labor market polarization the decline of routine work and technological change a quantitative analysis abstract a common hypothesis for labor market polarization is that technological progress has decreased the price of machines which are substitutable with middle skilled jobs and complementary to higher and lower skilled jobs i quantitatively evaluate this hypothesis in a dynamic general equilibrium model i find that the near constant elasticities of labor demand in the standard technology hypothesis and the observed dynamics of the price of machines are inconsistent with rapid polarization pre 2000 and its slower dynamics thereafter extending the model to allow for a separate investment sector requiring only high skilled workers generates a much closer fit to data

the great reversal in the demand for skill and cognitive tasks this paper argues that several of the poor labor market outcomes observed in the great recession can be traced back to a change in the demand pattern for skilled workers that started with the tech bust of 2000 in particular we show that around the year 2000 the demand for cognitive tasks underwent a reversal in response high skilled workers moved down the occupational ladder and increasingly displaced lower educated workers in less skill intensive jobs while these effects were present before the financial crisis of 2008 they became more obvious after jobs associated with the housing bubble disappeared

does inflation targeting improve fiscal discipline abstract we explore the performances of inflation targeting it adoption in terms of fiscal discipline fd while most existing studies focus exclusively on the role of fd as a precondition for it adoption using a sample of developing and developed countries we show that it adoption exerts a positive and significant effect on fd a result robust to a wide variety of alternative specifications in addition this effect is statistically significant only in developing countries a result that may fuel the current debate regarding the relevance of it adoption in general and particularly for developing countries

inflation targeting in emerging market and transition economies lessons after a decade abstract starting in the early 1990s several emerging market and transition economies adopted inflation targeting it in this paper we discuss a number of issues that arise in this context a the definition of it b the role of preconditions for it c the use of intermediate exchange rate targets and d the specification of inflation targets our overall conclusion is that suitably modified it is a useful policy strategy for emes

learning expectations formation and the pitfalls of optimal control monetary policy this paper examines the robustness characteristics of optimal control policies derived under the assumption of rational expectations to alternative models of expectations we assume that agents have imperfect knowledge about the precise structure of the economy and form expectations using a forecasting model that they continuously update based on incoming data we flnd that the optimal control policy derived under the assumption of rational expectations can perform poorly when expectations deviate modestly from rational expectations we then show that the optimal control policy can be made more robust by deemphasizing the stabilization of real economic activity and interest rates relative to in ation in the central bank loss function that is robustness to learning provides an incentive to employ a conservative central banker we then examine two types of simple monetary policy rules from the literature that have been found to be robust to model misspeciflcation in other contexts we flnd that these policies are robust to empirically plausible parameterizations of the learning models and perform about as well or better than optimal control policies

on the international dimension of fiscal policy this paper analyses the international dimension of fiscal policy using a small open economy framework in which the government finances its spending by levying distortionary taxation and issuing non state contingent debt the main finding of the paper is that once the open economy aspect of the policy problem is considered it is not optimal to smooth taxes following idiosyncratic shocks even when prices are flexible and inflation can costlessly act as a shock absorber to restore fiscal equilibrium the presence of a terms of trade externality lead to movements in the tax rate also in contrast with the closed economy the introduction of sticky prices can reduce the optimal volatility of taxes

an investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy this paper proposes a simple framework for analyzing a continuum of monetary policy rules characterized by differing degrees of credibility in which commitment and discretion become special cases of what we call quasi commitment the monetary policy authority is assumed to formulate optimal commitment plans to be tempted to renege on them and to succumb to this temptation with a constant exogenous probability known to the private sector by interpreting this probability as a continuous measure of the lack of credibility of the monetary policy authority we investigate the welfare effect of a marginal increase in credibility our main finding is that in a simple model of the monetary transmission mechanism most of the gains from commitment accrue at relatively low levels of credibility in our benchmark calibration a commitment expected to last for only 6 quarters is enough to bridge 75 of the welfare gap between discretion and commitment this seems to justify the well known concern of monetary policy makers about their credibility even in a world with limited access to commitment technologies

capital skill complementarity sectoral labor productivity and structural transformation abstract in the postwar u s economy labor productivity has been growing faster in the goods sector versus the service sector this paper argues that this sectoral labor productivity growth gap can largely be explained by the fact that capital intensity also increases faster in the goods sector i build a two sector neoclassical growth model in which capital substitutes low skilled labor but complements high skilled labor and the goods sector is more intensive in low skilled labor relative to the service sector as observed in the data as capital becomes more abundant relative to labor along economic growth low skilled labor is substituted by capital leading to faster growth of capital intensity and hence labor productivity in the goods sector using a calibrated model i find that two thirds of the sectoral labor productivity growth gap can be explained by capital accumulation and its interaction with capital skill complementarity

technology shocks and job flows we consider a version of the solow growth model where technological progress can be investment specific or investment neutral the labour market is subject to search frictions and the existing productive units may fail to adopt the most recent technological advances technological progress can lead to the destruction of technologically obsolete jobs and cause unemployment we calibrate the model to replicate the high persistence that characterizes the dynamics of firms neutral technology and the frequency of firms capital adjustment we find that neutral technological advances increase job destruction and job reallocation and reduce aggregate employment investment specific technological advances reduce job destruction have mild effects on job creation and are expansionary hence neutral technological progress prompts schumpeterian creative destruction while investment specific technological progress operates essentially as in the standard neoclassical growth model using structural var models we provide support to the key dynamic implications of the model copyright 2007 wiley blackwell

monetary convergence of the eu accession countries to the eurozone a theoretical framework and policy implications abstract a flexible approach to direct inflation targeting offers the european union accession countries a viable monetary policy choice that is believed to facilitate both the economic transition and the monetary convergence to the eurozone following this assumption a model investigating the nexus between inflation and selected monetary variables in three eu accession countries the czech republic poland and hungary is advanced the empirical analysis is aimed at explaining the sensitivity of the cpi based inflation path in these countries to backward as well as forward looking expectations nominal exchange rate fluctuations the eurozone inflation impulses and output changes the analysis implies that the monetary convergence begins with flexible inflation targeting and concludes with a full fledged euroization

optimal monetary policy in open economies revisited abstract this paper revisits optimal monetary policy in open economies in particular focusing on the noncooperative policy game under local currency pricing in a two country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model we first derive the quadratic loss functions which noncooperative policy makers aim to minimize then we show that noncooperative policy makers face extra trade offs regarding stabilizing real marginal costs induced by deviations from the law of one price under local currency pricing and that optimal monetary policy seeks to stabilize cpi inflation rates and more so under noncooperation than it does under cooperation as a result of the increased number of stabilizing objectives welfare gains from cooperation emerge even when two countries face only technology shocks still gains from cooperation are not large implying that frictions other than nominal rigidities are necessary to strongly recommend cooperation as an important policy framework to increase global welfare

inflation targeting as a monetary policy rule the purpose of the paper is to survey and discuss in ation targeting in the context of monetary policy rules the paper provides a general conceptual discussion of monetary policy rules attempts to clarify the essential characteristics of in ation targeting compares in ation targeting to other monetary policy rules and draws some conclusions for the monetary policy of the european system of central banks jel classi cation e42 e52

the central banker as a risk manager estimating the federal reserve s preferences under greenspan we derive a natural generalization of the taylor rule that links changes in the interest rate to the balance of the risks implied by the dual objective of sustainable economic growth and price stability this monetary policy rule reconciles economic models of expected utility maximization with the risk management approach to central banking within this framework we formally test and reject the standard assumption of quadratic and symmetric preferences in inflation and output that underlies the derivation of the taylor rule our results suggest that fed policy decisions under greenspan were better described in terms of the fed weighing upside and downside risks to their objectives rather than simply responding to the conditional mean of inflation and of the output gap

are factor biases and substitution identifiable the canadian evidence revised productivity accounts recently released by statistics canada are used to estimate a klump mcadam willman normalized ces supply side system for the half century 1961 2012 the model permits distinct rates of factor augmenting technical change for capital and labour that distinguish between short term versus long term effects as well as a non unitary elasticity of substitution and timevarying factor shares the advantage of the canadian data for this purpose is that they provide a unified treatment of measurement issues that have had to be improvised in the us and european data used by previous researchers in contrast to previous results we find that an elasticity of substitution and distinct factor biases of technological progress are not well determined by the model for the canadian data the kmw model does not appear to provide a framework that overcomes the classic diamond mcfadden rodriguez non identification result that impossibility theorem is manifested in our findings not overcome by them jel classification c51 e23 e25 o30 o51

myopia discretion and commitment in a two period as ad model a large body of pedagogical literature has recently emerged to place the new keynesian framework for analyzing business cycle fluctuations and the conduct of monetary policy into undergraduate economics curricula this article develops the graphical apparatus for the analysis of optimal monetary policy in the context of a two period model under alternative assumptions about the formation of inflationary expectations it demonstrates that differences in assumptions about the formation of inflationary expectations translate into quite different conclusions regarding the optimal conduct of monetary policy

monetary policy and inflation expectations in latin america long run effects and volatility spillovers this paper uses multiple cointegration analysis to estimate simultaneously a monetary reaction function and the determinants of expected inflation for brazil chile colombia and mexico in addition m garch modeling is used to test for the presence of volatility spillovers between the monetary stance and inflation expectations the analysis shows that there are long term relationships between the interest rate expected inflation and the inflation target and that greater volatility in the monetary stance increases the volatility of expected inflation in brazil colombia and mexico

balanced growth despite uzawa i use an event study approach to present novel evidence on the impact of trade liberalization on firm level profits using the uncertainty surrounding the negotiation and ratification process of the canada united states free trade agreement of 1989 cusfta i estimate the impact of different types of tariff reductions on the abnormal returns of canadian manufacturing firms i find that canadian import tariff reductions lead to lower and reductions in canadian intermediate input tariffs to higher abnormal returns the impact of u s tariff reductions is less clear and depends on the size of the affected firms i also calculate the total profit increase implied by my estimates overall cusfta increased per period profits by around 1 2 this was mainly driven by intermediate input tariff reductions which more than offset the negative effect of canadian import tariff reductions

changes in labor force participation in the united states the labor force participation rate in the united states increased almost continuously for two and a half decades after the mid 1960s pausing only briefly during economic downturns the pace of growth slowed considerably during the 1990s however and after reaching a record high of 67 3 percent in the first quarter of 2000 participation had declined by 1 5 percentage points by 2005 this paper reviews the social and demographic trends that contributed to the movements in the labor force participation rate in the second half of the twentieth century it also examines the manner in which developments in the 2000s reflect a break from past trends and considers implications for the future

inflation forecast targeting implementing and monitoring inflation targets abstract inflation targeting is shown to imply inflation forecast targeting the central bank s inflation forecast becomes an explicit intermediate target inflation forecast targeting simplifies both implementation and monitoring of monetary policy the weight on output stabilization determines how quickly the inflation forecast is adjusted towards the inflation target money growth or exchange rate targeting is generally inferior than inflation targeting and leads to higher inflation variability commitment to target rules may be better than commitment to instrument rules

short run housing responses to changes in income income maintenance and housing allowance plans both currently being evaluated as potential federal programs for low income families provide households with supplements to income which increase the demand for housing while income maintenance schemes allow the consumer complete freedom of choice with respect to consumption housing allowance plans may constrain choice in a variety of ways 1 the response of housing demand to changes in income is a significant factor in assessing the relative merits of these two programs the research presented here is concemed with the impact of increased income on the annual housing expenditures of households who have moved the data employed are drawn from the university of michigan panel study of income dynamics which follows a sample of 5 000 households over a period of years these panel data allow us to link each household s change in income over time with changes in its demand for housing most previous studies of housing demand rely on cross sectional estimates which are long run they implicitly assume a household would respond to a different income level just as would a household who may have been at that level for a long enough period of time to acquire a different set of tastes to the extent that households move from one short run adjustment to another because of repeated changes in economic circumstances rather than ever actually achieving the implied long run equilibrium short run elasticities may be more revelant for evaluating housing policy

labor and investment frictions in a real business cycle model abstract this paper develops a prototype real business cycle model in which labor and investment frictions may compete directly with technology shocks in accounting for fluctuations in the postwar us economy using ireland s 2004a a method for taking models to the data journal of economic dynamics and control 28 1205 1226 methodology we establish that both types of friction are quantitatively important technology shocks still explain a substantial fraction of the fluctuations in aggregate output as the baseline real business cycle model predicts formal hypothesis tests suggest that changes in the recurrence of shocks frictions and structural parameters all play a role in accounting for the shift in the time series properties of the data between the periods before and after 1980

the effect of inflation targeting and financial openness on currency composition of sovereign international debt abstract this paper analyzes the joint effect of inflation targeting and capital account openness in promoting changes to the currency composition of sovereign international debt in developing countries first using difference in differences in combination with entropy balancing we offer empirical evidence that the adoption of inflation targeting together with high capital account openness can significantly reduce the reliance on foreign currency denominated sovereign international debt we find that financially integrated inflation targeting countries have 11 percentage points lower foreign currency shares in their sovereign debt compared to non targeting countries second we determine the threshold level of financial openness that countries need to attain before they see the full benefits of inflation targeting third the joint effect of inflation targeting and capital account openness significantly increases three years after the policy implementation our results are robust to alternative specifications which include instrumental variables to account for the endogeneity of the policy

the augmented solow model and the productivity slowdown abstract in an insightful and influential paper mankiw et al 1992 quarterly journal of economics 107 407 437 have suggested that an augmented solow growth model can account for 80 of the variation in output per capita across countries due to different steady state growth paths that result from differences in saving rates education and population growth this paper carries their analysis one step further and asks whether changes in the growth rate between the 1960s and the 1980s can also be explained by this framework our results provide further support for several of mankiw et al s key conclusions investment in physical capital population growth and the initial levels of output seem to matter a great deal however investment in human capital has no ability to account for changes in growth rates over time we conclude that investment in physical capital seems to be quite important for economic growth though the reasons for this importance may not be fully captured by the augmented solow growth model

the decline in capital efficiency and labour share we calibrate and simulate a neoclassical growth model with a variable elasticity of substitution production function and three types of technological change labour augmenting capital augmenting and investment specific in this framework we find that the decline in us labour share was caused by a large decline in capital efficiency which led to a decrease in the ratio of effective capital to effective labour in a context in which capital and labour are gross complements moreover the decline in the relative price of investment contributed to reducing the fall in us labour share while the increase in the economic depreciation rate of us fixed assets accounted for a small reduction in us labour share

capital skill complementarity and balanced growth we construct a general equilibrium version of the krusell et al econometrica 68 1029 2000 model with capital skill complementarity we assume several sources of growth simultaneously exogenous growth of skilled and unskilled labour equipment specific technological progress skilled and unskilled labouraugmenting technological progress and hicks neutral technological progress we derive restrictions that make our model consistent with balanced growth a calibrated version of our model can account for the key growth patterns in the us data including those for capital equipment and structures skilled and unskilled labour and output but it fails to explain the long run behaviour of skilled labour wages and consequently the skill premium

sticky wages and sectoral labor comovement abstract a defining feature of business cycles is the comovement of inputs at the sectoral level with aggregate activity standard models cannot account for this phenomenon this paper develops and estimates a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model that can account for this key regularity my model incorporates three shocks to the economy monetary policy shocks neutral technology shocks and embodied technology shocks in the capital producing sector the estimated model is able to account for the response of the u s economy to all three shocks using this model i argue that the key friction underlying sectoral comovement is rigidity in nominal wages

monetary policy and welfare in a small open economy this paper analyzes optimal monetary policy in a small open economy featuring monopolistic competition and nominal rigidities it shows that the utility based loss function for this economy can be written as a quadratic expression of domestic inflation output gap and real exchange rate the presence of an internal monopolistic distortion and a terms of trade externality drives optimal policy away from domestic inflation targeting and affects the optimal level of exchange rate volatility when domestic and foreign goods are close substitutes for each other the optimal policy rule implies lower real exchange rate volatility than a domestic inflation targeting regime the reverse is true when the elasticity of substitution between goods is low

quantifying the risk of deflation we propose formal and quantitative measures of the risk that future inflation will be excessively high or low relative to the range preferred by a private sector agent unlike alternative measures of risk our measures are designed to make explicit the dependence of risk measures on the private sector agent s preferences with respect to inflation we illustrate our methodology by estimating the risks of deflation for the united states germany and japan for horizons of up to 2 years the question of how large these risks are has been subject to considerable public debate we find that as of september 2002 when this question first arose there was no evidence of substantial deflation risks for the united states and for germany contrary to some conjectures at the time in contrast there was evidence of substantial deflation risks in japan

designing targeting rules for international monetary policy cooperation this study analyzes a two country dynamic general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities monopolistic competition and producer currency pricing a quadratic approximation to the utility of the consumers is derived and assumed as the policy objective function of the policymakers it is shown that only under special conditions there are no gains from cooperation and moreover that the paths of the exchange rate and prices in the constrained efficient solution depend on the kind of disturbance that affects the economy it might be the case either for fixed or floating exchange rates despite this result simple targeting rules that involve only targets for the growth of output and for both domestic gdp and cpi inflation rates can replicate the cooperative allocation

housing the market versus the welfare state model revisited most housing policy analyses conclude that housing is a commodity that cannot be efficiently and equitably allocated via the market process major contentions in this respect are that market allocation will result in suboptimal housing investment and that the market process leads to the creation of slums furthermore the proponents of the welfare housing model argue that welfare state interventions have raised the average level of housing consumption above the level that would have been achieved under a more market oriented allocative model however both theory and evidence fail to support these beliefs

investment shocks and business cycles abstract the origins of business cycles are still controversial among macroeconomists this paper contributes to this debate by studying the driving forces of fluctuations in an estimated new neoclassical synthesis model of the u s economy in this model most of the variability of output and hours at business cycle frequencies is due to shocks to the marginal efficiency of investment imperfect competition and to a lesser extent technological frictions are the key to their transmission although labor supply shocks explain a large fraction of the fluctuations in hours at very low frequencies they are irrelevant over the business cycle this finding is important because the microfoundations of these disturbances are widely regarded as unappealing

investment and technical progress models in which the growth rate is exogenous provide no role for government in determining growth in our model growth is associated with investment through externalities from learning by watching rather than with the level of the capital stock presumption of a technical progress function with first increasing and then decreasing returns leads to multiple steady state growth equilibria there is also an explicit role of government policy in setting tax rates on output it follows that two economies with identical structures and stochastic tax policies may exhibit very different growth paths over sustained periods although the stationary distribution of growth rates is the same given the desirability in principle of subsidizing investment various practical methods are considered copyright 1992 by oxford university press

understanding the decline in the u s labor share evidence from occupational tasks abstract in this paper i provide empirical evidence linking the decline in the labor share to the replacement of occupations with substantial routine task content using cross industry variation i show that the overall labor share decline is driven by the replacement of occupations specializing in routine tasks i further find that the accelerated decline in the labor share since 2000 is associated with the replacement of higher skill occupations with substantial routine task content finally i estimate the effects of increased import competition on the labor share decline and how this relates to the replacement of occupational tasks while increased import competition plays a significant role in explaining the overall labor share decline and works through replacing routine occupations it cannot account for the accelerated labor share decline and replacement of higher skill occupations post 2000

monetary policy in an era of global supply chains abstract we study the implications of global supply chains for the design of monetary policy using a small open economy new keynesian model with multiple stages of production within the family of simple monetary policy rules with commitment a rule that targets separate producer price inflation at different production stages in addition to output gap and real exchange rate is found to deliver a higher welfare level than alternative policy rules as an economy becomes more open measured by export share the optimal weight on the upstream inflation rises relative to that on the final stage inflation if we have to choose among aggregate price indicators targeting ppi inflation yields a smaller welfare loss than targeting cpi inflation alone as the production chain becomes longer the optimal weight on ppi inflation in the policy rule that targets both ppi and cpi inflation will also rise a trade cost shock such as a rise in the import tariff can alter the optimal weights on different inflation variables

inflation targeting should it be modeled as an instrument rule or a targeting rule abstract the paper discusses how current inflation targeting should be modeled and argues that it is better represented as a commitment to a targeting rule a rule specifying operational objectives for monetary policy or a condition for the target variables than as a commitment to a simple instrument rule like a taylor rule

the nonlinear phillips curve and inflation forecast targeting symmetric versus asymmetric monetary policy rules we study a simple small dynamic economy that a policymaker is attempting to control via use of a monetary policy rule the model features a convex phillips curve in that positive deviations of aggregate demand from potential are more inflationary than negative deviations are disinflationary using dynamic optimization techniques we find that the form of the optimal monetary policy reaction function is asymmetric we show that in the optimal rule the interest rate is a nonlinear function of the deviation of inflation from its target and of output from potential with asymmetry optimal monetary policy becomes more active as uncertainty about the impact of policy increases we thus provide an important and novel theoretical reason why increased uncertainty can lead to more aggressive rather than toward more cautious optimal policies

the effects of government spending shocks on consumption under optimal stabilization abstract economic theory has yet to come up with a general guidance regarding the dynamic effects and welfare implications of shocks to public spending with the aim to provide a theoretical benchmark we analyse if a rise in private consumption following an exogenous rise in government spending is a feature of the economy under optimal stabilization in a standard new keynesian setting augmented for the presence of liquidity constrained agents and non separable preferences our results provide little evidence in support of a crowding in effect under timelessly optimal policy

is inflation targeting a good remedy to control inflation abstract since the 1990s inflation targeting it has been adopted by several central banks as a strategy for monetary policy it is expected that the adoption of this monetary regime can reduce inflation and inflation volatility this article is concerned with these issues and makes use of the propensity score matching methodology on a sample of 180 countries for the period from 1990 to 2007 for analysis the sample is split into two sets of countries advanced and developing the findings suggest that the adoption of it is an ideal monetary regime for developing economies and in addition to reducing inflation volatility can drive inflation down to internationally acceptable levels regarding advanced economies the adoption of it does not appear to represent an advantageous strategy in brief the empirical results indicate that the adoption of it is useful for countries that must enhance their credibility for the management of monetary policy

an analysis of the housing market in the netherlands housing research in the netherlands has long been dominated by demographic orientated research this was quite logical because of the distinctive demographic development of the netherlands relative to other west european countries the rate of increase in population in the period 1960 1981 was among the highest in western europe economic influences on housing consumption have therefore long been neglected in the 1980s a period with declining incomes and a government policy to increase rents suddenly economic influences came into the picture housing demand tends to diminish and the traditional housing shortage since the second world war seems to disappear rising rents can even lead to rising vacancy rates because demand diminishes and supply increases because of higher rates of return the reverse of the consequences of rent control this article presents a recent econometric analysis of the housing market in the netherlands and places the results in the context of the broad and sometimes confusing

does inflation targeting make a difference in developing countries we evaluate the treatment effect of inflation targeting in thirteen developing countries that have adopted this policy by the end of 2004 using a variety of propensity score matching methods we show that on average inflation targeting has large and significant effects on lowering both inflation and inflation variability in these thirteen countries however the effectiveness of inflation targeting on lowering inflation is found to be quite heterogeneous the performance of a given inflation targeting regime can be affected by country characteristics such as government s fiscal position central bank s desire to limit the movements of exchange rate its willingness to meet the preconditions of policy adoption and the time length since the policy adoption

optimal monetary policy under learning and structural uncertainty in a new keynesian model with a cost channel and inflation inertia abstract we investigate whether expectations based optimal monetary policy rules under discretion and under commitment can enforce a determinate and least squares learnable rational expectations equilibrium ree in a new keynesian model with inflation inertia and a cost channel of monetary policy transmission our numerical results show that commitment rules can enforce a determinate and learnable ree for all parameter constellations considered whereas discretionary rules are not always able to enforce the same desirable outcome in the economy we also examine different types of misapprehensions in policy making and find that an incorrect assessment of the economy s true structure by the central bank greatly affects its capability to enforce a determinate and learnable although suboptimal ree thus our numerical results highlight the relevance of this type of analysis for the design and conduct of monetary policy

monetary policy rules in a new keynesian euro area model the first part of this paper is devoted to describe a new keynesian model which after calibration shows a great fit on euro area macroeconomic data then the stabilizing properties of alternative monetary policy rules are evaluated for consideration of the european central bank ecb our main finding is that a simple rule that provides the reaction of the nominal interest rate to price inflation wage inflation and its previous observation can fairly well approximate the optimal monetary policy this result is robust to including an ecb preference on interest rate smoothing

theory and estimation in the economics of housing demand the main purpose of this paper is to review recent theoretical and empirical developments in the economics of housing demand in particular we ask what is known concerning the permanent income elasticity of housing demand vis a vis the current or measured income elasticity what is known concerning price elasticities what is the appropriate functional form for housing demand equations what is the role of demographic variables what is known concerning dynamic aspects of housing demand what appear to be the major sources of bias in existing estimates of demand equations

the perils of nominal targets a monetary authority can be committed to pursuing an inflation price level or nominal gdp target yet systematically fail to achieve the prescribed goal constrained by the zero lower bound on the policy rate the monetary authority is unable to implement its objectives when private sector expectations stray far enough from the target low inflation expectations become self fulfilling resulting in an additional markov equilibrium in which the monetary authority falls short of the nominal target average output is below its efficient level and the policy rate is typically low introducing a stabilization goal for long term nominal rates can implement a unique markov equilibrium without fully compromising stabilization policy

long run implications of investment specific technological change an attempt is made to disentangle its effects from the more traditional hicksneutral form of technological progress the balanced growth path for the model is characterized and calibrated to u s national income and product account nipa data the quantitative analysis suggests that investment specific technological change accounts for the major part of growth jel e13 030 041 047

what is wrong with taylor rules using judgment in monetary policy through targeting rules it is argued that inflation targeting is best understood as a commitment to a targeting rule rather than an instrument rule e ither ageneral targeting rule explicit objectives for monetary policy or a specific targeting rule a criterion for the forecasts of the target variables to be fulfilled essentially the equality of the marginal rates of transformation and substitution between the target variables targeting rules allow the use of judgment and extramodel information are more robust and easier to verify than optimal instrument rules and they can nevertheless bring the economy close to the socially optimal equilibrium

making monetary policy objectives and rules what is it that monetary policy makers do and how do they do it the simple answer is that a central banker moves interest rates in order to maintain steady real growth and stable prices in this essay i examine the issues that arise in framing the problem faced by monetary policy makers i begin with a discussion of how over the past decade or so central banks have been made more independent and more accountable the result has been the virtual elimination of the inflation bias problem that is caused by political interference in the monetary policy process and better overall macroeconomic performance the essay proceeds with an example of a formal version of the policymakers problem describing their objectives and the information they need to formulate a policy rule i conclude with a discussion of a simple versus complex policy rules the impact of uncertainty on policy making and how central bankers use formal modelling in making their day to day decisions copyright 2000 by oxford university press

inventories and optimal monetary policy in a small open economy abstract we study how inventory investment affects the design of optimal monetary policy in a new keynesian small open economy model we find that under producer currency pricing when the intratemporal elasticity of substitution is smaller than 1 optimal monetary policy in our model with inventories is similar to a standard model without inventories however when the intratemporal elasticity of substitution is larger than 1 inventory investment increases the importance of nominal exchange rate stabilization relative to a standard model without inventories the importance of nominal exchange rate stabilization increases with the intratemporal elasticity of substitution

on the fit of new keynesian models this article provides new tools for the evaluation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge models and applies them to a large scale new keynesian model we approximate the dsge model by a vector autoregression and then systematically relax the implied cross equation restrictions and document how the model fit changes we also compare the dsge model s impulse responses to structural shocks with those obtained after relaxing its restrictions we find that the degree of misspecification in this large scale dsge model is no longer so large as to prevent its use in day to day policy analysis yet is not small enough to be ignored

factor substitution and factor augmenting technical progress in the united states a normalized supply side system approach abstract using a normalized ces function with factor augmenting technical progress we estimate a supply side system of the u s economy from 1953 to 1998 avoiding potential estimation biases that

disappearing routine jobs who how and why abstract we study the deterioration of employment in middle wage routine occupations in the united states in the last 35 years the decline is primarily driven by changes in the propensity to work in routine jobs for individuals from a small set of demographic groups these same groups account for a substantial fraction of both the increase in non employment and employment in low wage non routine manual occupations observed during the same period we analyze a general neoclassical model of the labor market featuring endogenous participation and occupation choice in response to an increase in automation technology the framework embodies a tradeoff between reallocating employment across occupations and reallocation of workers towards non employment quantitatively we find that this standard model accounts for a relatively small portion of the joint decline in routine employment and associated rise in non routine manual employment and non employment

the role of inflation targeting in international debt denomination in developing countries abstract this paper analyzes the inflation targeting experience of developing countries as an effective monetary policy framework to promote changes in the currency composition of their international debt using matching with difference in differences to address the self selection bias we find that inflation targeting has led to a 3 6 percentage point reduction in the foreign currency share of international debt in targeting countries when compared to non targeting countries with the effect especially pronounced for sovereign international debt differentiating by type of owner we find a reduction of the foreign currency share in foreign held total sovereign debt but no effect on domestic held debt furthermore from the analysis of the us dollar and euro shares we find that inflation targeting has contributed to a 9 percentage points lower dollar share in international debt in targeting countries compared to non targeting countries while the effect on the euro share is negligible this not only provides evidence that the structural features of international financial markets matter but also that monetary policy can help developing countries reduce their reliance on foreign currency debt especially if it is held by foreign investors