Testing for rational bubbles in the US housing market

The presence of a bubble in the US housing market prior to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis is investigated. This is done by looking into the relationship between house prices and rental prices, known as the price–rent ratio, which is an important measure of a potential deviation between house prices and its fundamental value. Additionally, the interest rate is taken into account since it is an important factor in determining demand for housing mortgages and thereby influencing house prices, and explosive behavior of house prices is considered. These relationships are investigated through a theoretical and econometrical framework. The empirical evidence suggests that there was a bubble in the housing market prior to the financial crisis, even when controlling for the decreasing interest rate and the fundamental information given by the rental price in the period. Explosiveness was the main source of the price increase, such that a bubble was present in the housing market after correcting for other fundamental factors. The econometric procedures used in the analysis may therefore be relevant for monitoring the housing market.     

哈耶克对凯恩斯有关通货膨胀理论的批判及其启示

在全球应对金融海啸初见成效之时,国内外无论政府还是学界都对通货膨胀存在一定预期。本文通过对哈耶克有关文献的梳理,站在哈耶克立场上着重对凯恩斯通货膨胀的性质、形式及后果进行了批判。剖析了人为的、只重视结果的凯恩斯通货膨胀理论在经济和政治层面可能造成的后果,并运用哈耶克理论为中国预防通货膨胀从心理、政治和现实三个方面提供了思想资源。     

中国通货膨胀预期形成机制的探析

作者通过人民银行发布的《全国储户问卷调查综述》中关于物价预期的原始数据,假定居民的物价判断分别服从差额法、正态分布、均匀分布以及逻辑分布的情况下,分别计算了不同分布下的通胀预期,并对其进行了适应性与理性检验。研究结果表明,通胀预期形成机制的的判断主要取决于我国居民对于物价的预期所服从的分布,这直接影响着我国抑制通胀的手段与策略的选择。     

强化药事管理职能,督导药物合理应用

目的强化医院药事管理职能,督导临床合理用药,建立合理用药考核机制。有效保证患者用药安全、有效、合理。方法完善药事管理组织和制度,将工作重点从监管药品质量转移到药物治疗的合理应用中,通过开展临床合理用药督导工作,健全药物临床合理应用考核机制、指导并干预临床合理用药。结果药占比从2009年的44.8%下降至2013年的32.8%,低于"二甲"医院平均水平。3年来,抗菌药物使用率下降15.9%,病原学送检率上升15.2%。结论临床用药情况有序可控,有效遏制了药品的不合理应用。     

On the efficiency of monetary policy rules with flexible prices and rational expectations

The classic Sargent–Wallace–Lucas (SWL) rational expectations-flexible price model is usually interpreted as implying “policy ineffectiveness”: systematic monetary rules cannot affect the distribution of real output. A contrary but not widely-appreciated result of Dotsey and King suggests that there exist “prospective feedback” rules (future money depending systematically on current but as yet unobserved information) which improve output distribution by means of improving agents’ ability to perceive relative prices.We show the Dotsey–King proposition in fact to be a colossal understatement: prospective feedback rules applied vigorously enough (and even “contemporaneous feedback” rules based on current interest rates, provided at least one prospective feedback is active) can in the limit drive price-perception errors to zero. This is not to say such a policy would be desirable. Feedback parameter combinations that reduce current price level misperception tend to produce high forecast error variances with respect to future prices, with attendant loss in capital market efficiency. Whatever the desirable frontier among these different social cost-producing variables, feedback parameters will in general be needed in order to get on the frontier as well as to move along it. Monetary policy clearly produces social gain even in a version of this model which contains no elements of price “friction,” inefficient use of available information, or asymmetry in information as between the government and the public.     

Learning,forecasting and optimizing: An experimental study

Rational Expectations (RE) models have two crucial dimensions: (i) agents on average correctly forecast future prices given all available information, and (ii) given expectations, agents solve optimization problems and these solutions in turn determine actual price realizations. Experimental tests of such models typically focus on only one of these two dimensions. In this paper we consider both forecasting and optimization decisions in an experimental cobweb economy. We report results from four main experimental treatments: (1) subjects form forecasts only, (2) subjects determine quantity only (solve an optimization problem), (3) they do both and (4) they are paired in teams and one member is assigned the forecasting role while the other is assigned the optimization task. All treatments converge to Rational Expectation Equilibrium (REE), but at different speeds. We observe that performance is the best in treatment 1 and the worst in Treatment 3. We further find that most subjects use adaptive rules to forecast prices. Given a price forecast, subjects are less likely to make conditionally optimal production decisions in Treatment 3 where the forecast is made by themselves, than in Treatment 4 where the forecast is made by the other member of their team, which suggests that “two heads are better than one” in term of the speed of finding the REE.     

ANALYTICAL MARXISM

Abstract This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the literature on Analytical Marxism (AM) and analyses its relevance for social theory. AM is precisely defined and distinguished from Rational Choice Marxism (RCM). The different substantive implications of the two approaches are discussed: according to RCM, the role of Marxism in the social sciences is exhausted, whereas AM has reconstructed a set of propositions that aim to provide the foundations of a distinctive approach in social theory. The methodological debate around and within AM is analysed and the shortcomings of methodological individualism and rational choice theory are stressed, raising doubts on the claim that RCM is the only scientific approach to Marx's theory. Yet, wholesale rejections on a priori methodological or exegetical grounds are questioned. A focused, immanent critique of RCM is developed, which emphasizes the lack of an adequate analysis of structural constraints and endogenous preferences in RCM models. It is argued that the analysis of endogenous preferences and structural constraints is consistent with an anti‐reductionist AM approach and it may provide the outline of a fertile, distinctive research programme in explanatory social theory that builds on the core of Marxism identified by AM.     

Economic inequality and paretian welfare economics: Some insinuating questions

Capitalists, managers, unions and government today have espoused employee ownership and participation in order to further their own selfish ends. By so doing, they unwittingly usher in full workers' democracy, and concomittant radical transformations of the socioeconomic system which, ironically, will curtail their power. These transformations would stem from our populist ideological roots and would promote profound changes in the distribution of political power and in the way the society deals with technology.     

Are the antiglobalists right? Gains-from-trade without a Walrasian auctioneer

We show that the “fear” of globalisation can be rationalised by economic theory in the standard AD/AS equilibrium model, if we substitute the coordinational role of the Auctioneer by an implementation device based on learning (Guesnerie in Am Econ Rev 82, 1254–1278, 1992). When endowing producers with a learning ability to forecast market prices, individual profit-maximizing production decisions become interdependent in a strategic sense (strategic substitutes). Performing basic comparative statics exercises, we show that “competitiveness” matters in a precise sense: as foreign producers gain access to the home market, home producers’ ability to forecast market prices is undermined, so being their ability to forecast the profit consequences of their production decisions. A standard open economy exercise shows that the efficiency gains triggered by increased competition have to be traded-off against higher uncertainty (a lower likelihood to coordinate upon the welfare enhancing free-trade equilibrium). We interpret it as a new rationale for the existence of barriers to trade targeting coordination, rather than protecting mere inefficient sectors or industries (political economy driven). Finally, we show that classical measures evaluating ex-ante the desirability of economic integration (net welfare gains) do not always advice free trade. I wish to specially thank Roger Guesnerie, Thierry Verdier and an anonymous referee for their helpful suggestions. Comments by Facundo Albornoz, Pol Antràs, Gregory Corcos, Maurice Kugler, Robin Mason, Victor Norman, Emmanuel Ornelas and Susanna Thede are sincerely acknowledged. Audiences at the U. of Alicante, U. Autonoma de Barcelona, ETSG 2005 (Dublin), FGV-EPGE (RJ, Brazil), LACEA 2005 (Paris), the Miwest Trade Meeting at Minneapolis 2007, the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), SBE 2005 (Natal, Brazil), U. of Southampton and T2M 2005 are acknowledged. The contents constitute chapter 4 of my PSE-EHESS PhD thesis, extended while I visited the NYU Economics department, sponsored by A. Bisin. Financial support from the Bank of Spain and CNRS is sincerely acknowledged.     

On non-revealing rational expectations equilibrium

It is shown that a non-revealing rational expectations equilibrium may not be coalitionally Bayesian incentive compatible, may not be implementable as a perfect Bayesian equilibrium and may not belong to the weak fine core and thus may not be fully Pareto optimal. These negative results lead us to conclude the non-revealing rational expectations equilibrium is not a sensible solution concept. We wish to thank Dr A. Hadjiprocopis for his invaluable help with the implementation of Latex in a Unix environment. We also thank a referee for several, constructive suggestions.