Stationary solution to the overlapping generations model of fiat money: Experimental evidence

Overlapping generations model of fiat money yields an infinity of competitive equilibrium solutions, only one of which is stationary. Economies reported in this paper involved a sequence of overlapping generations of three or four individuals; each individual lived for two periods. In their young age individuals were endowed with chips that could be traded for fiat money wish the individuals of the old generation. In their old age, individuals could exchange their units o flat money for the consumption good. Results of the experiments exhibit some support for the stationary solution. The results are robust to two designs of exchange institutions (double oral auctior and supply schedule auction) and to two different endogenous ways of converting money into chips at the end of the game (average price prevailing during the last period the game is actually played and the average price forecast made during the last period the game is actually played).A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the Economic Science Association and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. The authors are grateful for comments received from various participants at both presentations. Financial support was provided by the McKnight Foundation, the Honeywell Foundation, National Science Foundation (SES 89-12552), and Richard. M. and Margaret Cyert Family Funds.     

Stock prices,production and interest rates: Comparison of three European countries with the USA

This paper investigates the relationships between stock returns, changes in production, and changes in interest rates in three European countries: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The results obtained using annual data are much more conclusive than those obtained using quarterly data. Stock returns are affected by current changes in interest rates and by future changes in production. The dependence on changes in interest rates seems to be higher than on changes in production. Furthermore, the influence of future changes in production on stock returns diminishes substantially when contemporaneous changes in interest rates are taken into account. With reference to these points, the European markets behave in a similar fashion, but are in sharp contrast with the U.S. market.I am very grateful to Kay Davidson, Patric Hendershott and two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions. I am solely responsible for all remaining errors.     

Industrial life cycles and learning curves: Interaction of marketing and production

The price-oriented experience curve has been widely utilized as a model to design marketing strategies. Yet, it is cost over which many firms exercise the most control. This article explores the cost-oriented learning curve in conjunction with the product life cycle model as joint strategy constructs. Implications of variations in the learning curve parameters are examined.     

Estimating the credibility of an exchange rate target zone

Recent breakthroughs in the theory of exchange rate target zones have not been followed by similar contributions on the empirical side. The drift adjustment method of evaluating the credibility of a target zone has become common practice. However, the estimates of the expected rate of depreciation inside the band do not model knowledge of the band in the agents' information set. In this paper, a rational expectations limited-dependent variable method to estimate the expected rate of depreciation is used to remedy this weakness. In the case of the franc-mark target zone with daily data covering a 4-year period, we show that expected rates of devaluation of the order of 2.5% were still present in the early 1990s. Their reappearance in the autumn of 1992 may thus not be surprising.     

Post Bretton Woods deviations from purchasing power parity in G7 exchange rates—an empirical exploration

Exchange rates have deviated substantially and idiosyncratically from purchasing power parity (PPP) since the breakdown of Bretton Woods. In this paper, a model incorporating both traditional PPP and financial market variables is constructed and tested on the US dollar's six G7 exchange rates during the floating rate era. Empirical tests show that the model's common set of variables—with consistent signs—can explain the divergent behavior of G7 exchange rates during 1973.2–90.2. Idiosyncracies are reflected in different subsets of the model's variables entering significantly into each exchange rate's regression; the existence of stable relationships is demonstrated by the equations' co-integration.     

Financial statement data in assessing the future potential of a technology firm: The case of Nokia

The paper introduces a financial statement method to assess the future potential of a firm. First, the last strategic steady phase is identified. Second, growth rate for total expenditure is estimated (growth process). Third, the revenue generating potential of total expenditure is evaluated by a distributed lag function (revenue-generating process). This function is used to recalculate expenses and assets using alternative depreciation theories. Third, financial behavior is modeled by analyzing financial assets, taxation, interest expenses and revenues, and dividends (financial process). Fourth, these processes are used to assess the future potential. The method is illustrated by the case of Nokia for the period 1990-2000.     

Optimal monetary policy with the cost channel

In the standard new Keynesian framework, an optimizing policy maker does not face a trade-off between stabilizing the inflation rate and stabilizing the gap between actual output and output under flexible prices. An ad hoc, exogenous cost-push shock is typically added to the inflation equation to generate a meaningful policy problem. In this paper, we show that a cost-push shock arises endogenously when a cost channel for monetary policy is introduced into the new Keynesian model. A cost channel is present when firms’ marginal cost depends directly on the nominal rate of interest. Besides providing empirical evidence for a cost channel, we explore its implications for optimal monetary policy. We show that its presence alters the optimal policy problem in important ways. For example, both the output gap and inflation are allowed to fluctuate in response to productivity and demand shocks under optimal monetary policy.     

Bank panics and the endogeneity of central banking

Central banking is intimately related to liquidity provision to banks during times of crisis, the lender-of-last-resort function. This activity arose endogenously in certain banking systems. Depositors lack full information about the value of bank assets, so that during macroeconomic downturns they monitor their banks by withdrawing in a banking panic. The likelihood of panics depends on the industrial organization of the banking system. Banking systems with well-diversified big banks are less prone to inefficient bank runs because diversification alleviates the information asymmetry. In addition, big banks can self-monitor through publicly observable branch closure. Systems of many small banks form incentive-compatible bank coalitions to emulate the big banks during times of crisis. Such coalitions improve efficiency by monitoring member banks and issuing money that is a kind of deposit insurance—a precursor of central banking.     

Inflation and output dynamics with state-dependent pricing decisions

This paper studies a state-dependent pricing model in which firms face a fixed cost of changing their pricing plans. A pricing plan specifies an entire sequence of time-varying future prices. Allowing firms to choose a pricing plan rather than a single price generates inflation inertia in the response of the economy to small changes in the growth rate of money. Allowing firms to choose when to change their pricing plan generates a non-linear response of inflation and output to small and large changes in the money growth rate. The non-linear solution method also reveals that the model generates an asymmetric response of output and inflation to monetary expansions and contractions.     

Currency competition: A partial vindication of Hayek

This paper establishes the existence of equilibria for environments in which outside money is issued competitively. Such equilibria are typically believed not to exist because of a classic overissue problem: if money is valued in equilibrium, an issuer produces money until its value is driven to zero. By backward induction, money cannot have value in the first place. This paper shows that overissuance is not a problem if agents believe that if an issuer produces more than some threshold number of notes, then only those notes issued up to the threshold will be valued; additional notes will be worthless. This result is very general, applying to any monetary economy in which equilibria with and without valued money exist if the money supply is finite. The paper also compares the allocation achieved by a monopolist to that achieved with competitive issuance in both a search and an overlapping-generations environment. The results depend on the environment considered, but two general conclusions arise. First, it is ambiguous whether competitive issuers can achieve a more desirable allocation than a monopolist. Second, with competitive issuance, a licensing agency can always improve on pure laissez-faire and achieve the efficient allocation in the long run.