Asymmetric Exchange Rates and Unofficial Exchange Rate Interventions: The Case of South Korea

Applying Milton Friedman's ‘plucking’ model of output fluctuations, we investigate the behavior of the Korean won/dollar exchange rate using a state-space model with Markov switching, which incorporates both symmetric and asymmetric shocks. We find that the Korean won/US dollar exchange rate rarely falls below its trend, but is plucked upward from time to time by transitory shocks. This asymmetry suggests that the monetary authority unofficially intervenes in the foreign exchange market to support its own target level from below. Further evidence from changes in reserve assets indirectly supports our finding.     

Inflation Effects on Finance-Growth Link: A Panel Smooth Threshold Approach

This paper proposes an original framework to examine whether the strength of the relationship between financial development and economic growth, widely documented in the recent empirical literature, varies with the inflation rate. Using a Panel Smooth Threshold Regression for 71 developed and developing countries over the period 1960–2004, we find a non-linear link between financial development and economic growth: three equilibriums are identified with inflation rate. Then, there is an inflation threshold, for which finance ceases to increase economic growth. Our results suggest that for an inflation rate higher than 20%, economic growth is not, or is negatively, affected by financial development, whereas the impact of finance on growth is positive and significant for an inflation level below 10%.     

Trading with Tigers: A Technical Analysis of Southeast Asian Stock Index Futures

ABSTRACT

Our paper examines the profitability of technical trading rules in Southeast Asian (SEA) ‘tiger cub’ stock index futures markets during and after the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007/2008. Using daily closing price data from 2007 to 2012, we explore technical trading rules such as exponential moving averages (EMA (20), EMA (100), EMA (20,100)) and moving average convergence divergence (MACD) in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. The findings reveal that after applying trading rules that account for transaction costs and risk, abnormal profits cannot be achieved above a naı¨ve ‘buy-and-hold’ strategy (with the exception of EMA (100) and EMA (20,100) in Indonesia, and EMA (20,100) in both the Philippines and Thailand). There appears to be some degree of success with the application of longer-term trading rules; however, unless transaction costs can be reduced, investors are best advised to pursue passive investment approaches. Despite the economic uncertainty associated with the GFC and ongoing market volatility, it appears that SEA tiger cub stock index futures markets are weak-form efficient.     

Women and Minorities in Introductory Economics Textbooks: 1974 to 1984

The authors conducted a painstaking review of widely used economics textbooks to determine if or how issues relating to race and gender are treated. In doing so, the authors also shed light on the nature of the treatment of these issues.     

Institutional Usury and the Banks

Although usury is no longer widely discussed in economic discourse, the concept of usury is useful in explaining financial upheavals such as the recent and on-going crisis. The Scholastics began the study of interest with their teachings on usury, and Keynes brought the usury debate back into the discussions during the period around the Great Depression. Bernard Dempsey, a Jesuit economist, wrote a definitive assessment of scholastic theory in the early 1940s under the direction of Schumpeter. Dempsey developed his own theory of financial crises which he attributed to the presence of what he termed “institutional usury.” The recently implemented policy by the Federal Reserve of paying banks interest on reserves is examined in light of Dempsey's concept of institutional usury. The scholastic concept of the just price is used to analyze market power wielded by large financial institutions in the modern economy.     

The Dilemmas of Technology: A Review Article

During the 1990s, all of the European transition economies (TE) experienced a major recession and suffered from the explosion of income inequality. However, distribution of income between labor and capital differed greatly from one group of post-communist countries to another. The paper discusses and analyzes linkages between models of capitalism that emerged in former communist countries in the 1990s and the outcome of capitalist transition for labor in terms of income distribution and inequality. It is based on the estimates of the Marxian rate of exploitation and other indicators of labor income performance during the reform period.     

城镇居民医疗保险的真实保障水平研究——基于广东典型地区的实证分析

选取广东省三个代表性地区的大规模医疗保险数据库,采用"实际补偿比"作为真实保障水平的测度,对居民医保的真实保障水平及其主要影响因素进行了实证分析。居民医保的真实保障水平总体上还比较低,欠发达地区的平均住院实际补偿比在30%-40%之间,即便是发达地区也只有55.6%;起付线、封顶线、基金支付比例、医院等级选择以及年龄等个体特征都是保障水平的重要影响因素。提出要建立长效稳定的筹资增长机制,完善补偿机制并适当体现对弱势群体的照顾,并通过采取控制"三大目录"以外的医疗费用支出等措施尽可能缩小真实保障水平与名义保障水平的差距。     

Measuring and testing the long-term impact of terrorist attacks on the US futures market

This study compares the accuracy and information content of economic forecasts for G7 countries made in the 1990s by the OECD and IMF. The benchmarks for comparison are the average forecasts of private sector economists published by Consensus Economics. With few exceptions, the private sector forecasts are less biased and more accurate in terms of mean absolute error and root mean square error. Formal tests show these differences are statistically significant for forecasts of real growth and production, less so for forecasts of inflation and unemployment. Overall, there appears little information in the OECD and IMF forecasts that could be used to reduce significantly the error in the private sector forecasts.     

集体化时期的分配制度与人口生育——以日照市东村为中心（1949～1973）

过去关于集体化时期高生育率研究着重于家庭经济支撑能力对生育的影响,认为子女的经济效用刺激了家庭的普遍多育。本文通过实证材料分时段、分家庭人口结构具体分析了集体化时期子女的经济效用,发现在整个集体化时期多生孩子对家庭经济支撑能力的贡献并不明显.进一步分析发现,不是“财富流”而是集体财富的分配模式成为影响家庭生育的重要因素,具体体现在“吃大锅饭”对家庭经济支撑模式所产生的影响。20世纪60年代中后期普遍多育的表象下面涌动着节育的要求,生育意愿的代际差异逐渐呈现。     

河南省农业科技进步贡献率的测算和分析

本文运用改进的柯布-道格拉斯生产函数和索洛增长速度方程,对1985—2008年河南省农业科技进步对农业经济增长的贡献率进行了测算。研究结果表明,1985—2008年河南省农业科技进步对农业经济增长的贡献率达到46.47%,仅次于物资投入的贡献率,而劳动投入和土地的贡献率却很小;从经济增长发展阶段来看,"十五"期间河南省农业科技进步对农业经济增长的贡献率最大,达到55.08%,但没有呈现规律性的增长态势。