'Urban Bias', Intersectoral Resource Flows and the Macroeconomic Implications of Agrarian Relations: The Historical Experience of Japan and Taiwan

It is argued that agrarian relations play a critical role in the pattern of intersectoral resource flows and the way in which the agricultural sector shapes the macroeconomy in developing countries. The notion of 'urban bias' used by GKI is defective in its abstracting from the pre-existing agrarian system and from the prevailing institutions and in focussing on one simple set of influences outside the agricultural sector itself, i.e. government policy bias. This is illustrated with reference to the historical experience of two countries regarded as exemplary by GKI: Japan and Taiwan. Their experience shows that high rates of taxation and surplus extraction from agriculture are not incompatible with maintaining profitability and production incentives in agriculture, as long as agrarian relations and other enabling conditions can ensure a fast enough rate of technological progress and productivity growth in the sector. The macroeconomic implications of different agrarian relations are much more complex than the urban bias story told by GKI would suggest.     

The Euro Area Bond Free Float and the Implications for QE

This paper examines how shocks to government bond duration risk held by price-sensitive investors affect the euro area term structure of interest rates and the wider macroeconomy. We construct a new measure of the bond “free float,” which adjusts total debt for foreign official holdings and weights by residual maturity. Using a small macrofinance Bayesian Vector Autoregression (VAR) model, we estimate that the first round of asset purchases under the European Central Bank's (ECB) public sector purchase program reduced euro area 10-year bond yields by around 30 bps in 2015. The positive impact on the output gap and inflation in 2016 was about 0.2 and 0.3 ppt, respectively.     

经济政策不确定性、金融摩擦与宏观经济

基于Baker的经济政策不确定性指数和平滑转移向量自回归模型,分析了经济政策不确定性对宏观经济的影响及其传导机制。研究表明:经济政策不确定性的冲击通过实物期权机制对投资和产出造成短期的负面影响,加大了宏观经济的波动性;金融摩擦使经济政策不确定性冲击对宏观经济的影响具有非对称性;金融摩擦的程度以外部融资溢价水平来衡量,在外部融资溢价水平"高"的情况下,经济政策不确定性的冲击对宏观经济的不良影响更大。     

2010年中国金融政策执行效果分析

本文在对2010年中国宏观经济运行情况、执行的主要金融政策、金融市场运行及政策效果进行全面分析的基础上,对2011年宏观经济形势进行了分析和预测,并对应执行的金融政策提出了建议。在适度宽松货币政策和有扶有控的主要信贷政策的推动下,2010年中国经济平稳较快发展,金融市场运行总体平稳,但存在着通货膨胀预期增强等问题。2011年中国货币政策应由宽松转向稳健,同时搭配积极的财政政策,利用合理的信贷政策,稳定物价总水平,促进经济结构调整,推进金融结构改革。     

Cyclicality of credit supply: Firm level evidence

We quantify fluctuations in bank-loan supply in the time-series by studying firms' substitution between loans and bonds using firm-level data. Any firm that raises new debt must have a positive demand for external funds. Conditional on the issuance of new debt, we interpret firms' switching from loans to bonds as a contraction in bank-credit supply. We find strong evidence of this substitution at times that are characterized by tight lending standards, depressed aggregate lending, poor bank performance, and tight monetary policy. We show that this substitution behavior has strong predictive power for bank borrowing and investments by small firms.     

Time-varying short-horizon predictability

In the G7 countries, the short-horizon performance of aggregate return predictors such as the dividend yield and the short rate appears non-existent during business cycle expansions but sizable during contractions. This phenomenon appears related to countercyclical risk premiums as well as the time-variation in the dynamics of predictors. Our empirical model outperforms the historical average out-of-sample in the US, but the results throughout the G7 are mixed.     

对当前我国宏观经济形势的判断及预测

通过对2000年以来我国的经济周期、投资周期、消费周期、信用周期、价格周期和对全球经济周期的分析,本文对当前中国宏观经济形势的判断和预测是:当前中国经济正处在经济周期的高位,投资要求拉动作用在减弱,产能释放所引起的生产过剩风险在增大,有可能导致经济从繁荣走向衰退;受供给面影响,通货膨胀仍会持续,但不表明经济出现过热。2008年中国经济仍将维持10.5%以上的增长速度,通货膨胀率在5%～6%之间。     

Endogenous monetary policy shifts and the term structure: Evidence from Japanese government bond yields

I construct a no-arbitrage term structure model with endogenous regime shifts and apply it to Japanese government bond (JGB) yields. This model subjects the short-term interest rate to monetary regime shifts, specifically a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) and normal regimes, which depend on macroeconomic variables. The estimates show that under the ZIRP regime, the effect of deflation (inflation) on lowering (raising) bond yields amplifies on the long end of yield curves, compared with a case with positive interest rates under the normal regime. On the other hand, output gaps’ ability to raise bond yields weakens for all maturities.     

商务环境建设与宏观经济发展

本文认为,改进商务环境对于我国未来的发展具有重要意义,从战略上讲,商务环境对市场规模与分工之间的互动关系起着非常重要的制衡作用;从现实来讲,在未来一两年我们可能会面临比较紧的经济环境,除了企业需要练内功、降低经营成本和改善经营环境以提高企业存活率外,政府还应该下大力气改善商务环境,降低企业经营的各种交易费用。文章提出,要真正落实《行政许可法》,真正实行报备制;改善税收环境,让内外贸企业享受同样的待遇,把生产型增值税改成消费型增值税;大力发展服务业,改善融资环境,积极发展地区性民营中小银行和民营担保业,由政府出面筹建中小企业发展局,加强和加快社会信用体系、诚信体系以及个人信用与企业信用评估机制建设。     

有效需求不足约束下的经济增长

在凯恩斯理论框架下，构建有效需求不足约束的宏观经济模型，测算我国居民边际消费倾向、边际储蓄倾向和边际国外储蓄倾向，计算结果较为合理。就模型预测能力而言，这种模型的静态预测效果比动态预测效果更好。