a neoclassical model of the balance of payments this paper analyses the transitory and long run effects of devaluation and tariffs as well as the effects of alterations in the domestic money supply and the terms of trade for a small country on fixed exchange rates these issues are investigated in a self contained dynamic optimization model of the sort popularized by brock 1974 1975 familiar results in the trade literature are thereby explicated for the nonspecialist who is nonetheless familiar with brock s work there are some new results regarding the role played by income and substitution effects in determining the consequences of terms of trade shifts this paper introduces a perfect foresight optimizing model of the monetary approach to the balance of payments for a small country on fixed exchange rates the model is then used to analyse the effects on the balance of payments of devaluation of a tariff and of changes in the terms of trade the effects of devaluation tariffs and changes in the terms of trade have been analysed previously within the framework of nonoptimizing models dornbusch 1973 1980 and anderson and takayama 1977 have studied the effect of devaluation mussa 1974 1976 anderson and takayama 1978 1981 and batra and ramachandran 1980 have studied the effect of tariffs and rodriguez 1976 batra and ramachandran 1980 and anderson and takayama 1981 have studied the effect of changes in the terms of trade optimizing models in which real balances appear as an argument in the utility function are increasingly popular in international economics the general approach was inspired by sidrauski 1967 and brock 1974 1975 recent contributions to the trade literature using this framework include dornbusch and mussa 1975 calvo 1980 1981 liviatan 1981 and obstfeld 1981 a 1981 b 1982 the purpose of this paper is to translate the conventional small country fixed exchange rate model into this framework the results are generally congruent with those in the nonoptimizing literature which suggests that the money in the utility function approach works well here compared to the nonoptimizing literature the real advance is that price adjustment and price expectations are endogenous and rational among the benefits are that one need not postulate the ad hoc price adjustment mechanism used by anderson and takayama nor the backward looking and hence irrational permanent income formulation used by rodriguez furthermore there has been controversy over the balance of payments effects of a shift in the terms of trade while the model s predictions on this issue are theoretically ambiguous the model shows that the answer depends crucially on the magnitude of income effects this clarifies the conditions required for a terms of trade shift to improve or worsen the balance of payments

interest rates and currency prices in a two country world abstract this paper is a theoretical study of the determination of prices interest rates and currency exchange rates set in an infinitely lived two country world which is subject both to stochastic endowment shocks and to monetary instability formulas are obtained for pricing all equity claims nominally denominated bonds and currencies and these formulas are related to earlier closely related results in the theories of money finance international trade

rural electrification in developing countries abstract rural electrification programmes take up significant proportions of energy investment expenditures in developing economies conventional economic criteria for judging investments are not always thought appropriate for rural electrification because of the largely non quantifiable benefits that are thought to ensue including its bias towards helping the poor its catalytic role in stimulating rural development its role in reducing the adverse consequences of rural urban migration and the enabling of improved literacy rates and its general contribution to political stability this paper looks at each of these benefits in turn and asks what evidence there is to substantiate them the paper argues that conventional rate of return criteria should play a stronger role in determining rural electrification expenditures and that some of the non monetary benefits appear neither to be widespread nor as strong as supporters of rural electricity suggest while rural electrification is nonetheless important in the development process it is more usefully integrated into wider rural energy development schemes

real exchange rates under alternative nominal exchange rate systems abstract the paper develops an equilibrium model of the determination of exchange rates the relative price of nontraded goods and the current account the focus is on the effects of various real and nominal disturbances and the conditions under which the nominal exchange rate system is neutral with respect to real variables in the economy the model demonstrates an assymetry in the roles of trade and nontraded goods in affecting exchange rates an econometric investigation of the raltion between the exchange rate system and the variability of real exchange rates provides some evidence against the neutrality hypothesis

toward a national market system for u s exchange listed equity options in its response to the 1975 congressional mandate to implement a national market system for financial securities the securities and exchange commission sec initially exempted the option market recent dramatic changes in the structure of the option market prompted the sec to revisit this issue we examine a sample of actively traded multiply listed equity options to ask whether this market s characteristics appear consistent with the goals of producing economically efficient transactions and facilitating best execution we find marked changes between june 2000 when quotes are often ignored and january 2002 when the market more closely resembles a national market equity option trading changed dramatically with the beginning of vigorous competition for order flow in many actively traded options during august 1999 the

aggregate spending and the terms of trade is there a laursen metzler effect this paper investigates the spending and current account effects of terms of trade shifts in a model where households maximize utility over an infinite planning period in the framework developed here an economy specialized in production must experience a fall in aggregate spending and a current surplus as a result of an unanticipated permanent worsening in its terms of trade the paper s model thus provides a setting in which the current account deficit predicted by laursen and metzier harberger and others fails to materialize

currency prices terms of trade and interest rates a general equilibrium asset pricing cash in advance approach currency prices terms of trade and interest rates a general equilibrium asset pricing cash in advance approach

factors underlying rural household energy transition a case study of china abstract this paper identifies factors underlying the energy transition of rural households in china based on province level panel data for years of 1991 2014 it indicates that there exists the energy stacking process of rural household energy transition characterized by the significant consumption inertia effects of traditional biomass energy tbe traditional commercial energy tce and advanced commercial energy ace respectively the insignificant substitution effect of tce and ace for tbe and the significant partial substitution of ace for tce with regard to the factors underlying rural household energy transition 1 per capita disposal income is negatively correlated with tbe tce and ace consumption 2 the number of motorcycles is positively correlated with tce and ace consumption 3 the number of firewood saving stoves and the price for ace are positively correlated with tbe consumption 4 household size and the number of motorcycles and the number of appliances are positively correlated with ace consumption 5 education level is positively correlated with tbe but negatively with tce consumption 6 the number of rural energy management institutions is positively correlated with tbe but negatively correlated ace consumption therefore some policy implications are discussed

on the indeterminacy of equilibrium exchange rates in this paper we consider a particular international economic policy regime the laissez faire regime the distinguishing features of which are unrestricted portfolio choice and floating exchange rates and as we show this regime although favored by many economists is not economically feasible it does not have a determinate equilibrium that is an implication of an overlapping generations model more basically it is an implication of the notion that money is wanted only in order to accomplish trades

devaluation levels versus rates abstract in a context of infinitely lived families a la sidrauski where consumers are lump sum compensated for the inflation tax and there is no capital mobility it is shown that a devaluation improves while an increase in the rate of devaluation deteriorates the balance of payments

competition without fungibility evidence from alternative market structures for derivatives in this paper we compare option contracts from a traditional derivatives exchange to bank issued options also referred to as covered warrants while bank issued option markets and traditional derivatives exchanges exhibit significant structural differences such as the absence of a central counterparty for bank issued options they frequently exist side by side and the empirical evidence shows that there is significant overlap in their product offerings although options are not fungible between the two markets the empirical analysis indicates that bid ask spreads in either market are lowered by 1 2 due to competition from the other market providing evidence that the benefits of competing market structures are available in the absence of fungibility

currency trade and capital flows in general equilibrium this paper studies currency trade and capital flows in a one good general equilibrium exchange model with utility maximizing individuals the effects of both monetary and endowment shocks are examined it is shown that both can cause trade and capital flows the model is a two country version of the twostate optimizing model used recently by leroy 1984a 1984b to study the effects of monetary and endowment shocks in a closed economy each country issues its own currency real and nominal bonds and equity shares each receives an endowment of a perishable consumption good the demand for money is generated by entering real balances into the utility function as in dornbusch and mussa 1975 calvo 1981 liviatan 1981 obstfeld 1981a 1981b 1982 razin 1981 stockman 1983 and michener 1984 each country holds both currencies an assumption made only by liviatan both monetary growth and endowments of the consumption

rural household energy consumption the effects of access to electricity evidence from south africa this paper examines household energy consumption patterns in rural areas in the light of energy transition theories in particular the study aims to identify the effects of access to electricity on fuel choice the analysis uses data from an extensive household survey conducted in south africa and examines the prevalence of different fuels energy expenditure the end uses of fuels and multiple fuel use patterns it is concluded that evidence exists for the presence of an energy transition in rural households largely driven by income access to electricity affects the nature of this transition and there is weak evidence to suggest that it accelerates the process

the limitation of monotonicity property of option prices an empirical evidence many option pricing models are based on the assumption that the underlying asset price follows one dimensional diffusion process an alternative approach is to test the properties that should hold for all models based on a given stochastic process for the underlying asset following perignon 2006 we test the empirical validity of the monotonicity property for option prices by collecting all transaction data from 1 july 2006 to 31 december 2006 for option contracts traded on the taiwan futures exchange taifex we find that sampled intraday option prices violate the monotonicity property between 29 97 and 57 of the time and that call and put prices often increase or decrease together we also find evidence to show that the frequent violations of the monotonicity property are to a large extent attributable to microstructure effects and that they arise from rational trading tactics

monetary expansion and real exchange rate dynamics this paper examines the effect of a change in the rate of monetary expansion on the dynamics of the real exchange rate under fully flexible domestic prices and a floating exchange rate the model is similar in structure to an ealier paper by calvo and rodriguez the main difference being that in our model consumers have an infinite planning horizon and long run perfect foresight one of the main findings is that an increase in the rate of monetary expansion has the impact effect of creating a real appreciation of the exchange rate and a deterioration of the balance of payments contrary to the results of calvo and rodriguez

capital mobility and devaluation in an optimizing model with rational expectations this paper examines the effects of ex change rate policies when individuals maximize lifetime utility on the basis of rational expectations about the future the economy studied is one in which the authorities allow free mobility of capital under a crawling peg exchange rate regime many industrializing economies have adopted a crawling peg as a means of reconciling disparate inflation rates at home and abroad and some recent efforts to use the rate of crawl as an instrument of anti inflation policy have attracted considerable interest see carlos diaz alejandro tools similar to those employed here have been applied by guillermo calvo forthcoming to study this type of exchange rate management under conditions of capital immobility this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

urban fuelwood challenges and dilemmas abstract this paper explores the use of fuelwood in third world cities the importance of fuelwood and the factors which condition its use in cities are set out and three fuelwood problems are identified the cost to urban consumers fuel supply security and the impact of urban fuelwood markets on rural areas urban fuelwood interventions are evaluated with four categories identified interventions in marketing conservation increased wood production and fuel switching of these fuel switching by improved supply systems and increased production from smallholders and better management of natural woodlands appear to have the greatest potential the need for flexibility community participation in planning is stressed

pricing effects when competitors arrive the case of discount certificates in germany this article investigates how overpricing of outstanding certificates also called master certificates changes when competing products that duplicate the features of master certificates are issued i argue that competition effects may be reverted and overpricing may increase rather than decrease after competitors arrive when retail investors fail to detect implications of credit risk differences on certificates values using difference in differences estimations on matched samples i find that overpricing of master certificates decreases after the competing products have been issued but only when the master issuer s credit risk is lower than that of the duplicate issuer while it increases when the credit risk difference is positive these findings are robust to controlling for retail investors demand in various ways thus the study indicates that retail investors failure to detect the value implications of issuers credit risk can undermine product competition

nominal prices and interest rates in general equilibrium endowment shocks the outstanding problem of neoclassical monetary theory has been to determine the effect of changes in the money stock on nominal prices and interest rates the classic result is that in the absence of money illusion contracts fixed in nominal terms and other such impedimenta money is neutral thus a doubling of the money stock results in a doubling of the nominal price level and in no change in nominal interest rates except at most for a temporary liquidity effect while the price level is rising to its new level during the adjustment period the nominal interest rate might temporarily drop this neutrality result has conventionally been proved in a static framework in intertemporal models it is necessary to distinguish between static neutrality and dynamic neutrality if a model displays dynamic neutrality fluctuations in the money stock immediately induce a proportional change in the nominal price level and no change in nominal interest rates or any real variable this property is different from and stronger than static neutrality which in dynamic models states only that if the money stock at all dates is doubled so will be the price level at all dates the effects of exogenous shocks in the monetary growth rate on nominal prices and interest rates are analyzed a representative individual rational expectations framework is adopted and a demand for money is generated by entering money in the utility function the effects of monetary shocks on inflation and interest rates are shown to depend on the autocorrelation of the monetary growth rate for example under serial independence the inflation rate equals the monetary growth rate and the nominal interest rate is nonrandom while under positive negative autocorrelation the nominal interest rate is affected positively negatively by positive growth rate shocks i am grateful to the staff of the federal reserve bank of philadelphia to the finance groups at the university of southem california and virginia polytechnic institute and to c j lacivita dan peled john seater and jon sonstelie for valuable comments on earlier drafts

a model of exchange rate dynamics this model treats the exchange rate as an asset price that depends on expectations concerning exogenous real and monetary factors that will affect relative prices and absolute price levels in future periods changes in exchange rates reflect both expected changes in these exogenous factors and changes in expectations occasioned by new information the model explains the random component in exchange rate behavior the source of divergences from purchasing power parity the anticipatory response of exchange rates to future expected disturbances and the causes of exchange rate overshooting

macroeconomic policy exchange rate dynamics and optimal asset accumulation the paper develops a model of exchange rate and current account determination for a small economy peopled by infinitely lived utility maximizing households in this setting a central bank purchase of foreign exchange has no real effects when central bank foreign reserves earn interest at the world rate and proceeds are returned to the public in contrast an increase in the monetary growth rate does have real effects even in the long run the model developed here implies that an increase in government spending may lead to a surplus on current account the external adjustment process predicted by the model is one in which consumption real balances and external assets all rise or fall simultaneously