price and trade effects of exchange rate fluctuations and the design of policy coordination abstract we analyze a two country zone facing a joint inflationary shock and responding with coordinated and uncoordinated monetary and fiscal policies we show that the standard presumption that the absence of coordination results in an excessive exchange rate appreciation of the zone with respect to the rest of the world hinges on a specific assumption within the two countries considered the price effect of exchange rate fluctuations dominates the trade effects relative to the corresponding effects via a vis the rest of the world if the relative hierarchy goes the other way around as we argue is likely for ec countries the standard conclusion is reversed a result of insufficiently active monetary and fiscal policies the paper also considers asymmetric shocks as well as monetary policy coordination

negative international transmission of economic expansion abstract this paper uses a conventional two sector real trade model and demonstrates how within that framework the relative price effect resulting from a demand expansion in one country may quite plausibly generate negative effects in overall activity abroad it is shown how under the chosen assumptions of wage rigidities the transmission of an expansion which occurs through the relative price effect may be decomposed into a an employment effect and b a terms of trade effect either of which may be positive or negative expansions resulting from i an increase in the money supply and ii increases in government expenditure on the importable and exportable commodity are discussed

international monetary and fiscal policy cooperation in the presence of wage inflexibilities abstract this paper studies the transmission mechanisms and welfare implications of strategic monetary and fiscal policy in a two country mundell fleming variable supply stochastic model the issue of the counterproductivity of policy cooperation raised by rogoff 1985 is examined and extended to fiscal policy it is established that systematic fiscal policy cooperation is productive for a wide range of parameter values that include those of the simple keynesian model cooperation is always productive for policy that is contingent on the realisation of shocks

oil supply shocks and international policy coordination abstract this paper examines the value of international cooperation in an oil supply disruption the perspective is that of oil importing countries since the oil market is integrated internationally the actions of one have spillover effects on the others we focus on buffer stock policies with each player maximizing the present value of national income less the cost of operating the stockpile program we contrast cooperative and cournot nash solutions to the dynamic game paying special attention to the asymmetries between small and large countries the principal results are reviewed to assess the viability of current international agreements

international coordination in the design of macroeconomic policy rules abstract the paper examines international issues that arise in the design and evaluation of macroeconomic policy rules it begins with a theoretical investigation of the effects of fiscal and monetary policy in a two country rational expectations model with staggered wage and price setting and with perfect capital mobility the results indicate that with the appropriate choice of policies and with flexible exchange rates demand shocks need not give rise to international externalities or coordination issues price shocks however do create an externality and this is the focus of the empirical part of the paper using a simple seven country model consisting of canada france germany italy japan the united kingdom and the united states optimal cooperative and non cooperative nash policy rules to minimize the variance of output and inflation in each country are calculated the cooperative policies are computed using standard dynamic stochastic programming techniques and the non cooperative policies are computed using an algorithm developed by finn kydland the central result is that the cooperative policy rules for these countries are more accommodative to inflation than the non cooperative policy rules

earnings inequality and mobility in the united states evidence from social security data since 1937 this paper uses social security administration longitudinal earnings micro data since 1937 to analyze the evolution of inequality and mobility in the united states annual earnings inequality is u shaped decreasing sharply up to 1953 and increasing steadily afterward short term earnings mobility measures are stable over the full period except for a temporary surge during world war ii virtually all of the increase in the variance in annual log earnings since 1970 is due to increase in the variance of permanent earnings as opposed to transitory earnings mobility at the top of the earnings distribution is stable and has not mitigated the dramatic increase in annual earnings concentration since the 1970s long term mobility among all workers has increased since the 1950s but has slightly declined among men the decrease in the gender earnings gap and the resulting substantial increase in upward mobility over a lifetime for women are the driving force behind the increase in long term mobility among all workers

macroeconomic policy interaction under flexible exchange rates a two country model this paper analyses macroeconomic policy interaction in a two country flexible exchange rate model each country has a short run non vertical phillips curve and there is positive transmission of e

macro economic shocks the erm and tri polarity the authors use the comparative behavior of real output growth and inflation behavior of members and nonmembers of the exchange rate mechanism erm to analyze the importance of erm membership on macroeconomic performance an econometric procedure for identifying temporary and permanent shocks to output is proposed and executed the results confirm that the erm has acted as a vehicle for macropolicy coordination between members the authors also investigate several issues relating to the hypothesis of global economic tri polarity between the united states germany and japan copyright 1995 by mit press

revealed preference of the federal reserve using inverse control theory to interpret the policy equation of a vector autoregression how close is observed federal reserve policy to policy that would be optimal in the control theory sense the question is addressed by using an inverse control methodology federal reserve policy is characterized by a feedback equation for either changes in the interest rate or money stock optimal policy is characterized by solution of the ricatti equation parameters are estimated that characterize the relative importance to the federal reserve of stabilizing output inflation interest rates and money growth the period of study is 1947 through 1992 evidence is uncovered that policy is optimal within distinct regimes

the terms of trade and the international coordination of fiscal policy this paper develops an example of a noncooperative game between fiscal authorities in two countries the key strategic link between countries is the terms of trade an equilibrium without cooperation is characterized by excessive tax rates and public spending levels in each country the outcome is analogous to the nash equilibrium of the static optimal tarif game in trade theory but in this model there is also a dynamic distortion caused by noncooperative behaviour this dynamic distortion depresses capital accumulation and reduces the equilibrium capital stock in each country numerical examples suggest a significant welfare benefit of cooperation

delegation in international monetary policy games abstract in this paper we show that delegation of monetary policy to an independent and more conservative central banker is an optimal policy in a multi country framework with monetary spillovers among countries even in the absence of time inconsistency credibility issues we also study the welfare implications of delegating monetary policy and extend our analysis to the case of coordination of monetary policies

growth trade and inequality we introduce firm and worker heterogeneity into a model of innovation driven endogenous growth individuals who differ in ability sort into either a research activity or a manufacturing sector research projects generate new varieties of a differentiated product projects differ in quality and the resulting technologies differ in productivity in both sectors there is a complementarity between firm quality and worker ability we study the co determination of growth and income inequality in both the closed and open economy as well as the spillover effects of policy in one country to outcomes in others

errors in the numerical assessment of the benefits of price stabilization this paper presents a simple computational procedure for determining a consumer s willingness to pay to have a price stabilization policy implemented numerical simulations are then provided which demonstrate that the commonly used expected surplus measures whether hicksian or marshallian can in fact seriously misstate the true benefits of price stabilization these simulations also illustrate the extent to which the results may be dependent upon the assumptions made implicitly or explicitly regarding the consumer s attitudes toward risk thereby underscoring the need to conduct sensitivity analyses to determine the robustness of cost benefit assessments with respect to these assumptions

international liquidity a welfare analysis the paper addresses the effects of international liquidity conventions on the conduct and success of short run income stabilization two interdependent and noncooperative nations attempt to minimize output variance subject to the international convention that adequate international reserve stocks be maintained we demonstrate that the nash outcome of nations which are bound by international reserve constraints is pareto superior to the nash outcome of unconstrained nations with a formal model we derive the set of pareto optimal liquidity conventions and explore the sensitivity of this set to the macroeconomic structural and stochastic characteristics of the nations and to the stabilization instruments that are employed

u s monetary regimes and optimal monetary policy in the euro area monetary policy in the united states has been documented to have switched from reacting weakly to inflation fluctuations during the 1970s to fighting inflation aggressively from the early 1980s onward in this paper i analyze the impact of the u s monetary policy regime switches on the eurozone i construct a new keynesian two country model where foreign u s monetary policy switches regimes over time i estimate the model for the u s and the euro area using quarterly data and find that the united states has switched between those two regimes in line with existing evidence i show that foreign regime switches affect home eurozone inflation and output volatility and their responses to shocks substantially as long as the home central bank commits to a time invariant interest rate rule reacting to domestic conditions only optimal policy in the home country instead requires that the home central bank reacts strongly to domestic producer price inflation and to international variables such as imported goods relative prices in fact i show that currency misalignments and relative prices play a crucial role in the transmission of foreign monetary policy regime switches internationally interestingly i show that only marginal gains arise for the euro area when the european central bank ecb adjusts its policy according to the monetary regime in the united states thus a simple time invariant monetary policy rule with a strong reaction to producer price index ppi inflation and relative prices is enough to counteract the effects of monetary policy switches in the united states

international policy coordination in interdependent monetary economies abstract an optimising equilibrium model of two interdependent monetary economies with no other assets except cash perfect foresight flexible exchange rates and imperfect substitution between home and foreign goods is analysed both non cooperative and cooperative market oriented outcomes are time inconsistent since each government has an incentive to renege and levy a surprise inflation tax international policy coordination without pre commitment can be counterproductive even though there are no tax distortions and the provision of public goods is optimal since it exacerbates the credibility problems perceived by the private sectors and therefore leads to a too low level of real money balances and excessive inflation

exchange intervention policy in a multiple country world abstract intervention policy is examined in a three country model employment and output in each country depend upon the domestic currency value of a natural basket of currencies called the sally each country will find it desirable to intervene to stabilize its sally rate if capital movements are more volatile than trade flows this is a natural generalization of well known small country results however in this general equilibrium setting it is clear that such a policy can destabilize employment in another country and lead to retaliation currency unions are also examined and found to have similar spillover problems

a note on the possibility of an international equilibrium with low levels of activity abstract this note studies the interaction through international trade of decision making in two countries where the decision makers have preferences regarding the level of economic activity and the balance of trade non cooperative and cooperative equilibria in the sense of game theory are studied it is demonstrated that non cooperative equilibria can easily be sub optimal for a complete characterization it is necessary to take into account the capacity constraints in both countries this leads to the possibility of many different types of equilibrium situations as well as to the possibility that no non cooperative equilibrium in pure strategies will exist this fact may point to an inherent difficulty in decision making concerning demand management in an international system

the role of a fixed exchange rate system when central bankers are independent abstract in a symmetric model a fixed exchange rate system allows us to reach the cooperative solution in the game between central bankers however as cooperation can be counterproductive such a property may not be beneficial here we reconsider this issue by introducing independent central bankers who need not share the social preferences we show that when countries choose their central bankers cooperatively cooperation between central bankers is neither productive nor counterproductive making fixed and flexible rates equivalent however when central bankers are chosen non cooperatively a fixed rate is better central bankers being too conservative under a flexible rate

can exchange rate predictability be achieved without monetary convergence evidence from the ems abstract the evidence presented here suggests that the european monetary system has indeed coincided with more predictable exchange rates nominal and real between france germany and italy but if increased monetary policy coordination is the main explanation then it is surprising that the conditional variance of real interest differentials between these countries does not appear to have fallen unless the disturbances are mostly real in which case fixed rates are suboptimal high onshore offshore interest differentials for franc and lira assets and the very slow convergence of intra ems inflation rates suggest that capital controls have played a large role

inflation starts in latin america and the caribbean high rates of inflation are a perennial problem in latin american and caribbean lac countries this article attempts to identify the factors that initiate these inflationary episodes using observations on 31 lac countries between 1970 and 2006 the study finds that the key determinants of inflation starts in the region are demand pressures oil price shocks elections transitions to less repressive political regimes and foreign inflation

the burden of intervention externalities in multilateral exchange rates arrangements abstract in this paper we consider a multilateral target zone model that generalizes krugman s model of a bilateral target zone parities are defended by manipulating money supplies in participating countries this means that interventions aimed at one given exchange rate influence other exchange rates as well as a result of these externalities shocks on each fundamental affect the whole range of exchange rates involved moreover intra marginal interventions arise endogenously and the exchange rate distribution does not exhibit the u shaped pattern which is typical of traditional target zones instead our model gives rise to intra marginal targets to which exchange rates tend to return the location of these targets is shown to depend on the intervention sterilization mix adopted by monetary authorities

when international policy coordination matters an empirical analysis the interdependence of national economies implies externalities in policy making and these externalities lead to inefficient outcomes when policy makers are decentralized and independent these externalities have been well documented from a theoretical point of view this paper reports our attempts to discover when and if policy coordination matters using the liverpool world model which exhibits strong spillover effects for monetary policy and would therefore we thought yield very different results from those of earlier researchers however strong spillover effects do not guarantee that cooperative policies will differ much from the uncooperative other aspects of the game s structure can be equally important indeed we found many plausible game situations in which the uncooperative and cooperative solutions are so close together as to be operationally indistinguishable given the precision with which central banks seem to be able to control their money supplies we also found situations in which c

monetary accommodation of supply shocks under rational expectations in dealing with the expectationists arguments i will divide them somewhat artificially into two groups arguments in the first group which i call present disaster arguments allege that econometric models err by understating the reaction of inflationary expectations for example it is claimed that a policy of monetary accommodation would increase inflationary expectations shift the short run phillips curve upward and defeat the purpose of the expansionary policy arguments in the second group which i call future disaster arguments are more subtle but also more elusive the idea is that by informing private agents that it will accommodate supply shocks in the future the monetary authority would exacerbate the downward rigidity of wages and prices thus making it more difficult to deal with future supply shocks such arguments are cases of the lucas 12 econometric policy critique since they suggest that policy changes will cause parameter shifts neither of these arguments is implausible on its face the problem is that it is hard to know how to evaluate them until they are formalized in theoretical models and then tested empirically this paper takes one small step in that direction by augmenting two popular macro models with rational expectations so that they are capable of dealing with supply shocks and then examining both the present and future disaster arguments in the context of each this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

policy convergence the exchange rate mechanism and the misalignment of exchange rates some tests of purchasing power parity and generalized purchasing power parity the paper focuses on the convergence issues and the long run credibility of the european monetary system ems and more specifically on the evaluation of the effectiveness of the exchange rate mechanism erm in generating a stabilizing effect on real exchange rates across member countries for this purpose we execute some tests of long run purchasing power parity ppp for an erm group and a non erm group of countries using both the engle and granger procedure and the more powerful johansen cointegration technique we also execute a test of generalized ppp exploiting an idea developed by enders and hurn testing for ppp in a multicountry setting may be a useful methodology to identify the optimal currency area suggested by the data generation process on the basis of the reported homogeneity of real exchange rate behaviour of the countries considered

international transmission of monetary and fiscal policy abstract this paper analyzes the effects of monetary and fiscal expansion on the multiple economies in a dornbusch model and a yaari blanchard model unlike previous literature the paper incorporates union and explicitly solves the n country models the effects of monetary and fiscal expansion outside the union are quite similar to the previous results based on the two country models however the effects of expansion inside the union induce a different dynamic path after the policy changes furthermore the number of union members changes the fluctuations of various endogenous variables

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

expected consumer s surplus and the welfare effects of price stabilization suppose a consumer faces a price which is uncertain ex ante a question which often arises is whether the consumer would benefit from a stabilization policy under which the price would then be fixed and known with certainty many authors have addressed this question by calculating the expected compensating variation of the price change others have used expected marshallian consumer s surplus often with the explanation that it is a good approximation to expected compensating variation 2 an important unresolved issue however is whether expected compensating variation does in fact provide a valid ranking of stochastic prices against stabilized prices i e a ranking in agreement with that given by expected utility in section 2 we demonstrate that expected compensating variation is not in general a valid utility indicator in essence while utility comparisons under uncertainty require the use of the cardinal properties of von neumannmorgenstern utility functions the expected surplus measures depend only on ordinal preference rankings expected compensating variation then is completely insensitive to and cannot reflect the precise factor of interest in suchstudies the consumer s attitudes toward risk we then derive a set of restrictions on the utility function which are necessary in order for expected compensating variation to be a valid measure we see that price stabilization policies can only be evaluated with compensating variation if consumer preferences are assumed to satisfy quite stringent requirements this is in constrast to the familiar certainty case in which compensating variation always provides correct rankings

estimating the demand for the characteristics of housing a hstract estimates of the demand for the characteristics contained in a differentiated product such as housing can be based on hedonic regressions however previous studies have not dealt with several potential problems in such estimation a more appropriate framework for the estimation is provided in this paper also data from a number of cities are used to eliminate the identification problem and the endogeneity of the marginal prices derived from non linear hedonic equations is considered in the estimation the results on own and cross price elasticities expenditure elasticities and the effects of socio economic vafiables accord well with expectations

international cooperation and exchange rate stabilization abstract we show that exchange rate stabilization can be viewed as a public good consequently when countries do not coordinate their economic policies the exchange rate fluctuates more than in the case of international cooperation we consider a quite standard two country model where the policymakers of each country have at their disposal one policy instrument the money stock and want to reduce the fluctuations of both the domestic output and the domestic price level then we compare the non cooperative nash equilibrium to the set of pareto optima our analysis provides a formal argument for some exchange rate stabilization

dynamic games and the time inconsistency of optimal policy in open economies it has been argued that the bretton woods system of pegged but adjustable exchange rates set up after world war ii was designed specifically to prevent the manipulation of exchange rates in pursuit of national macroeconomic objectives see r cooper so it is perhaps no coincidence that the ending of pegged rates has led to the re emergence of theories and policies involving such manipulation before the war when inflation was low and unemployment high in the major industrialised nations this involved competitive depreciation as countries tried to gain employment in the late 1970 s and early 1980 s however countries like the uk and the us have embarked on policies of competitive appreciation in order to cut inflation regarded as the first priority sharp movements in exchange rates however constitute a threat to orderly trade and stimulate protectionism as bergsten 1981 argues this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

risk aversion supply response and the optimality of random prices a diagrammatic analysis this paper analyzes the effect of commodity price stabilization on producers and consumers both in the short run and in the long run when producers have adjusted their production decisions to take account of the change in the price distribution we derive conditions under which a both producers and consumers may be better off and b both producers and consumers may be worse off moreover we show that the long run effects may differ not only quantitatively but also qualitatively from the short run effects the anomalous results may occur even with reasonable assumptions concerning production functions and utility functions of producers and consumers

stabilization with wage indexation and exchange rate flexibility abstract this survey examines the role of wage indexation and exchange rate policy in dampening fluctuations in output around its target level it is demonstrated that the appropriate choice for wage indexation and exchange rate flexibility is highly sensitive to the nature and the relative importance of the shocks impinging upon the economy as well as to the relevant parameters in the economy moreover the question of the desired flexibility of the exchange rate should be studied in the context of wage indexation and vice versa this interdependence raises the possibility of both policies being complements or substitutes to each other depending on the number of shocks that perturb the economy

purchasing power parity under the european monetary system abstract using reduced rank cointegration analysis this study examines whether exchange rate realignments are effective in extenuating the deviations from purchasing power parity ppp under the european monetary system ems in contrast to previous studies more positive evidence for the ppp hypothesis is found the difference in findings can be attributed partly to the statistical technique used the correction of the finite sample bias and the adjustment for realignment effects in general the results of this study support that currency realignments of the ems have been effective in maintaining ppp among its member countries

the world distribution of income falling poverty and convergence period we estimate the world distribution of income by integrating individual income distributions for 138 countries between 1970 and 2000 country distributions are constructed by combining national accounts gdp per capita to anchor the mean with survey data to pin down the dispersion poverty rates and head counts are reported for four specific poverty lines rates in 2000 were between one third and one half of what they were in 1970 for all four lines there were between 250 and 500 million fewer poor in 2000 than in 1970 we estimate eight indexes of income inequality implied by our world distribution of income all of them show reductions in global inequality during the 1980s and 1990s

production uncertainty and the market equilibrium of the competitive firm abstract assumptions outputs are planned ex ante by risk neutral firms actual outputs are stochastic with variance function of planned output production costs are function of planned outputs while the market linear demand function is stable if individual outputs as positively correlated expected profit is decreased by the negative covariance between output and price the firms and market equilibria are analyzed in the short run and the long run with varying number of firms they are compared with oi s and tisdell s uncertain demand models

strategic monetary policy in interdependent economies gains from coordination reconsidered abstract there is a wide acceptance that gains to international monetary policy coordination are small at best and that the need of policy coordination is questionable this conclusion however follows from the underlying presumption that monetary policy is concerned with the stabilization of macroeconomic fluctuations only this paper presents a general short run monetary policy analysis within a familiar two country new open economy macroeconomics noem framework where national monetary policy involves the choice of a deterministic growth trend of money supply average inflation rate and stochastic state dependent deviations of actual money supply from the deterministic trend stabilization strategic beggar thy neighbor considerations induce the deviation of both policy choices from their socially optimal values the gains from international coordination of the average inflation rate are of first order and hence larger than the gains from the coordination of the stabilization policies which are of second order

what starts inflation evidence from the oecd countries we use a pooled cross country time series framework to study the factors associated with the start of 73 inflation episodes in oecd countries since 1960 we find that policy makers pursuit of high real growthtargets and national elections were important factors in initiating inflation episodes u s inflation turns out to be a triggering event for simultaneous outbreaks of inflation across countries several other explanations for inflation starts including increases in the natural rate of unemployment oil price shocks changes in the political orientation of governments and government debt policy are not supported by the data

monetary policy games with broad money targets a linear quadratic control analysis of the u s and japan abstract this paper compares the different outcomes from noncooperative and cooperative equilibria when the federal reserve and the bank of japan follow monetary policies based on broad money supply targets the analysis is an application of stochastic linear quadratic control methods and combines vector autoregressive models with forward looking efficient market models for asset prices the results indicate that the use of broad money targets bring significant welfare gains to both countries in terms of reduced volatility of nominal income broad money exchange rates and asset prices however there appears to be little difference between cooperative and noncooperative monetary policy arrangements

the transmission of disturbances under alternative exchange rate regimes with optimal indexing the paper develops a general stochastic macroeconomic model that can be used to study the international transmission of disturbances under four alternative exchange rate systems uniform flexible exchange rates uniform fixed exchange rates and two versions of two tier exchange rates the analysis makes two general points first one cannot assume stability of structure when assessing the consequences of alternative exchange rate regimes for example the slope of the aggregate supply curve and the rationally formed expectations in the asset markets can respond dramatically to the government s choice of exchange rate regime second exchange rate regimes that provide full insulation from foreign disturbances may nevertheless be inferior to other regimes in terms of their ability to maximize social welfare

coalition formation in international monetary policy games abstract this paper analyses coalition formation in monetary policy coordination games between n countries we show that some but not all countries may join if the decision to be a member of the coalition is incentive compatible for the individual country positive spillovers of the coalition formation process and the resulting free rider problem limit the stable coalition size since the coalition members are bound by the union s discipline an outsider can successfully export inflation without fearing that the insiders will try to do the same these gains from staying out arise even in the case of symmetric shocks

the need for international policy coordination what s old what s new what s yet to come the first generation of policy coordination models was introduced some 25 years ago it provided a rationale for policy coordination but the gains from coordination were generally thought to be small now a new generation of policy coordination models is emerging incorporating monopolistic competition and nominal inertia here we examine macroeconomic interdependence and the scope for policy coordination in a tractable second generation model with two countries and multiple sectors initial calibration of the model suggests that second generation models may have more scope for policy coordination than did the first d 2004 elsevier b v all rights reserved

simultaneity in the market for housing characteristics abstract the nature of simultaneity in the markets for housing characteristics is examined simultaneity is found to arise in the implicit markets for individual characteristics because of the presence of nonlinearity in the market hedonic price function for housing however this simultaneity is not the kind discussed by s rosen j political econ 82 34 55 1974 between firm supplies and household demands as a result the rosen suggestion of identifying demand with firm supply shifters is inappropriate among the alternative approaches to identification the most desirable involve use of data over two or more markets in which residence for a given household is exogenous to the choice of housing

utilitarianism and horizontal equity the case for random taxation this paper establishes that far from being able to derive the principle of horizontal equity from utilitarianism the principle is actually in consistent with utilitarianism in a variety of circumstances we derive conditions under which a it is optimal to impose random tax schedules ex post randomization and b it is optimal to randomize the tax schedules imposed on a set of otherwise identical individuals ex ante randomization the implications for optimal tax theory are discussed more generally it is shown that there are a number of potentially important economic situations with which the principle of horizontal equity may be inconsistent not only with utilitarianism but even with pareto optimality this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

incomplete markets and government agriculture policy this paper investigates the welfare effects of several stereotypical agricultural policies in an economy with production risk and incomplete contingent claim markets the policies analyzed include target price deficiency payment programs the brannan plan production controls the cochrane plan and land set asides when there is no trading in contingent claims and when economic parameters take on values characteristic of staple food markets the paper finds that ajoint brannan plan production control program is often welfare increasing however production controls on their own tend to be welfare decreasing in addition land set asides are generally welfare reducing even in the presence of a brannan plan these results are derived analytically in a simple equilibrium model they are illustrated with a numerical example which demonstrates that welfare benefits from typical agricultural policy interventions can be large

hedonic prices demands for urban housing amenities and benefit estimates abstract this paper uses a rosen two step hedonic price trait demand approach to estimate demand functions for a vector of urban amenities to ascertain whether this theoretically preferred approach yields benefit estimates which differ from the oft used ridker henning one step hedonic approach we conduct a sensitivity analysis we find that the two step approach does yield different benefit estimates and that the differences are large for some amenities the estimates are sensitive to the functional form of the hedonic equation when the forms are significantly different according to modified box cox results but are not particularly sensitive to specification of the amenity demand equation

the role of financial market structure and the trade elasticity for monetary policy in open economies the degree of international risk sharing matters for how monetary policy should optimally be conducted in an open economy this is because risk sharing afiects the way in which monetary policy is afiected by terms of trade considerations in a standard twocountry model with monopolistic competition and nominal rigidities i consider difierent assumptions on international flnancial markets complete markets flnancial autarky and a bond economy and a large region for the crucial parameter of the trade elasticity there are three main results one the prescription of producer price stability as the optimal policy is obtained only as a special case while in general it is optimal to deviate from a strictly zero in ation rate two while gains from international policy coordination are generally small they do become substantial when international risk sharing is poor and wealth efiects from shocks across countries are large and three when international flnancial markets are incomplete there are also sometimes considerable gains over the exible price allocation achievable

government target price intervention in economies with incomplete markets the target price deficiency payment program is among economists favorite examples of costly government intervention in competitive markets dubbed the brannan plan after president truman s secretary of agriculture this program pays producers any positive difference between a given target price and the prevailing market price for their output in a world of certainty and perfect competition such an intervention benefits producers hurts consumers as taxpayers and causes a net harberger triangle welfare loss these implications are not only standard fare in economics lecture halls they have become conventional wisdom in contemporary policy discussions for example the 1986 economic report of the president states income support programs by inhibiting the efficient operation of agricultural markets can impose extra costs on consumers and taxpayers that exceed the amount of income transferred to farmers when such losses occur the programs are doing more than redistributing income they are wasting valuable economic resources that could be used to make everyone better off the object of this paper is to show that these conclusions do not extend to a stochastic production economy with incomplete contingent claim markets in the latter setting the distributional and welfare implications of a brannan plan can be reversed producers can be made worse off consumers can be made better off and with nonstochastic compensation all agents can be made better off the conditions under which these outcomes occur include producer risk aversion and low price and income elasticities of demand all well known characteristics of staple food markets in which target price programs are actually employed e g markets for wheat corn and rice like many other equilibrium analyses of resource allocation

key currency status an exorbitant privilege and an extraordinary risk abstract what are the costs and benefits of the dollar s status as the key currency in the international monetary system here we present a calibrated two country model in which all exports are invoiced in the key currency and government bonds denominated in the key currency are held internationally to facilitate trade and as official reserve assets we show that the exorbitant privilege accruing to the key currency country comes from three sources 1 a bond seigniorage that we estimate to be worth about a half a percent of consumption per period to the united states 2 asymmetric responses to exogenous shocks that are worth an additional quarter of a percent of consumption per period and 3 a macroeconomic hegemony in monetary and fiscal policy reflecting the fact that the key currency s policy instruments are more potent but there is also an exorbitant risk to being the key currency country we show that the costs of a potential dumping of key currency bonds are also substantial moreover there appear to be no obvious monetary or fiscal policy responses that would lower the costs significantly

work effort and search subsidies with long run equilibrium contracts abstract we consider an economy where infinitely lived firms offer long term contracts to finitely lived heterogeneous workers and labor mobility is imperfect in the short run when on the job search costs are partly verifiable firms as a rule subsidize the search activity of poorly adapted workers when these are risk averse and not when they are risk neutral when firms know worker types and monitor individual productivities perfectly work effort is first best independently of search and the problem is one of pure moral hazard in search when workers are risk averse when types cannot be observed work efforts are generally lower and search subsidies used more frequently than when types are observable

an almost ideal demand system for housing attributes in recent articles mendelsohn 16 and palmquist 20 use restricted versions of rosen s 22 model of household behavior to consistently estimate demand functions for attributes of a differentiated product rosen s 22 model is of a single market for such a product and he proposes a two step technique to estimate attribute demand functions first a single hedonic price function is estimated for the differentiated product attribute prices are the first derivatives of the fitted hedonic price function with respect to the relevant attributes second demand functions for attributes are estimated using the prices imputed in the first step if the hedonic price function estimated in the first step is linear then there is no price variation for attributes and demand functions cannot be estimated if the hedonic price function is nonlinear then there is price variation but it is endogenous to households since in a single market price and attribute quantity are chosen jointly 2 indeed within market price variation will always be endogenous in either case without sufficient restriction on the model the parameters of the demand functions for attributes cannot be consistently estimated using rosen s 22 method 3 mendelsohn 16 and palmquist 20 assume that there are many markets for the differentiated product and that households with like preferences may be observed in the different markets by this restriction households face price variation across markets that is exogenous whether hedonic price functions are linear or nonlinear if so demand functions can be consistently estimated 4

exchange rate management and macroeconomic policy a national perspective this paper reviews the literature on alternative exchange rate arrangements for a small economy it discusses exchange rate management for short run stabilization purposes and the choice of exchange rate regimes to foster policy discipline recent research has emphasized that the appropriate degree of exchange rate flexibility depends on the nature of disturbances exchange rate movements provide information about shocks and can serve as a basis for intervention rules empirically operational guidelines have not yet been provided floating rates are said to be desirable because they allow policy makers greater autonomy recent research has questioned the implicit assumption that autonomy is always useful rules that prevent discretionary policy may be preferable what role if any the exchange rate should play in such rules has not yet been resolved

the gains from fiscal cooperation in the two commodity real trade model abstract this paper analyzes the gains from fiscal cooperation within the context of the standard two commodity real trade model it shows how the adjustment in the terms of trade is the critical factor in determining the effects of moving from a noncooperative equilibrium in general a noncooperative equilibrium leads to an overexpansion of government expenditure on the import good relative to a cooperative equilibrium the specific example of a logarithmic economy is also considered the paper discusses further the welfare effects resulting from the formation of a coalition of two countries among three

monetary policy interactions under managed exchange rates this paper studies a two country monetary system where one country sets its money stock but gives up control of the exchange rate and the other country gives up control of its own money stock but can set the exchange rate independently cournot nash equilibria under managed rates differ significantly from those under fixed or floating rates the country that controls the exchange rate can effectively offset inflationary shocks by changing the exchange rate at the expense of the foreign country and as a result can be better off than the foreign country this result provides an example of a successful disinflation through an exchange rate appreciation in a two country world and it indicates that managed exchange rate regimes tend to be unstable since both countries find it desirable to affect the exchange rate managed exchange rates however are a stable outcome when the center country is so much larger than its partner that changes in the real exchange rate do not affect its output and real income copyright 1989 by the london school of economics and political science

international policy design and the sustainability of policy bargains events of the past decade and the persistence of the worldwide recession have underlined the interdependence of the major economics competitive devaluations first illustrated the dangers of unilateral decisions and politicians have regularly called for concerted policies since the bonn economic summit in 1978 economic theory has shown that coordinated policies can bring gains but the question of whether those gains will be significant and how they will be distributed remains unanswered remarkably few empirical results on how interdependence should affect policy design or even on the signs of spillovers between economies have been produced this paper estimates the costs of uncoordinated policies to the us and eec economies and also the potential gains and risks in cooperation it focuses particularly on the process of determining rational policy bargains and whether in an international context such bargains are likely to be sustainable

optimal monetary policies and policy interdependence in the world economy the literature on strategic policy interactions has focused on the implications of alternative strategic policy interactions cooperative versus noncooperative for equilibrium macroeconomic policies given the state of the world economy this paper asks how changes in world economic conditions alter equilibrium policies given the nature of policy interdependence among nations the paper considers a world economy comprised of two countries operating under a system of flexible exchange rates both governments act noncooperatively and choose the rate of growth of their money supply so as to maximize the utility of their country s residents given the rate of growth of the other country s money supply the resulting nash equilibrium rates of growth of the home and foreign money supplies are determined and the dependence of international differences in money growth and inflation rates on international differences in technology jel e52 e60 f41 f42 the international transmission of monetary and fiscal policies has been studied a great deal by economists however policy interdependence how one country s policies depend on the policies enacted by other countries has only recently begun to be explored hamada s 1976 paper was one of the first major contributions in this regard hamada considered a world economy comprised of n countries operating under a fixed exchange rate system in which policymakers set domestic credit growth so as to maximize an objective function depending on inflation and the rate of accumulation of international reserves using this framework hamada demonstrated that in equilibrium optimal domestic credit policies are generally not pareto efficient when they are chosen noncooperatively but are pareto efficient when they are set cooperatively in subsequent work hamada 1979 1985 has elaborated on this and various other aspects of cooperative and noncooperative monetary policies under both fixed and flexible exchange rates many others have followed hamada s lead by comparing the properties of cooperative and noncooperative monetary policies eichengreen 1985 for instance considers discount rates as the instrument of monetary policy and examines issues of leadership and cooperation during the interwar years under the gold standard oudiz and sachs 1985 have used simulation methods to

alternative time patterns of decisions and dynamic strategic interactions this paper offers a simple approach to study steady state markov perfect equilibria arising in dynamic games when players are obliged to commit their actions for several periods it highlights the importance of spillovers and dynamic strategic interactions when assessing the various time patterns conceivable in such games the obtained results are then applied to various either micro or macroeconomic issues where time patterns of decisions matter

on the imperfect substitutability of policy regimes exchange rate targetting vs policy coordination abstract exchange rate targetting is always an imperfect substitute for explicit policy coordination but succeeds when economies are either structurally dissimilar with symmetric shocks or structurally symmetric with dissimilar shocks a joint commitment then generates economies of scale in interventions

conservative central bankers in a two country world abstract in a closed economy framework rogoff has developed the argument that it can be beneficial for society to appoint a conservative central banker we extend this analysis to a two country world in order to take into account the game between the monetary authorities of the two countries we show that conservative central bankers may now deteriorate the situations of both countries and that the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric shocks becomes crucial while symmetric shocks weaken the case for conservative central bankers asymmetric shocks strengthen it the paper also considers the case where central bankers are nominated noncooperatively by the countries

externalities trade and dynamics with expanding global trade countries around the world are becoming increasingly interdependent the necessity for the governments to devise economic policies strategically with respect to the world is therefore becoming more important however at the same time there are various sectors of economies that are competitive and thus not strategic since they are in a competitive environment agents in these sectors do not perceive the influence of their decisions on the world economy and act nonstrategically of course government policies affect all sectors hence economies are mixed having both strategic and nonstrategic components it is worthwhile to point out some examples of this type of mixed economy in western capitalist countries interest rates and exchange rates are determined in a competitive market while monetary and fiscal policies an integral part of the determination of these rates are controlled by governments the government decides on the amount of aggregate resources to be allocated for education and research and development research is often carried out by individuals or firms and there is a competitive market for the products generated by it another example can be found in the fishing industry government policies dictate the maximum amount of fish that can be extracted from the ocean while there is a conmpetitive market in fish along with the dual nature of decision making the above examples have another feature in common there are externalities between the policy makers decisions these externalities imply that there are interdependences among the countries so that the decisions of each of the countries have effects on the outcome of the competitive market the competitive outcome in turn affects the decisions of the policy makers in the various countries in the example of the monetary sector money supply in one country affects the rate of interest in the domestic country as well as abroad to properly

estimating the structural equations of implicit markets and household production functions whenever marginal prices are nonconstant as in most hedonic and household production function markets ordinary least squares estimates of the price elasticities of structural equations will be biased a two stage least squares estimation procedure is developed and applied to estimate hedonic and potentially household production function demand functions when price gradients are nonlinear

national sovereignty and international monetary order abstract the choice of exchange rate regime is examined in a three country model in which the regime chosen by one country affects other countries opportunities it is shown that the interaction of different countries choices of exchange rate regime may be characterized by either strategic complementarity or strategic substitution as a result if each country pursues its national interest independently either nonexistence or nonuniqueness of equilibrium among different countries regime choices is possible the model therefore provides an alternative rationale for international policy coordination

international macroeconomic policy coordination when policymakers do not agree on the true model the authors relax the assumption of the literature on international coordination that policymakers know the true model t wo countries will still be able to agree on a cooperative policy pack age that each believes will improve the objective function relative t o the nash noncooperative solution however the bargaining solution may move the target variables in the wrong direction these points ar e illustrated with monetary and fiscal multipliers taken from simulat ions of ten leading econometric models out of 1 000 possible combina tions of models that could represent u s beliefs non u s beliefs and the true model monetary coordination improves u s welfare in on ly 546 cases copyright 1988 by american economic association

the welfare case for the european monetary system abstract this paper argues that the european monetary system can be interpreted as a cooperative game yielding benefits to its members a simple model is set up in which it is shown that the ems solution is superior to nash if the menber countries differ this superiority to nash may require an occasional realignment it will also then require that there be no sterilization of foreign exchange interventions since otherwise the system would collpase the ems is interpreted in this paper as an arrangement manner and not o bretton woods type of arrangement when there is a leader follower relationship inside

distributive politics and economic growth a crude distinction between economics and politics would be that economics is concerned with expanding the pie while politics is about distributing it in this paper we analyze the relationship between the two we focus on how an economy s initial configuration of resources shapes the political struggle for income and wealth distribution and how that in turn affects long run growth our main conclusion is that inequality is conducive to the adoption of growth retarding policies we derive this result from a simple political economy model of growth and present cross country evidence consistent with it the key feature of our model is that individuals differ in their relative factor endowments we distinguish between two types of factors an accumulated factor called capital and a nonaccumulated factor called labor growth is driven by the expansion of the capital stock which is in turn determined by individual saving decisions long run growth is endogenous as the aggregate production function is taken to be linearly homogeneous in capital and productive government services taken together the provision of government services is financed by a tax on capital because government services are productive a small tax on

hedonic prices and implicit markets estimating demand and supply functions for differentiated products in choosing the level of quality to purchase the buyer of a differentiated product also chooses a point on the marginal price schedule for that product hence in general the demand functions for product characteristics cannot be consistently estimated by ordinary least squares market equilibrium results in a matching of characteristics of demanders and suppliers this matching restricts the use of buyer and seller characteristics as instruments when estimating demand and supply functions for product characteristics the paper develops these issues a stochastic structure for hedonic equilibrium models is then proposed identification results are presented and estimation procedures are outlined

optimal food price stabilisation policy this paper proposes a framework for designing optimal food price stabilisation policies in a self sufficient developing country it uses a rational expectations storage model with risk averse consumers and incomplete markets government stabilises food prices by carrying public stock and by applying a state contingent subsidy tax to production the policy rules are designed to maximise intertemporal welfare the optimal policy under commitment crowds out all private stockholding activity by removing the profit opportunity from speculation the countercyclical subsidy tax to production helps price stabilisation by subsidising production in periods of scarcity and by taxing it in periods of glut it contributes little to welfare gains most of which come from stabilisation achieved through public storage

the us and the european montary system ems a stylised asymmetrical two country model numerical simulation methods were used to explore the consequences of asymmetrical behaviour in a two countary model the asymmetries are located in the asset and goods demand functions and in the parameters governing fosreign exchange market intervention in a stylized fashion these asymmetries reflect differences that might be characteriestic of differences between the usa and the european countries the ems the model is in continuous time with an overlapping wage contact set up underlying the domestic inflation process good demand functions which incorporate dependence on wealth and rational expectations shocks to the model reveal the effect of the asymmetries when compared to a fully symmetrical bases case

on the viability of monetary unions abstract this paper contrasts the notion of optimality with that of viability of monetary unions and attempts to provide a positive analysis of the latter by dwelling upon herbert simon s work on models of bounded rationality a macro model developed by frenkel and aizenman is appended to the above theoretical framework and it is shown that viability is strictly related to certain specific properties of the economy