Rethinking the role of NCBs in the EMU

Five years after the introduction of unified monetary policy in the EMU, some member countries are wondering whether they have ceded too much of their policy-making powers. The fact that National Central Banks no longer carry out sizable expansionary open market or foreign exchange market operations suggests that they face substantially reduced abilities to set economic policy.This paper demonstrates that, in fact, very little power has been yielded: on the fiscal front, the force of such policy initiatives is enhanced by the fixity of the exchange rate. On the monetary front, we show that there is an observational equivalence between all Central Bank actions under fixed exchange rates. This implies that the authorities retain the same amount of policy flexibility as before. So long as they use an alternative form of policy initiative, carrying out what previously would have been characterized as sterilized foreign exchange market operations, their ability to influence the macro performance of their economy is undiminished.     

Fixed Exchange Rates and Disinflation in Emerging Markets: How Large Is the Effect?

We examine developing countries which have institutional quality ratings for the effects of exchange rate rigidity on inflation. The level of institutional development exerts no effect on the impact of currency regimes. However, the interaction of institutional quality and exchange rates has, in the most plausible specifications, a negative impact on inflation. This suggests that fixed exchange rates exert at most a contingent effect on inflation, and indicates that countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America contemplating currency pegs would be better off improving institutional quality prior to adopting the euro or dollar and expecting a large subsequent disinflationary effect. JEL no.  F31, O11     

Adjustment Costs,Inventories and Output

This paper analyzes the optimal adjustment strategy of an inventory‐holding firm facing price‐ and quantity‐adjustment costs in an inflationary environment. The model nests both the original menu‐cost model that allows production to be costlessly adjusted, and the later model that includes price‐ and quantity‐adjustment costs, but rules out inventory holdings. It is shown that the firm's optimal adjustment strategy may involve stockouts. At low inflation rates, output is inversely related to the inflation rate, and the length of time demand is satisfied increases with the demand elasticity but decreases with the storage cost and the real interest rate.     

国际贸易发票货币的选择——兼论人民币国际化

一国货币作为国际贸易发票货币取决于货币汇率的波动性、该国在占据的出口市场份额以及该国出口产品的差异性程度。随着人民币汇率形成机制更加灵活和弹性化及在国际贸易中采用本币计价以回避汇率风险,人民币成为国际贸易发票货币有期可待。     

Modelling the inflation process in transition economies: Empirical comparison of Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic

This paper starts from the observation that inflation in transition economies appears to be persistently high and volatile and attempts to provide some empirical characterisation of the inflation process in three such transition economies: Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. We first consider the role of monetary growth as a major causal factor for inflation in these economies, and argue that the evidence provides rather weak support for the causal relationship. We then propose a transition economy cost-plus model and estimate this using the equilibrium-correction modelling (ECM) strategy augmented by introduction of a number of transitory factors and changes in the internal structure of the real economy which we believe may have had a significant impact on inflation in these economies. We show that this approach enables us to account for long-run inflation in these economies from the early 1980s to the present despite the turbulence of the latter part of the sample period. Our results support wage and exchange rate based inflation policies.     

哥伦布发现美洲的动因和影响

哥伦布发现美洲是世界史上的划时代大事 ,使世界历史发生了历史性的变化 ,是人类历史的一个重大转折点。它打破了世界各民族的原始封闭隔离状态 ,扩大了世界各民族间相互影响活动范围 ,从而使世界历史开始形成。本文就哥伦布发现美洲的动因和所产生的影响做一些肤浅的论述。     

The relevance of currency risk in the EMU

We investigate how the elimination of intra-European exchange risk may affect international financial markets using a conditional version of the International CAPM. We estimate the EMU and non-EMU components of aggregate currency risk and document significant exposures to both. The premium for EMU risk is positive and associated with exposure to the French, Italian and Spanish currencies. The premium for non-EMU risk is consistently negative and accounts for most of the aggregate currency premiums. In the 1990s, exposures to EMU risk declined significantly while exposures to non-EMU risk increased. Hence the adoption of the Euro is unlikely to have a large impact on aggregate currency risk premiums.     

Optimal Contracts for Central Bankers: Inflation versus Money Supply and Exchange Rate Targets

Some recent papers have shown how a simple contract can eliminate the inflationary bias of discretionary monetary policy. This paper shows that if the central banker is risk averse, a contract in terms of money is superior to one in terms of inflation. The paper also shows that, if the central banker cares about his reappointment, an exchange rate target might always leads to the implementation of the optimal policy.     

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     

对EWS模型中金融危机界定的比较研究 ——利用EVT理论

对主要金融危机预警模型中货币危机指标(货币压力指数)与阈值的确定方式进行比较分析,之后利用EVT对EMPI的尾部进行估计,同时确定新的个体阈值,并与原模型的结果进行对比。发现不同的EW S模型确定的危机时间有较大差异,各种方法在危机的判断上存在分歧;三种主要EW S模型中的EMPI在统计上表现出较强的非正态性。