the inflation tax in a real business cycle model money is incorporated into a real business cycle model using a cash in advance constraint the model economy is used to analyze whether the business cycle is different in high inflation and low inflation economies and to analyze the impact of variability in the growth rate of money in addition the welfare cost of the inflation tax is measured and the steady state properties of high and low inflation economies are compared

transactions costs and the optimal quantity of money this paper models a physical environment in which agents rationally choose to hold both fiat money and higher return capital this occurs because information barriers permit bona fide capital to be distinguished from bogus titles to capital and bogus ious only at a cost one implication is that the holding period for capital is greater than that for fiat money the information barriers also limit the government interventions that are feasible and in so doing overturn standard notions concerning the optimal quantity of money in this paper i model a physical environment in which agents rationally choose to hold both fiat money and a productive asset with a greater rate of return moreover the fiat money in this model circulates with a greater velocity than does the productive asset in this model agents live 3 period lives and are members of generations that overlap they receive an endowment of the model s single consumption good only in the first period of life and must therefore hold assets to provide for consumption in other periods of life when the consumption good is stored it only yields a return 2 periods after it was stored as a result storage can be used to provide for consumption in the third period of life the crucial assumptions of the model are restrictions on the infor

privatisation in developing countries a review of the evidence and the policy lessons privatisation is widely promoted as a means of improving economic performance in developing countries however the policy remains controversial and the relative roles of ownership and other structural changes such as competition and regulation in promoting economic performance remain uncertain this article reviews the main empirical evidence on the impact of privatisation on economic performance in developing economies the evidence suggests that if privatisation is to improve performance over the longer term it needs to be complemented by policies that promote competition and effective state regulation and that privatisation works best in developing countries when it is integrated into a broader process of structural reform

some issues concerning interest rate pegging price level determinacy and the real bills doctrine abstract in a recent paper canzoneri henderson and rogoff have shown that it is possible for the monetary authority to peg the nominal interest rate without creating price level indeterminacy in a simplified version of the 1975 sargent wallace model the present paper begins by reviewing that result which involves a limiting case of a money supply rule that depicts the authority as responding to current values of the interest rate then it shows that there exists an alternative rule that will peg the nominal rate without creating indeterminacy but that this rule induces a different pattern of price level fluctuations next the paper considers whether indeterminacy will prevail if the authority tries to effect a peg in a third way by simply standing ready to buy and sell securities at the desired rate finally the implications of the foregoing results are drawn for arguments concerning the real bills doctrine and some critical comments are directed at the recent attempted rehabilitation of that doctrine by sargent and wallace

the welfare effects of balance of payments reform a macro micro simulation of the cost of rent seeking this article proposes a methodology for analysing the effect of balance of payments liberalisation on measures of poverty and distribution and applies it to the case of jamaica in the 1990s the methodology consists of a macro micro simulation in which a cge model provides labour market outcomes which in turn are used to manipulate the sectoral allocation of employment to generate the income distribution consistent with the new labour market outcome in the application to jamaica we find that the reallocation of resources away from rent seeking activities in the presence of exchange controls is significant and has large macroeconomic effects opening up of the current account has little effect on poverty but liberalisation of the capital account reduces poverty especially amongst the very poor neither policy change taken separately nor the combination of the two has more than a negligible effect on the distribution of income

the demand for residential electricity in south africa abstract this paper examines the residential demand for electricity in south africa as a function of real gross domestic product per capita and the price of electricity during the period 1978 2005 we make use of the bounds testing approach to cointegration within an autoregressive distributed framework suggested by pesaran et al 2001 bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships journal of applied econometrics 16 3 289 326 following the literature we use a linear double logarithmic form using income and price as independent variables in the empirical analysis in the long run we find that income is the main determinant of electricity demand while electricity price is insignificant

inflation and welfare in a monetary economy it is in everyone s private interest to try to get someone else to hold non interest bearing cash and reserves but someone has to hold it all so these efforts must simply cancel out all of us spend several hours per year in this effort and employ thousands of talented and highly trained people to help us these person hours are simply thrown away wasted on a task that should not have to be performed at all

electricity subsidy reform in indonesia demand side effects on electricity use abstract indonesia s budget has for years been burdened by large subsidies for electricity consumption a series of recent reforms has delivered a substantial reduction in these subsidies in this paper we estimate demand side effects of these reforms on electricity use our analysis utilizes a three dimensional dataset covering six consumer groups 16 regions and 1992 2015 we control for various fixed effects and use an instrumental variable approach our estimates suggest that subsidy reductions since 2013 had induced savings in annual electricity use of around 7 relative to the no reform counterfactual as of 2015 the phase out of remaining subsidies has the potential to generate further improvements in the efficiency of electricity use while freeing up resources for other priorities such as infrastructure spending

is money net wealth this paper develops a simple monetary model a hybrid of the sidrauski and overlapping generation frameworks in which new dynasties of infinitely lived agents continuously enter the economy it is shown that the long run nonsuperneutrality of money in life cycle models is a modality of the violation of the ricardian debt neutrality proposition the very same intergenerational redistribution effects which on the fiscal side are the source of debt nonneutrality are at work on the monetary side to create monetary wealth effects and make money nonsuperneutral in the long run copyright 1991 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

friedman rule in a model with endogenous growth and cash in advance constraint this paper introduces money into an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth the model due to docquier et al 2007 exhibits a positive intergenerational externality which precludes its laissez fair equilibrium to be optimal even if the government can control the level of physical capital and set it to satisfy the modified golden rule the main message of the paper is that as long as the modified golden rule is attained friedman rule is optimal the result holds regardless of the ability of the government to internalize the externality and control the level of human capital other results include i violation of friedman rule for a different second best environment wherein human capital accumulation is controlled but not physical capital accumulation ii existence of a negative relationship between money growth rate and the economy s endogenous growth rate and iii non uniqueness of friedman rule

fiat money as a medium of exchange this paper presents a completely explicit exchange environment in which agents wishing to exchange one type of good for another choose to trade for fiat money which is then traded for the desired goods this exchange pattern is chosen over barter because specified properties of fiat money make this pattern less expensive than the search for a double coincidence of wants although the transaction services of money affect agents utility the model s welfare implications are those of the basic overlapping generations models not those of models with money balances in the utility function copyright 1989 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

fossil fuel subsidies in the pacific island context analysis of the case of kiribati abstract kiribati is highly vulnerable to climate change induced sea level rise at the same time the country is also very dependent on fossil fuel imports kiribati uses price controls and tax exemptions to make fossil fuels more affordable for low income households this study reviews the subsidies on consumption of fossil fuels specifically gasoline diesel and household kerosene in kiribati and investigates their macroeconomic fiscal distributional and environmental impact the subsidies are quantified using price gap approach over a five year period the subsidies were on average aud 4 2 million when using 2011 2015 data with 2015 tax policies this is equivalent to 2 2 per cent of kiribati gdp over 2011 2014 the average fiscal impact would have been equivalent to 3 7 per cent of government revenues and 29 per cent of government health expenditure apart from being a fiscal burden the subsidies increase greenhouse gas emissions and make kiribati even more dependent on fossil fuel imports and more vulnerable to volatility in international fuel prices no evidence was found to support the argument for using the subsidies to support low income households in fact there are signs of considerable leakages to high income households which is consistent with findings from studies in other countries

who is afraid of the friedman rule in this paper we explore the connection between optimal monetary policy and het erogeneity among agents we study a standard monetary economy with two types of agents in which the stationary distribution of money holdings is non degenerate sans type specific fiscal policy we show that the zero nominal interest rate policy the friedman rule does not maximize type specific welfare it may not maximize aggregate social welfare either indeed one or more surprisingly both types may benefit if the central bank deviates from the friedman rule our results suggest a positive explanation for why central banks around the world do not implement the friedman rule

a macro micro analysis of the effects of electricity reform in senegal on poverty and distribution abstract this paper uses a computable general equilibrium cge macro micro model to explore the distributional effects of price reform in the electricity sector of senegal in the first part of the paper we analyse the distribution of electricity in senegal by income quintiles between 1995 and 2001 the analysis demonstrates that poor and rural households are not the main beneficiaries of the expanded network the results of the cge model show that direct price effects are weaker than general equilibrium effects on poverty and inequality moreover compensatory policies tested can help attenuate some adverse effects

winners and losers from the privatization and regulation of utilities lessons from a general equilibrium model of argentina a computable general equilibrium cqe model is used to estimate the macroeconomic and distributional effects of the privatization and regulation of utilities in argentina begun in 1989 based on data available after the privatization that indicate different kinds of efficiency gains in electricity gas water and telecommunications both the privatization and effective regulation are estimated to yield significant macroeconomic benefits gains from the privatization accrue mainly to high income classes while gains from the effective regulation of newly privatized utilities accrue mainly to low income classes computable general equilibrium cge estimates of overall employment effects suggest that privatization was not a major contributor to the dramatic rise in unemployment in argentina between 1993 and 1995 this rise was more likely due to the tequila effect of an interest rate shock

a meta analysis on the price elasticity of energy demand abstract price elasticities of energy demand have become increasingly relevant in estimating the socio economic and environmental effects of energy policies or other events that influence the price of energy goods since the 1970s a large number of academic papers have provided both short and long term price elasticity estimates for different countries using several models data and estimation techniques yet the literature offers a rather wide range of estimates for the price elasticities of demand for energy this paper quantitatively summarizes the recent but sizeable empirical evidence to facilitate a sounder economic assessment of in some cases policy related energy price changes it uses meta analysis to identify the main factors affecting short and long term elasticity results for energy in general as well as for specific products i e electricity natural gas gasoline diesel and heating oil

modelling residential electricity demand in the gcc countries abstract this paper aims at understanding the drivers of residential electricity demand in the gulf cooperation council countries by applying the structural time series model in addition to the economic variables of gdp and real electricity prices the model accounts for population weather and a stochastic underlying energy demand trend as a proxy for efficiency and human behaviour the resulting income and price elasticities are informative for policy makers given the paucity of previous estimates for a region with particular political structures and economies subject to large shocks in particular the estimates allow for a sound assessment of the impact of energy related policies suggesting that if policy makers in the region wish to curtail future residential electricity consumption they would need to improve the efficiency of appliances and increase energy using awareness of consumers possibly by education and marketing campaigns moreover even if prices were raised the impact on curbing residential electricity growth in the region is likely to be very small given the low estimated price elasticities unless that is prices were raised so high that expenditure on electricity becomes such a large proportion of income that the price elasticities increase in absolute terms

options for mitigating the adverse effects of fossil fuel subsidies removal in ghana abstract conventional wisdom holds that without environmental benefits and revenue recycling fossil fuel subsidies removal would lead to welfare losses first this study tests the usefulness of general equilibrium theory for validating these claims and draws similar conclusion subsequently the model is readjusted to reflect simulation with two non traditional policy options this time the results suggest that removing subsidies on fossil fuels would create opportunities provided that such is done in tandem with complementary policies in particular we show that a mix of agricultural productivity improvement and a reduction in trade transaction costs at 15 in each case would provide benefits for fossil fuel subsidies removal in ghana these results underscore the need for structural reforms in ghanaian agricultural sector especially those aimed at promoting mechanized agriculture

resolving differences over the optimal quantity of money optimal steady state monetary policy in models of infinitely lived agents calls for a deflation of the fiat money stock at a rate that equates the rates of return of fiat money and capital this prescription for the optimal quantity of money holds whether the demand for money springs from placing money in the utility function friedman 1969 a cash in advance constraint grandmont and younes 1973 or spatial separation townsend 1980 in contrast monetary models of overlapping generations have counseled the golden rule optimality of a fixed stock of fiat money 1 this model has often been criticized for its lack of a transactions role for money that would distinguish itself from other assets 2 the seeming difference in this model s implications concerning the optimal quantity of money thus raises an obvious question 3 does the overlapping generations model obtain different welfare implications because it assumes a finite lifespan or because it lacks a special transactions role for money recent work has reexamined the optimal quantity of money in overlappinggenerations models featuring transactions roles for money abel 1987 who takes the broadest and clearest look finds that the golden rule optimal monetary policy

the transmission of monetary policy through redistributions and durable purchases this paper studies a redistribution channel for the transmission of monetary policy using a tractable olg setting in which the government is a net debtor we show that standard open market operations omo conducted by central banks have signi cant revaluation eects that alter the level and distribution of wealth in the economy and the real interest rate expansionary omo generate a negative wealth eect the private sector as a whole is a net creditor to the government increasing households incen tives to save for retirement and pushing down the real interest rate this in turn leads to a substitution towards durables generating a temporary boom in the durable good sector with search and matching frictions a form of productive investment is added to the model and the fall in interest rates causes an increase in labour demand raising aggregate employment the mechanism can mimic the empirical responses of key macroeconomic variables to monetary policy interventions the model shows that dierent monetary interventions e g omo versus helicopter drops can have sharply dierent eects on activity

monetary policy banking crises and the friedman rule banking crises are frequent events gerard caprio and daniela klingebiel 1997 catalog over 80 banking crises during the last 25 years interestingly some banking crises are associated with no output losses whatsoever while others involve massive recessions finally it is known that the probability of a banking crisis rises as the rate of inflation rises see asli demirguc kunt and enrica detragiache 1997 john boyd et al 2001a b while received wisdom exists about the conduct of monetary policy while a crisis is underway there is no formal treatment of how the conduct of monetary policy during normal times affects the potential for banking crises to occur to fill that gap i consider economies where spatial separation and limited communication create a transactions role for money and random shocks to agents liquidity preferences create a role for banks in addition banks confront randomness in withdrawal demand when withdrawal demand is sufficiently high banks exhaust their cash reserves there are good reasons to associate this with a banking panic the output lost during a banking panic depends on how great withdrawal demand is some banking crises generate no output losses while others generate large reductions in resource availability in addition the conduct of monetary policy during normal times affects the probability of a banking crisis the higher the nominal interest rate the inflation rate the higher is the probability of a panic driving the nominal interest rate to zero following the friedman rule eliminates bank panics this constitutes a new rationale for the friedman rule nonetheless conventional methods of implementing the friedman rule never produce an optimal resource allocation in particular low nominal interest rates induce banks to hold large cash reserves thereby forgoing socially more productive investments in effect the friedman rule induces banks to become narrow banks voluntarily the banking system is very safe but it undertakes a suboptimal level of investment less conventional methods for implementing the friedman rule such as allowing unrestricted access to the discount window at a zero nominal interest rate lead either to the nonexistence of equilibrium or to massive indeterminacies none of the equilibria will be consistent with full optimality

real balance effects and monetary policy i introduction modern literature on monetary policy rules employs new keynesian optimizing models that do not explicitly include monetary aggregates see e g rotemberg and woodford 1997 clarida et al 1999 taylor 1999 in these models the demand for output derives from the log linearization of the standard euler equation characterizing household s saving decisions the real money stock does not enter the is relation and therefore monetary policy affects output and inflation only through its effect on the real interest rate when the nominal interest rate is the policy instrument it is not necessary to specify a money market equilibrium condition see romer 2000 the practice of neglecting monetary aggregates in monetary policy analysis has recently been questioned by meltzer 1999 mccallum 2001 and nelson 2002 2003 in particular mccallum 2001 points out that although no explicit term involving money appears in the standard new keynesian setup long run inflation can still be pinned down by the economy steady state nominal money growth rate moreover mccallum 2000 2001 andres et al 2001 kremer et al 2003 woodford 2003 ireland 2004a and collard and dellas 2005 analyze the case in which the resources used by consumers in conducting transactions are modeled by a nonseparable function of consumption and real money balances meltzer 1999 2001 argues that changes in real monetary base generate effects on real aggregate demand not summarized by the real interest rate on short term securities nelson 2003 emphasizes the role of money in the transmission mechanism both as a proxy for a whole spectrum of rates of return and as an indicator variable which contains information about the state of the economy the main aim of the present article is to provide additional microfoundations for an explicit role for money in the current macroeconomic debate in particular i derive a real balance effect that explicitly enters the is relation within an optimizing general equilibrium framework of the new keynesian type according to de scitovszky 1941 haberler 1946 pigou 1943 and patinkin 1965 a change in real money balances has an impact on the real financial wealth of consumers and therefore affects consumption and output notably this effect is not considered in traditional models there is in fact empirical evidence showing that real monetary base growth is a significant determinant of consumption and output gap in both the united states and in the united kingdom see chari et al 1995 meltzer 1999 nelson 2002 the present article extends the dynamic stochastic new keynesian setup with money in the utility function by introducing overlapping generations as modeled by yaari 1965 and blanchard 1985 there are good reasons to base the demand side of the economy on a discrete time stochastic monetary version of the yaari blanchard model first this kind of extension allows one to maintain the main characteristics of the so called new neoclassical synthesis that is forward looking behavior of optimizing agents and incomplete nominal adjustment of prices featured in new keynesian theories goodfriend and king 1997 second the derivation of the real balance effect does not require nonseparability in the utility function thus the implications are analytically more tractable 1 third my framework is more general because it includes the immortal representative agent setup as a particular case my analysis attempts to examine whether the presence of an explicit real balance effect in the is relation helps evaluate the role for money in designing monetary policy rules i focus on basic issues concerning the design of monetary policy rules specifically i investigate whether it is necessary for monetary policy to overreact to inflation by raising the nominal interest rate by more than the observed increase in inflation to rule out equilibrium multiplicity

impacts of removing fuel import subsidies in nigeria on poverty abstract the petroleum sector contributes substantially to the nigerian economy however the potential benefits are diminished due to the existence of significant subsidies on imports of petroleum products subsidies on imported petroleum products are considered to be an important instrument for keeping fuel prices and hence the cost of living low the costs of these subsidies however has risen dramatically in recent years due to increased volatility in world petroleum and petroleum product prices and increased illegal exportation of subsidized petroleum products into neighboring countries removing the subsidy on fuel is one of the most contentious socio economic policy issues in nigeria today in this paper an economy wide framework is used to identify the impact of removing the fuel subsidy on the nigerian economy and investigates how alternative policies might be used to meet socio economic objectives related to fuel subsidies the results show that while a reduction in the subsidy generally results in an increase in nigerian gdp it can have a detrimental impact on household income and in particular on poor households accompanying the subsidy reduction with income transfers aimed at poor households or domestic production of petroleum products can alleviate the negative impacts on household income

elasticities of electricity demand in india abstract the paper examines econometric relationship between electricity consumption and variables like income price of electricity and diesel used in for captive power generation to meet the shortages and reliability of power supply from utilities in five major consumer categories in india these categories are residential commercial agriculture small and medium industries and large industries income and price elasticities of electricity consumption are estimated at the national level for these consumers by pooling data across 19 states spread over 9 years 1985 86 1993 94 the results show that electricity consumption in commercial and large industrial sectors are income elastic 1 while residential agricultural and small and medium industries are income inelastic

the effect of unionism on fringe benefits this study analyzes the impact of unionism on fringes paid to production workers using data on individual establishments it compares fringe expenditures in establishments having the same level of compensation per hour and finds that unionism raises the share of compensation allotted to fringes particularly to pensions vacation pay and life accident and health insurance in addition since unionism also raises the straight time wage rate itself a prime determinant of expenditures on fringes unionism has a very sizeable impact on total fringe expenditures as well as on the fringe share of compensation the union fringe effect exceeds in percentage terms the union wage effect and is sufficiently large to suggest that standard union wage studies understate the union effect on total compensation the study also compares the fringe expenditures of production and non production workers within the same establishment controlling for within establishment pay policies the findings suggest that the pres

the role of money in two alternative models when is the friedman rule optimal and why abstract in models of money with an infinitely lived representative agent ilra models the optimal monetary policy is almost always the friedman rule in overlapping generations og models by contrast the friedman rule may not be optimal in this paper we use this difference in monetary policy prescriptions to help us identify and study the key difference between these two models as models of money we study the welfare properties of monetary policy in a simple og model under two very different money demand specifications and two alternative assumptions about the generational timing of taxes for money retirement we conclude that the key difference between ilra and og monetary models is that in the latter the standard method for constructing a monetary regime causes transactions involving money to become intergenerational transfers under alternative government fiscal monetary regimes that offset these intergenerational transfers the friedman rule is always optimal

inflation wealth and interest rates in an intertemporal optimizing model abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between the growth of the money supply and capital accumulation in a monetary optimizing model under certain conditions we show that a large intertemporal elasticity of substitution makes the nominal rates of interest undershoot its long term value that a low elasticity gives rise to overshooting while a unitary elasticity is shown to make the nominal rate of interest a constant these considerations plus explicit attention paid to the income and substitution effects induced by the changes in the nominal rates of interest provide us with an understanding of the correlation between growth of money and capital accumulation

the income tax and nonwage compensation d ramatic changes in the division of labor compensation between wage and nonwage payments have occurred since world war ii voluntary employer contributions to private pension and welfare funds have risen from 1 2 of wage and salary compensation in 1947 to 8 3 in 1979 with half the increase taking place since 1969 see table 1 major changes in the composition of the fringe benefit package have also taken place during this period employer contributions to group health insurance plans have risen from 24 of total fringe benefits in 1947 to 40 o in 1979 if this growth continues group health insurance will replace pension and profit sharing plans as the largest fringe benefit expenditure by employers these trends in the compensation mix have long been noted by researchers and various factors have been offered as explanations including the favorable tax treatment of fringe benefits demographic changes such as increased life expectancy and unionization rice 1966 ture 1976 mabry 1973 freeman 1978 however most explanations have not been subjected to rigorous empirical testing and the few results that have been published are both questionable and dated for example rice 1966 estimated that changes in the tax rate structure had little influence on the relative increase in fringe benefits from world war ii to 1963 more recent studies schiller and weiss 1979 1980 have examined a specific fringe benefit the private pension plan for its impact on turnover and its role as an equalizing difference but these studies have not analyzed the determinants of the compensation mix this paper discusses the theoretical determinants of the division of labor compensation between fringe benefits and cash income and empirically estimates their importance it concentrates on the impact of taxation on the compensation mix for several reasons first the assumption that rising tax rates encourage individuals to substitute fringe benefits for cash income underlies estimates of the welfare cost of tax preferences browning 1979 second proposals to fully tax employee fringe benefits under a comprehensive9 income tax have surfaced in recent years nolan 1977 clotfelter 1979 finally current federal tax policy is calling for large tax rate reductions to increase supply incentives unlike the determinants of the compensation mix that change slowly over time such as life expectancy tax rate changes can occur rapidly through legislative action reducing tax rates might enlarge the tax base by increasing the fraction of labor income received as taxable cash wages and salaries section ii outlines the tax treatment of various forms of labor compensation and in section iii other factors thought to influence the choice between wage and nonwage compensation are discussed empirical analyses of the compensation mix are presented in section iv a brief summary and implications of the major findings for the future growth of fringe benefits follow in section v

the welfare effects of unprecedented electricity price hikes in zambia abstract this paper simulates the real household expenditure effects of large electricity price increases in zambia first we find that electricity subsidies are highly regressive the richest household quintile receives over 60 of the subsidies while the poorest quintile receives less than 1 second our partial equilibrium simulations of the welfare effects of a 75 electricity price increase show that the poorest households would experience a 3 times larger percentage loss in real expenditure compared to the wealthiest households naturally these adverse effects lead to an increase in poverty however we find that transferring the fiscal savings realised from the complete elimination of electricity subsidies to the poor reduces extreme poverty significantly this budget neutral strategy is particularly attractive for zambia and other sub saharan economies currently battling the twin challenges of widening budget deficits and high extreme poverty

the implications of job matching for retirement health insurance and leave benefits this paper focuses on potential reasons for variations in benefit packages in particular variations in the availability of retirement health insurance and leave an important feature of our analysis is that we do not start with heterogeneity in workforces to explain fringe benefit differences across employers it would be straightforward to say that differences across employers in fringe benefit packages simply represent differences in the preferences of their workforces rather we focus on heterogeneity across employers as an important source of differences in fringe benefit packages preliminary evidence is found supportive of the predicted differences in the likelihood of such fringe benefits as retirement health insurance and leave based upon two variables the extent of on the job training offered by the employer and the size of the employers we also examine the implied links between these fringe benefits and such variables as average tenture and the proportion of the workforce that is female

how large are global fossil fuel subsidies summary this paper estimates fossil fuel subsidies and the economic and environmental benefits from reforming them focusing mostly on a broad notion of subsidies arising when consumer prices are below supply costs plus environmental costs and general consumption taxes estimated subsidies are 4 9 trillion worldwide in 2013 and 5 3 trillion in 2015 6 5 of global gdp in both years undercharging for global warming accounts for 22 of the subsidy in 2013 air pollution 46 broader vehicle externalities 13 supply costs 11 and general consumer taxes 8 china was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 1 8 trillion followed by the united states 0 6 trillion and russia the european union and india each with about 0 3 trillion eliminating subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21 and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55 while raising revenue of 4 and social welfare by 2 2 of global gdp

the liquidity trap the real balance effect and the friedman rule this paper studies the behavior of the economy and the efficacy of monetary policy under zero nominal interest rates using a model with population growth that nests as a special case a more conventional specification in which there is a single infinitely lived representative agent the paper shows that with a growing population monetary policy has distributional effects that give rise to a real balance effect thereby eliminating the liquidity trap these same distributional effects however can also work to make many agents much worse off under zero nominal interest rates than they are when the nominal interest rate is positive

distributional incidence of green electricity price subsidies in china abstract distributional incidences are fundamental to environmental and energy policies a condition that has led to controversies on the equity of environmental and energy policy using data from china s urban household income and expenditure survey data from 2007 this study quantified the distributional effects of the green electricity price subsidy policy among chinese urban household and compared its effects by using lifetime income and annual income to classify households respectively the results show that total electricity subsidies are mainly driven by indirect electricity subsidies by using lifetime income to classify households subsidies to households in the poorest two groups accounted for less than 10 2 of the total subsidies whereas money distributed to households in the top two deciles reached 35 4 the comparison using annual income to group households also demonstrated the similar impact of the green electricity price subsidy policy china s future market reforms should allow electricity prices to reflect pollution abatement costs additionally a multi step block electricity price schedule can reduce the regressivity of the policy

money and capital in a persistent liquidity trap abstract using a monetary model with asset scarcity we show that a liquidity trap caused by a persistent deleveraging shock increases real cash holdings and decreases investment and output in the medium term this medium term supply side effect arises when firms face financial constraints policy implications differ from shorter run analyses implied by nominal rigidities quantitative easing leads to a deeper liquidity trap exiting the trap by increasing expected inflation or applying negative interest rates does not solve the asset scarcity problem a higher government debt helps exiting the liquidity trap and reduces asset scarcity but may hurt investment in the medium run

welfare impacts of china s accession to the world trade organization data from china s national rural and urban household surveys are used to measure and explain the welfare impacts of changes in goods and factor prices attributable to accession to the world trade organization wto the price changes are estimated separately using a general equilibrium model to capture both direct and indirect effects of the initial tariff changes the welfare impacts are first order approximations based on a household model incorporating own production activities calibrated to household level data and imposing minimum aggregation the results show negligible impacts on inequality and poverty in the aggregate however diverse impacts emerge across household types and regions associated with heterogeneity in consumption behavior and income sources with possible implications for compensatory policy responses

sub optimality of the friedman rule in townsend s turnpike and stochastic relocation models of money do finite lives and initial dates matter abstract the friedman rule a widely studied prescription for monetary policy is optimal in townsend s turnpike model of money it is not so in the overlapping generations version of his stochastic relocation model of money we investigate these monetary models in the light of this disparity to this end we create a modified version of the turnpike model that generates the same stationary monetary equilibria as does the two period overlapping generations model with random relocation we exploit this equivalence to explain the aforementioned disparity we also discuss the importance of whether or not the economy has an initial date

lump sum taxation and the superneutrality and optimum quantity of money in life cycle growth models abstract the question of superneutrality and the optimum quantity of money is addressed in a model where money services enter the utility function and where individuals have finite lives it is demonstrated that the existing result in the literature regarding a positive relationship between money creation and the steady state capital intensity and welfare is not due to monetary policy per se on the contrary this is shown to arise because of the intergenerational wealth effects embedded in the manner in which money is created assuming that preferences are separable between consumption goods and real balances and that the consumption goods are normal it is proved that i money is superneutral and ii any other money supply rule is pareto inferior to the chicago rule provided that the government also embarks on a policy of wealth redistribution across generations through the imposition of appropriate lump sum taxes and transfers

substitution between wage and nonwage benefits you gotta be kidding ollie you re just robbing yourself schuylkill mutual offers a terrific deal on keogh and we could plug you in in fact we advise plugging you in on the corporate end so not a nickel comes out of your personal pocket it comes out of the corporate pocket and there s that much less for uncle to tax these poor saps carrying their own premiums with no company input are living in the dark ages there s nothing shady about rigging it this way we re just using the laws the government has put there they want people to take advantage it all works to up the gross national product you know what i mean by keogh don t you you re looking kind of blank john updike p 296