Inflation,interest and exchange rates in the transition1

Central and Eastern European economies have made extraordinary progress in their trade and exchange regimes. Surprisingly, instant convertibility was established for a great variety of exchange rate regimes. In spite of diversity, all these countries have followed a common pattern: severe initial undervaluation - the cost of speed and unrestricted trade - followed by rapid real revaluation and incipient protectionism. Since 1994 in many cases an embarrass de richesse has appeared: high capital inflows which are either inflationary or costly to sterilize. A major cause of these flows - or at any rate of the high cost of sterilization - is the presence of significant interest rate differentials higher than required to cover the risk of devaluation. These are the necessary consequence of a policy of positive real interest rates and of real revaluation from excessively undervalued exchange rates. Lower interest rates are recommended, both to stem financial capital inflows and to reduce the cost of their sterilization.     

农村居民食物消费的可持续发展

农村居民食物消费的可持续发展不仅决定着农村居民的健康水平 ,还决定着农村居民食物消费的可持续性。通过对我国农村居民食物消费的合理性分析 ,提出了农村居民食物消费的合理选择和可持续发展对策。     

Do high interest rates defend currencies during speculative attacks?

Do high interest rates defend currencies during speculative attacks? Or do they have the perverse effect of increasing the probability of a devaluation of the currency under attack? Drawing on evidence from a large sample of speculative attacks in developed and developing economies, this paper argues that the answer to both questions is ‘no’. In particular, this paper documents a striking lack of any systematic association whatsoever between interest rates and the outcome of speculative attacks. The lack of clear empirical evidence on the effects of high interest rates during speculative attacks mirrors the theoretical ambiguities on this issue.     

Real exchange rate targeting and macroeconomic instability

Using an optimizing model of a small open economy, this paper studies the macroeconomic effects of PPP rules whereby the government increases the devaluation rate when the real exchange rate—defined as the price of tradables in terms of nontradables—is below its long-run level and reduces the devaluation rate when the real exchange rate is above its long-run level. The paper shows that the mere existence of such a rule can generate aggregate instability due to self-fulfilling expectations. The result is shown to obtain in both flexible- and sluggish-price environments.     

Generalizations of Ho–Lee’s binomial interest rate model I: from one- to multi-factor

In this paper a multi-factor generalization of Ho–Lee model is proposed. In sharp contrast to the classical Ho–Lee, this generalization allows for those movements other than parallel shifts, while it still is described by a recombining tree, and is a process with stationary independent increments to be compatible with principal component analysis. Based on the model, generalizations of duration-based hedging are proposed. A continuous-time limit of the model is also discussed. This research was supported by Open Research Center Project for Private Universities: matching fund subsidy from MEXT, 2004–2008 and also by Grants-in-Aids for Scientific Research (No. 18540146) from the Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences.     

Sources of Bank Interest Rate Risk

We investigate bank stocks'sensitivity to changes in interest rates and the factors affecting this sensitivity. We focus on whether the exposure of commercial banks to interest rate risk is conditioned on certain balance sheet and income statement ratios. We find a significantly negative relation between bank stock returns and changes in interest rates over the period 1991–1996. We also find that bank characteristics measured from basic financial statement information explain bank stocks'sensitivity to interest rate changes. These results suggest that bank managers, analysts, and regulators can use this information to assess the relative risk exposure of banks.     

Price Rigidity and the Selection of the Exchange Rate Regime

We evaluate and qualify Friedman's, 1953, “case for flexible exchange rates” in the presence of sticky prices in a two country model. We find that a flexible regime performs indeed better when the degree of nominal price rigidity is high while a bilateral peg does better when prices are fairly flexible. This result obtains independent of whether monetary policy is activistic or not and is mostly due to the negative relationship between employment and productivity shocks when prices are relatively sluggish (Gali, 1999). A unilateral peg tends to produce the lowest level of world welfare but it sometimes represents the best monetary arrangement for the pegger. JEL Classification Numbers: E32, E52, F33, F42     

Likelihood-based specification analysis of continuous-time models of the short-term interest rate

An extensive collection of continuous-time models of the short-term interest rate is evaluated over data sets that have appeared previously in the literature. The analysis, which uses the simulated maximum likelihood procedure proposed by Durham and Gallant (2002), provides new insights regarding several previously unresolved questions. For single factor models, I find that the volatility, not the drift, is the critical component in model specification. Allowing for additional flexibility beyond a constant term in the drift provides negligible benefit. While constant drift would appear to imply that the short rate is nonstationary, in fact, stationarity is volatility-induced. The simple constant elasticity of volatility model fits weekly observations of the three-month Treasury bill rate remarkably well but is easily rejected when compared with more flexible volatility specifications over daily data. The methodology of Durham and Gallant can also be used to estimate stochastic volatility models. While adding the latent volatility component provides a large improvement in the likelihood for the physical process, it does little to improve bond-pricing performance.     

现代服务业：上海经济增长的新动力

本文通过经济增长弹性与就业弹性两个指标,对上海"十一五"规划中提出将优先发展的现代服务业及其主要子行业在上海经济增长中的作用进行了研究。分析认为目前上海第二产业与第三产业对经济的拉动力相当。而现代服务业的拉动力大于传统服务业。近年来,现代服务业的就业弹性均值较大,同时弹性的波动变化很大,这是上海GDP就业弹性近几年波动增大的主要原因。同时,通过对现代服务业中主要子行业的分析,发现现代服务业子行业间就业弹性的变动有着高度的正相关,这将增加现代服务业就业弹性波动对于上海GDP就业弹性波动的影响。     

教育、人力资本投资与经济增长——广东省和四川省的比较研究

人力资本在社会经济发展中具有基础性、战略性的作用。而教育是人力资本投资,提高人力资本质量的重要途径。本文利用生产函数分析比较广东省和四川省经济增长过程中人力资本投资对经济增长的产出弹性以及贡献率,实证了人力资本是经济增长的重要决定因素,并对教育和经济发展的关系做出较为全面的解释,对四川省的经济发展提出政策建议。