Determining underlying macroeconomic fundamentals during emerging market crises: Are conditions as bad as they seem?

Emerging market crises are characterized by large swings in both macroeconomic fundamentals and asset prices. The economic significance of observed movements in macroeconomic variables is obscured by the brief and extreme nature of crises. In this paper we propose to study the macroeconomic consequences of crises by studying the behavior of “effective” fundamentals, constructed by studying the relative movements of stock prices during crises. We find that these effective fundamentals provide a different picture than that implied by observed fundamentals. First, asset prices often reflect expectations of improvement in fundamentals after the initial devaluations; specifically, effective depreciations are positive but not as large as the observed ones. Second, crises vary in their effect on credit market conditions, with investors expecting tightening of credit in some cases (Mexico 1994, Philippines 1997), but loosening of credit in others (Sweden 1992, Korea 1997, Brazil 1999).     

金融传染和现行国际货币体系

2 0世纪 90年代以来爆发的金融危机都表现出一定程度的传染性 ,金融传染成为金融危机的主要特征。金融传染的主要原因在于投资者信息的不对称和金融市场流动性的限制。金融传染国家的金融体系的脆弱性是导致金融传染的根本原因 ,而现行国际货币体系的缺陷加剧了金融传染的可能性。亚洲金融危机以来的改革国际货币体系的努力可能为将来防御金融传染作出贡献     

Who bears the cost of a change in the exchange rate? Pass-through accounting for the case of beer

Nominal exchange rates are remarkably volatile. They ordinarily appear disconnected from the fundamentals of the economies whose currencies they price. These facts make up a classic puzzle about the international economy. If prices do not respond fully to changes in the nominal exchange rate, who bears the cost of such large and unpredictable changes: foreign firms, domestic firms, or domestic consumers? This study presents a new analysis of the sources of incomplete pass-through and then uses this analysis to re-examine its implications for social welfare. I develop and estimate a structural model that analyzes the sources of local-currency price stability for a particular industry. The model enables counterfactual simulations that quantify the relative importance of firms' local-cost components and markup adjustments in the incomplete transmission of exchange-rate shocks to prices and the effect of the exchange-rate shock on domestic and foreign firms' profits and on consumer surplus. The model is applied to a panel dataset of one industry with retail and wholesale prices for UPC-level products. I find that markup adjustments by manufacturers and the retailer explain roughly half of the incomplete transmission and local-cost components account for the other half. Foreign manufacturers generally bear a greater cost (or reap a greater benefit) following an exchange-rate-induced marginal-cost shock than do domestic consumers, domestic manufacturers, or the domestic retailer.     

Fiscal multipliers in good times and bad times

This paper estimates the magnitudes of government spending and tax multipliers within a regime-switching framework for the U.S. economy during the period 1949:1–2006:4. Our results show that the magnitudes of spending multipliers are larger during periods of low economic activity, while the magnitudes of tax multipliers are larger during periods of high economic activity. We also show that the magnitudes of fiscal multipliers got smaller for episodes of low growth, while they got larger for episodes of high growth in the post 1980 period. Analyzing the effects of government spending and taxes on consumption and investment spending indicates that the magnitude of the effects of fiscal shocks on consumption and investment is very small.     

Race to burn the last ton of carbon and the risk of stranded assets

A cap on global warming implies a tighter carbon budget which can be enforced with a credible second-best renewable energy subsidy designed to lock up fossil fuel and curb cumulative emissions. Such a subsidy brings forward the end of the fossil fuel era but accelerates fossil fuel extraction and global warming in the short run. A weaker fossil fuel oligopoly implies that anticipation of a given global carbon budget induces fossil producers to deplete reserves more voraciously and accelerate global warming. This race to burn the last ton of carbon is more intensive for the feedback than open-loop Nash equilibrium, so that the Green Paradox effect of a renewable energy subsidy is stronger. There is an intermediate phase of limit pricing to keep renewable energy producers at bay, which becomes much more relevant when a cap on global warming is enforced. A stronger fossil fuel oligopoly lengthens the period of limit pricing and typically brings forward the carbon-free era. Finally, the mere risk of a cap on global warming being enforced at some unknown, future date makes fossil fuel extraction more voracious and accelerates global warming.     

OccBin: A toolkit for solving dynamic models with occasionally binding constraints easily

The toolkit adapts a first-order perturbation approach and applies it in a piecewise fashion to solve dynamic models with occasionally binding constraints. Our examples include a real business cycle model with a constraint on the level of investment and a New Keynesian model subject to the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates. Compared with a high-quality numerical solution, the piecewise linear perturbation method can adequately capture key properties of the models we consider. A key advantage of the piecewise linear perturbation method is its applicability to models with a large number of state variables.     

人民币名义汇率与中国通胀的区制转换特征研究

我们通过扩展巴拉萨—萨缪尔森假说,对名义汇率升值和通胀的相互替代作用进行了理论解释,并使用马尔科夫区制转换模型研究了1983年1月至2010年11月间人民币/美元汇率和中国通胀率的时间序列行为。经验研究显示,在缩小中美之间价格差距的过程中,结构性通胀与名义汇率升值有着相同的作用。人民币外在升值压力与国内通胀并存的问题,对于宏观经济平衡和货币政策制定者来说,既意味着机遇,也意味着挑战。我们认为,通胀与名义汇率升值的合适政策搭配会降低人民币升值预期,并逐步缓解人民币升值压力。     

Markov区制转移模型与我国通货膨胀波动路径的动态特征

本文应用Markov区制转移模型，对我国1984年以来通货膨胀率的动态路径进行了模拟分析。估计和检验发现了我国通货膨胀路径中不仅存在高通胀区制和低通胀区制，也存在经济政策机制与通货膨胀率区制之间的相关性。通过与传统的自回归模型相比较，Markov区制转移模型考虑了通货膨胀率的内生转移机制，从而更好地拟合和刻画了通货膨胀率的数据生成过程。     

东亚国家钉住汇率制度的可持续性研究

本文运用生存分析法，对东亚9国近60年钉住汇率制度的可持续性进行了实证研究。结果表明，东亚国家维持稳定的钉住汇率制度的总“生存时间”至多为51年，其影响因素主要是国内经济变量，故一国若要实现钉住汇率制度的维持与存续，需要保持相对较低的物价和利率水平，以及相对较高的货币供给增长率和国内信贷水平。     

我国并购浪潮假说的实证检验

并购活动呈浪潮式发展在西方发达国家几乎已成典型化事实,回顾我国并购活动发展历程发现,这一典型化事实在我国似乎也是存在的.为了加强对总体并购活动发展态势的了解和掌握,促进我国并购理论的完善和发展,本文对我国并购浪潮假说进行检验.检验结果表明,三状态马尔科夫区制转移模型和我们对并购浪潮的定义能够正确地刻画我国总体并购活动,我国总体并购活动呈浪潮式发展,并购活动具有周期性,而拒绝认为并购活动遵循随机游走过程.