Trend inflation estimates for Thailand from disaggregated data

This paper constructs a new trend inflation measure for Thailand based on the multivariate unobserved components model with stochastic volatility and outlier adjustments (MUCSVO) of Stock and Watson (2016). Similar to core inflation, the MUCSVO produces an estimate of trend inflation utilizing information in disaggregated data, but also allows for time-varying weights that depend on the volatility, persistence and comovement of the underlying sectoral inflation series. Based on the empirical results, the majority of sectoral weights show significant time-variation in contrast to their relatively stable expenditure shares. Volatile food and energy sectors that are typically excluded from core inflation measures also turn out to help explain approximately 10 percent of MUCSVO trend inflation rate movements. Compared against other benchmark trend inflation measures, we show that the MUCSVO delivers trend estimates that are smoother, more precise, and are able to forecast average inflation over the 1–3 year horizon more accurately both in-sample and out-of-sample, especially since the year 2000.     

中国股市波动的信息不确定性与投资者行为效应研究

中国的股市价格波动常常表现出在股价波动规律上的非理性特征,这说明在股价波动的特性中蕴含了来自非基本面的诸多信息.已有的研究表明维护市场的功能与稳定,需要更多的考虑来自信息不确定性及投资者行为所带给股价波动的影响.文章通过应用计量经济学的因子分解方法,从中国股市价格波动的信息中分解、提取出投资者行为效应的成分,从信息不确定性的角度界定了投资者行为对股市价格波动的解释力度与作用大小.针对实证研究的结论,文章从股市惯性、货币政策以及信息不确定性和投资者行为效应角度提出了对策建议.     

Financial intermediation and real estate prices impact on business cycles: A Bayesian analysis

How do financial intermediation and real estate prices impinge on the business cycle? I develop a two-sector stochastic general equilibrium model with financial intermediation and real estate collateral to assess the impact of financial conditions and land prices on aggregate fluctuations. I estimate the model with Bayesian methods using a novel data set that includes U.S. macro and financial variables during the period 1975–2010. The results from the estimated model show that financial conditions have a sizable effect on the variability of investment spending, while productivity shocks are the main source of consumption fluctuations. Specifically, on the macro side, (1) financial shocks explain about three quarters of investment spending variability and one third of the variance in hours worked. On the financial side, (2) financial shocks explain most of the variability in land prices, credit spread, and aggregate net worth of the financial sector. The model also accounts for observed unconditional moments of macro and financial variables. Our quantitative results are suggestive of the impact of diverse sources of financial instability, and as such relevant for macro prudential policy analysis.     

A structural VAR business cycle model for a volatile small open economy

New Zealand is a small economy exposed to a volatile climate, relatively volatile international trade prices, and its exposure to international financial markets has increased markedly since economic reforms in the 1980s. This paper applies identification techniques suggested by Cushman and Zha [Cushman, D.O. and Zha T.A., 1997. Identifying monetary policy in a small open economy under flexible exchange rates, Journal of Monetary Economics, 39, pp. 433–448.], Zha [Zha, T.A., (1999). Block recursion and structural vector autoregression, Journal of Econometrics, 90, pp. 291–316.] and Dungey and Pagan [Dungey, M. and Pagan, A., 2000. A structural VAR model of the Australian economy, The Economic Record, 76, pp. 321–342.] to develop a large four block structural VAR model of the New Zealand business cycle to capture these features. The model reveals that climate and international trade price shocks have been more important sources of business cycles fluctuations than international or domestic financial shocks. Furthermore, the model does not encounter the price and exchange rate puzzles that have bedevilled attempts to identify monetary policy shocks in small open economy SVAR models.     

非均衡条件下房地产价格变化的主要因素及动力机制

房地产市场是一非均衡的市场,特殊的市场性质和独特的商品属性决定了房地产价格的变化既要受供求关系的影响,又不能单纯的依靠供求关系,还必须通过政府相关的政策加以引导,调控房地产的供应数量与供应结构,引导经济预期.纵观供需两方面,在影响房地产价格变化的因素中,成本价格是价格变化的基础,消费者的购买能力与购买欲望是决定因素,而国家的政策具有双重影响,且影响房地产发展的全过程.房地产的价格也在市场机制和预期机制的共同作用下发展和变化.     

Japanese spirit,Western economics: the continuing salience of economic nationalism in Japan

This paper outlines the contours of a new research agenda for the analysis of food price crises. By weaving together a detailed quantitative examination of changes in corporate profit shares with a qualitative appraisal of the restructuring in business control over the organisation of society and nature, the paper points to the rapid ascendance of a new power configuration in the global political economy of food: the Agro-Trader nexus. The agribusiness and grain trader firms that belong to the Agro-Trader nexus have not been mere ‘price takers’, instead they have actively contributed to the inflationary restructuring of the world food system by championing and facilitating the rapid expansion of the first-generation biofuels sector. As a key driver of agricultural commodity price rises, the biofuels boom has raised the Agro-Trader nexus's differential profits and it has at the same time deepened global hunger. These findings suggest that food price inflation is a mechanism of redistribution.     

What determines China's inflation?

We examine determinants of inflation in China. Analyses of both year-on-year and month-on-month growth data confirm that excess liquidity, output gap, housing prices, and stock prices positively affect inflation. Impulse response analyses indicate that most effects occur during the initial five months and disappear after ten months. Effects of real interest rates and exchange rates on inflation are relatively weak. Our results suggest that the output gap is as important as excess liquidity in explaining the inflation trajectory. The central bank should closely monitor asset prices given their spillovers to inflation. Currently liquidity measures are still central for controlling inflation, but further liberalization of interest rates and exchange rates are crucial.     

腐败治理对房价的抑制效应研究简

抑制过快的房价上涨是中国当前面临的紧迫任务之一。腐败治理不仅可以抑制腐败推高房价的灰色收入效应和市场势力效应,而且对房价有直接抑制效应。构建房地产价格计算模型,利用2002-2011年省级面板数据,在全国和区域层面分别进行计算分析结果表明,腐败治理对房价的抑制效果显著,其中东部、中部地区效果更为显著。     

房地产价格与家庭支出的关系研究--基于CHFS调查数据

从微观视角出发,运用中国家庭金融调查（CHFS）2011年数据,作者实证分析了房地产价格上涨对居民家庭支出的影响。研究发现：房价上涨对家庭支出的影响具有层次性和异质性,房价上涨带动家庭消费性支出、转移性支出的增加,表现为财富效应,而对家庭经营性支出的影响不明显。本文的研究结论有助于政府制定宏观调控政策,促进房价合理回归。     

Space-time approach to commercial property prices valuation

There exists three ways of approaching real estate prices: the cost approach, the market data approach and the income capitalization approach. In this article, we propose an improvement of the market data approach that takes into account the spatial component. In particular, we propose a modified market data approach based on interpolation, being the structure of the spatial correlation between the prices of properties the main factor to obtain the weights. Interpolation methods have been widely used for estimating real estate prices, but they do not take into account the structure of their spatial dependence. Although this drawback is overcome by kriged estimation, in the case of the prices of commercial properties, they do not provide good estimates because the scarceness of the market information. This is why auxiliary information is needed and cokriging methods are used to obtain estimates that are more accurate. The aim of this article is the comparison of cokriged estimation of premises prices in two different temporal moments in the emblematic old part of Toledo city (Spain), using housing prices as an auxiliary random function due to their strong correlation with the main one. Cokriging, kriging and inverse distance weighting results are compared.