratefully acknowledge the two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, which have led to substantial improvements in the paper. They also wish to thank participants at the 3rd Symposium on Econometric Theory and Applications, and seminar participants at the University of Manchester and Renmin University of China, for useful comments, with particular thanks to Denise Osborn and Jushan Bai for their constructive suggestions. Chengsi Zhang acknowledges support from the China National Social Science Research Fund, Grant No. 08CJY048.     

人民币汇率波动与通货膨胀率之间关系的实证分析

本文试图回答以下问题:人民币升值可以替代通货膨胀吗?如果可以,定量的替代关系如何?在综合使用了多种分析方法后,我们发现人民币升值在某种程度上确实可以抑制国内价格水平的上涨,但其效果决定了升值不能成为抑制通胀的主要工具。另外,通过模型我们还揭示出劳动生产率的提高对于国内物价的上涨具有决定性意义。