Co-breaking,cointegration, and weak exogeneity: Modelling aggregate consumption in Japan

This paper aims to estimate a parsimonious data-congruent model for aggregate real consumption in Japan using quarterly data over the past two decades. Testing co-breaking, cointegration and weak exogeneity plays an important role in pursuing the model reduction. It is demonstrated that co-breaking removes a deterministic shift caused by the collapse of the bubble economy in Japan in the early 1990s. Multivariate cointegration analysis then reveals that inflation plays a critical role in accounting for the long-run behaviour of the aggregate consumption. Further analysis finds that inflation and aggregate income are weakly exogenous with respect to a set of parameters of interest. Finally, a parsimonious data-congruent model for the aggregate consumption is estimated conditional on the set of weakly exogenous variables.     

Testing for Bubbles in Housing Markets: A Panel Data Approach

We employ recently developed cross-sectionally robust panel data tests for unit roots and cointegration to find whether house prices reflect house related earnings. We use U.S. data for Metropolitan Statistical Areas, with house price measured by the weighted-repeated-sales index and cash-flows by market tenants’ rents. In our full sample period, an error-correction model is not appropriate, i.e. there is a bubble. We then combine overlapping 10-year periods, price–rent ratios, and the panel data tests to construct a bubble indicator. The indicator is high for the late 1980s, early 1990s and since the late 1990s. Finally, evidence based on panel data Granger causality tests suggests that house price changes are helpful in predicting changes in rents and vice versa. CERGE-EI is a joint workplace of the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education, Charles University, and the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.     

我国利率传导机制有效性：基于货币幻觉的实证研究

本文将货币幻觉纳入投资函数和储蓄函数．并利用2000年9月到2006年8月的月度数据，经过HP滤波处理后采用Almon多项式分布滞后模型估计出投资函数和储蓄函数。我们发现在考虑货币幻觉的情况下，一方面，投资者存在货币幻觉且利率对投资有很好的调控作用，另一方面，储户不存在货币幻觉并且利率对储蓄的调控作用不明显，其原因可能是社保制度的缺位增强了储户的安全性动机以及投资渠道的不完善导致了储蓄的利率刚性。     

Forecasting inflation in the European Monetary Union: A disaggregated approach by countries and by sectors

Inflation in the European Monetary Union is measured by the Harmonized Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP) and it can be analysed by breaking down the aggregate index in two different ways. One refers to the breakdown into price indexes corresponding to big groups of markets throughout the European countries and another considers the HICP by countries. Both disaggregations are of interest because in each one, the component prices are not fully cointegrated, having more than one common factor in their trends. The paper shows that the breakdown by group of markets improves the European inflation forecasts and constitutes a framework in which general and specific indicators can be introduced for further improvements.     

Acquisition of Information and Share Prices: An Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Dissonance

Abstract. This paper deals with the determinants of agents' acquisition of information. Our econometric evidence shows that the general index of Italian share‐prices and the series of Italy's financial newspaper sales are cointegrated, and the former series Granger‐causes the latter, thereby giving support to the cognitive dissonance hypothesis: (non‐professional) agents tend to buy the newspaper when share prices are high and not to buy it when share prices are low. Instead, we do not find support for the hypothesis that the agents acquire information in order to trade in the stock market: we find no relationship between quantities exchanged in the market and newspaper sales, nor between stock market volatility and newspaper sales.     

Cointegration modeling of interrelated factor demands: With an application to labor–import substitution in the European Union

In this paper we present techniques for cointegration modeling of interrelated factor demands. These techniques respect the non-stationary character of the price and quantity data, and permit specification of general, dynamic factor demand models based on error correction forms derived from cointegration. Therefore, we do not have to assume ad hoc dynamic forms. Moreover, we ensure that estimated relations are structural, and not spurious. Cointegrating vectors are estimated subject to all standard economic theory restrictions by using a procedure, which we call dynamic SUR. We show how consistent error correction models can be specified and estimated. In addition, we test the neoclassical restrictions both in the short- and the long run. The new methods are used to shed light on the major problem of the European Union (unemployment) and its relationship with imports. The empirical analysis is conducted for five countries of the European Union with an emphasis to the south: The UK, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain.     

西部地区外国直接投资与经济增长关系的实证分析

本文运用协整和因果关系检验理论,对西部地区从1979年到2005年的外国直接投资与经济增长数据进行实证检验.结果发现二者之间存在长期稳定的关系,并且当滞后两期时,经济增长是外国直接投资的格兰杰原因,而外国直接投资并不是经济增长的格兰杰原因.在协整分析的基础上建立了误差修正模型,分别从长期和短期对两者之间的关系进行了定量分析,并给出了结论和政策建议.     

我国CPI与PPI非线性调整的实证解释

本文基于两区制门槛误差修正模型对我国CPI与PPI倒挂现象进行实证解释.研究结论表明,CPI与PPI之间存在非线性协整关系,只有当偏离达到一定程度时,系统才会开始向长期均衡状态调整.在调整过程中,CPI与PPI对误差修正的调整速度并不相同,PPI的调整速度要高于CPI的调整速度,而且调整主要是通过倒挂期PPI的变化来完成.两个区制的差别还反映在Granger因果关系上;在区制一时仅存在从CPI到PPI的单向Granger因果关系;而在区制二时存在CPI和PPI的双向Granger因果关系.     

Human capital,innovation capability and economic growth in Portugal, 1960-2001

In maintaining that the main flaw in empirical studies on economic growth derives from the fact that they employ Solow-style neoclassical growth models, rather than testing actual endogenous growth theory, we examine the human capital-innovation-growth nexus, thus testing new growth theory more directly. We test its insights against the economic evolution of an individual country, Portugal, using time series data from 1960 to 2001. Estimates based on vector autoregressive and cointegration analysis seem to confirm that human capital and indigenous innovation efforts were enormously important to the economic growth process in Portugal during the period of study. In particular, the indirect effect of human capital through innovation, emerges here as being critical, showing that a reasonably high stock of human capital is necessary to enable a country to reap the benefits of its indigenous innovation efforts.Received: November 2003, Accepted: November 2004, JEL Classification: C22, J24, O30, O40 Correspondence to: Aurora A.C. TeixeiraThe authors are grateful to two anonymous referees, Paulo Brito and the participants of the 2003 Portuguese Society for Economics Research (SPiE) in Lisbon, Portugal for helpful comments and suggestions. CEMPRE - Centro de Estudos Macroeconómicos e Previsão - is supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, through the Programa Operacional Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (POCTI) of the Quadro Comunitário de Apoio III, which is financed by FEDER and Portuguese funds.     

On the time stability of the output–capital ratio

This paper is concerned with the role of the output–capital ratio in growth models. In the first part we highlight the behaviour of the output–capital ratio along the balanced growth path in the models of Solow [Q. J. Econ. 70 (1956) 65] and Romer [J. Polit. Econ. 94 (1986) 1002]. In the second part we assess the stability of the ratio for some industrial countries.