Fixed cost,marginal cost,and the decision to buy or make

The paper builds a formal model of the costs and benefits of producing intermediate goods internally as compared to buying partially produced inputs on the open market. The model centers on the link between the purchase of assets specific to a production process and the mean and variance of profits from the purchase. The central point of the paper is that even though purchases of assets specific to a production process can have an ambiguous impact on profits of the decision to make, the purchase of such assets has a tendency to reduce the variability of profits. This trade‐off is at the heart of decision to buy or make. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Macroeconomic factors, consumer behavior, and bankcard default rates

Over the period from 1981 through 1999, we investigate the relationship between bankcard delinquencies and key macroeconomic variables. Changes in the proportion of accounts in default are statistically related to the consumer debt ratio. When the delinquency rate is calculated based on the number of dollars outstanding, it is related to the total amount of revolving debt. We also find evidence consistent with a pattern of selective default behavior, in which consumers will default on bankcard debt before defaulting on other types of installment loans.     

美国会不会成为下一个希腊——谈美国金融监管改革

5月20日,美国参议院通过了金融监管改革方案。奥巴马政府选择在此时着手金融监管改革,一个重要的原因,是为了捞回在医改中丢失的政治资本,为赢得中期选举做准备     

Monetary regimes and money supply endogeneity

Quasi-longitudinal Canadian microdata was used to compare the movement of individuals between employers with job changes taking place within firms. Internal mobility is found to be much less common than job changing between firms. Workers changing jobs within a firm are more likely to be older and have higher wages and longer tenures in the jobs they leave than individuals employers. This provides some support for the job-matching hypothesis underlying recent research on the causes of individual mobility, although it is also clear that workers in large or unionized firms are more likely to have the opportunity for internal promotion. While wage gains obtained through internal mobility are smaller than those achieved through external mobility, wage levels are higher for individuals moving within the firm. It is argued that this observation is consistent with a dual labour markets interpretation of mobility patterns.     

THE INFLATIONARY IMPACT OF OIL PRICE SHOCKS: A VECTOR AUTOREGRESSIVE STUDY

The paper estimates a seven-variable vector autoregressive model of the U.S. economy over the period 1970.1 to 1990.4. Forecast error variance and impulse analysis are performed on the estimated system to determine the inflationary impact of increases in the price of oil over this period. The analysis shows that a negligible percentage of inflation's forecast error variance can be attributable to increases in the price of oil. Moreover, the impulse simulations result in negative Consumer Price responses to increases in the price of oil. The primary response to a positive shock in the price of oil was a decrease in real output. The results, in general, support previous studies emphasizing the demand-side of response to oil price shocks rather than shifts in aggregate supply.     

A note on transfer prices and exchange rate pass-through

The paper builds a model of a parent corporation selling an intermediate product to a foreign subsidiary. The model is used to explain the response of foreign prices to changes in the exchange rate between the country of the parent affiliate and the foreign subsidiary. The model examines this response with and without an external market for the intermediate product.     

Nominal interest rate policy rules and the feasibility of real interest rate control

In this paper the author builds a financial market model to demonstrate that policy aimed at reducing the variance in nominal interest rates reduces the information content of these variables. This has the undesirable effect of destabilizing real interest rates. The researcher demonstrates that nominal interest rate policy rules stabilize the component of the variance in the ex ante real interest rate attributable to the variance in the nominal rate. The variability of the expected inflation rate can, however, be increased by such policy rules, making the net effect of a nominal interest rate policy on the variance in the real interest rate ambiguous.     

Book Reviews

Caves, Richard E., and Associates, Industrial Efficiency in Six Nations, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992, xii + 492 pages.

National Research Council, Panel on Foreign Trade Statistics, Behind the Numbers: U.S. Trade in the World Economy, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992, xi + 297 pages.

Fischer, Klaus, and George J. Papaioannou (eds.), Business Finance in Less Developed Capital Markets, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992, xi + 391 pages.

Krugman, Paul R., Currencies and Crises, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992, xix + 219 pages.

Howell, Thomas R., Alan Wm. Wolff, Brent L. Bartlett, and R. Michael Gadbaw, Conflict Among Nations: Trade Policies in the 1990s, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, xiv + 633 pages.

Starr, Martin K., Global Corporate Alliances and the Competitive Edge: Strategies and Tactics for Management, New York: Quorum Books, 1991, xiii + 236 pages.

Liesch, Peter W., Government Mandated Countertrade, Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1991, xv + 172 pages.

Kotabe, Masaaki, Global Sourcing Strategy: R&D, Manufacturing, and Marketing Interfaces, New York: Quorum Books, 1992, xviii + 237 pages.     

Market discipline and monetary policy

The effects of forward looking expectations of future inflationon equilibrium inflation and interest rates are examined withinan imperfect information framework. Expectations of future inflationaffect equilibrium in a manner similar to an increase in thecentral bank's weight on future social welfare, making it morelikely an opportunistic central bank will actually deliver onits announced inflation targets, and output expansions can ariseeven if the central banker is revealed to be a low inflationtype. The model also illustrates the channels through whichinflation scares raise current real interest rates.