Inflation persistence in central and eastern European countries

This article studies inflation persistence with time-varying coefficient autoregressions for 12 central European countries in comparison with the United States and the euro area. We find that inflation persistence tends to be higher in times of high inflation. Since the oil price shocks, inflation persistence has declined both in the United States and the euro area. In most central and eastern European countries, for which our study covers 1993–2012, inflation persistence has also declined, with the main exceptions of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia, where persistence seems to be rather stable. Our findings have implications for the conduct of monetary policy and for a possible membership in the euro area. Among the two time-varying coefficient methods we use, our results favour the flexible least squares smoother over the Kalman smoother. We also conclude that the OLS estimate of an autoregression is likely upward biased relative to the time-average of time-varying parameters, when the parameters change.     

Median-unbiased estimation of structural change models: an application to real exchange rate persistence

Measuring deviations from purchasing power parity has been the subject of extensive investigation. The most common practice in empirical research for measuring real exchange rate persistence is to estimate univariate autoregressive (AR) time series models and calculate the half-life, defined as the number of periods for a unit shock to a time series to decay by 50%. In the presence of structural change, there are two potential biases in the parameter estimates of AR models: (1) a downward small sample median-bias and (2) an upward bias, which occurs when structural change is present and ignored. We conduct a variety of Monte Carlo simulations and demonstrate that the existence of structural change causes a substantial increase in the small sample bias documented in Andrews (1993). We then propose an extension of median-unbiased estimation, which explicitly accounts for structural change, and apply these methods to estimate half-lives of several long-horizon real exchange rates analysed by Lothian and Taylor (1996) and Taylor (2002). The upward bias from neglecting structural change dominates the downward median-bias for these real exchange rates. When structural change is present and accounted for, the median-unbiased half-lives towards a changing mean decrease and the confidence intervals tighten.     

上市公司股利政策与盈余质量关系的实证研究

本文以盈余持续性作为盈余质量的代理变量，实证检验了上市公司所派发的股利类型，股利支付率与盈余持续性的关系，并从长期市场反应的角度考察了投资者是否对派发现金股利公司的盈余持续性存在误定价。本文的研究发现，总体而言，我国上市公司中派发了现金股利的公司其盈余持续性要强于未派发股利的公司，而且在净利润和营业利润上也表现出更强的增长能力，但在派发现金股利的公司中，股利支付率的大小与盈余持续性强弱并不成简单的线性关系，股利支付率高的公司在盈余的整体及其组成部分上并未表现出更强的盈余持续性。从市场反应的情况来看，市场并不能对发放现金股利公司盈余的高持续性予以正确的识别，致使派发现金股利公司的股票在下一期可以获得更高的投资回报。     

劳动力市场收入冲击对消费行为的影响

失业会造成不利的收入冲击,外部收入冲击会影响消费者的消费行为。失业对食品和教育支出的影响不同,平均而言,消费者对食品支出具有更强的修匀能力,教育水平对教育支出具有正向修匀作用。失业者实现再就业之后,食品支出比例显著下降,教育支出相对上升,失业持续时间对再就业者教育支出依然具有负向影响。女性失业会降低家庭的食品和教育支出比例,女性再就业后会提高家庭的教育支出。     

Matthew effect,capabilities and innovation policy: the Argentinean case

The purpose of this paper is to test the presence of Matthew effects in different types of public funding for innovation – non-refundable grants, subsidized loans and tax credits. According to the literature, Matthew effect refers to the impact of past accessing to public funds on reputation, which increases the probability of accessing in the present. The dataset is made of 966 firms that accessed the Technological Argentinean Fund (FONTAR), main instrument to foster innovation in Argentina, during 2007–2013 – 3300 observations. Results confirm the existence of Matthew effects: past accessing to FONTAR increases the probability of accessing in the present, but only when different instruments are taken altogether. Then, Matthew effect is positively associated with the diversification of access to promotional instruments rather than the repeated access to one type of funding tool. Additionally, results show that firm’s innovation investments, R&D activities, and human resources, explain the increase in probability of accessing, which provides evidence regarding the presence of capability effects. All of this suggests that once the firm enters the system of public funding, it remains with an active innovative behaviour, not just because of reputation effects, but because it has accumulated capabilities in the pursuit of a technological advantage.     

Reverse causality in the R&D–patents relationship: an interpretation of the innovation persistence

Starting from the failure of the R&D–patents traditional relationship, when time-series and/or within-industry dimensions are included in the empirical analysis, the present work tries to contribute to the empirical literature from two directions. First, it performs a Granger causality test based on the theoretical presumption of a reverse patents→R&D link as an explanation for the failure of the traditional relationship. Second, assuming the reverse patents–R&D causality, we test and interpret the lag structure of such a relationship which shows the effective patent life that firms can expect within the two Schumpeterian patterns of innovations they belong to. In the light of the effective patent life, we offer a further explanation of innovation persistence which overturns the findings of the existing literature on persistence.     

A persistence-weighted measure of core inflation in the Euro area

We propose a new core inflation measure for the Euro area which places the emphasis on the more lasting, i.e. persistent, price developments at a disaggregated level. The importance of each component of the HICP is reweighted according to its relative persistence, as measured by the sum of the autoregressive coefficients or by an indicator of mean reversion. Unlike headline inflation, our baseline core inflation measure is highly correlated with ECB monetary policy decisions, which could mean that they contain ex ante (pre monetary policy) information on inflationary pressure.     

Moment matching versus Bayesian estimation: Backward-looking behaviour in a New-Keynesian baseline model

The paper considers an elementary New-Keynesian three-equation model and compares its Bayesian estimation based on conventional priors to the results from the method of moments (MM), which seeks to match a finite set of the model-generated second moments of inflation, output and the interest rate to their empirical counterparts. It is found that in the Great Inflation (GI) period—though not quite in the Great Moderation (GM)—the two estimations imply a significantly different covariance structure. Regarding the parameters, special emphasis is placed on the degree of backward-looking behaviour in the Phillips curve. While, in line with much of the literature, it plays a minor role in the Bayesian estimations, MM yields values of the price indexation parameter close to or even at its maximal value of unity. For both GI and GM, these results are worth noticing since in (strong or, respectively, weak) contrast to the Bayesian parameters, the covariance matching thus achieved appears rather satisfactory.     

Inter-generational effect of parental time and its policy implications

Motivated by the empirical fact that parents with more human capital spend more time teaching and taking care of their children, we develop and estimate a theoretical model in which altruistic parents pass their human capital on in two ways: goods investment and time investment. Based on the estimated model, we quantitatively assess how the two types of investment affect wage inequality and inter-generational mobility. Using the model to study the impacts of a public policy that taxes income to finance public schooling, we find significantly different policy effects in our model than in a model where time investment does not respond endogenously to the policy.