degradation of environmental capital and national accounting procedures abstract the capital theoretic approach to the environment as a wastable stock a stock with a flow of abatement services is explored in a simple ricardo like model involving wheat production and pollution production as an essential by product we then turn to how the national accounts are implicit in growth or capital theory models and how formulae emerge for accounting for the wasting of environmental capital airsheds and watersheds from excessive use

us demilitarization and global warming an empirical investigation of the environmental peace dividend abstract in the paper input output methods are used to generate ballpark empirical estimates of the implications for global warming of the projected demilitarization of the us federal budget the impact is found to be qualitatively ambiguous and highly sensitive to the manner in which the funds saved are distributed the effect is adverse where the budgetary savings are used to fund economy wide cuts in personal taxation and or deficit reduction in other cases the effect may be neutral or beneficial

does product lifetime extension increase our income at the expense of energy consumption abstract the present paper contributes to modeling a simple social accounting method with cumulative product lifetime distributions and argues how product lifetime extension affects income flow throughout the entire economic system empirical analysis focusing on automobile use ordinary passenger vehicle small passenger vehicle and light passenger vehicle in japan revealed that if all of the additional income gain from product lifetime extension flows into the investment sector a one year lifetime extension during the ten years of the study period 1990 2000 would have led to an increase in income in 2000 amounting to 7 billion yen as well as contributing to savings in energy amounting to 4 10 6 gj that is longer term passenger vehicle use increases income and decreases energy consumption under special cases we also found that in the general case when less than 93 of additional income resulting from vehicle lifetime extension is directed to the investment sector a 1 year automobile lifetime extension increases income at the expense of energy consumption

sources of output fluctuations during the interwar period further evidence on the causes of the great depression this paper decomposes output fluctuations during the 1913 to 1940 period into components resulting from aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks we estimate a number of structural models all of which yield qualitatively similar results while identification is normally achieved by assuming that aggregate demand shocks have no long run real effects we also estimate models that allow demand shocks to permanently affect output our findings support the following three conclusions 1 there was a large negative aggregate demand shock in november 1929 immediately after the stock market crash 2 aggregate demand shocks are largely responsible for the decline in output through mid 1931 and 3 beginning in mid 1931 there is an aggregate supply collapse that coincides with the onset of severe bank panics copyright 1994 by mit press

the dynamic effects of aggregate demand and supply disturbances we interpret fluctuations in gnp and unemployment as due to two types of disturbances disturbances that have a permanent effect on output and disturbances that do not we interpret the first as supply disturbances the second as demand disturbances demand disturbances have a hump shaped mirror image effect on output and unemployment the effect of supply disturbances on output increases steadily over time peaking after two years and reaching a plateau after five years

the dynamics of fertility family planning and female education in a developing economy unlike most empirical works on fertility analysis this study is the first attempt to analyse the dynamics of fertility and its determinants with a particular focus on the role played by female education and family planning programmes in the context of a traditional society the analysis is based on the application of the following dynamic time series techniques in a multivariate context cointegration vector error correction modelling and variance decompositions these dynamic tools are recently developed and hitherto untried in fertility analysis in the context of a poor developing economy such as india the results based on the above most recently developed methodology broadly indicate that in the complex dynamic interactions the importance of conventional structural hypothesis as a granger causal factor in bringing fertility down in the longer term cannot be denied however overall in the short to long term the findings appear to be more consistent with the recent ideational hypothesis

atheoretical macroeconometrics a critique abstract the spurious nature of the restrictions used to identify many macroeconometric models has led some researchers to advocate a style of econometric inquiry that is less dependent on prior theoretical restrictions of the sort that were central to the approach of the cowles commission this development which we call atheoretical macroeconometrics is summarized and evaluated in the current paper it is contrasted with an updated version of the cowles commission approach we conclude that while some of the exercises of atheoretical macroeconometrics are valid those that have attracted the most attention and appear the most innovative exogeneity testing impulse response analysis and policy analysis using estimated vector autoregressions are based on incorrect analysis

stochastic trends and economic fluctuations are business cycles mainly the result of permanent shocks to productivity this paper uses a long run restriction implied by a large class of real business cycle models identifying permanent productivity shocks as shocks to the common stochastic trend in output consumption and investment to provide new evidence on this question econometric tests indicate that this common stochastic trend cointegration implication is consistent with postwar u s data however in systems with nominal variables the estimates of this common stochastic trend indicate that permanent productivity shocks typically explain less than half of the business cycle variability in output consumption and investment copyright 1991 by american economic association

sources of business cycles in europe 1960 1988 evidence from france germany and the united kingdom abstract this paper investigates the sources of macroeconomic fluctuations in france germany and the united kingdom since 1960 aggregate demand and aggregate supply shocks are identified by assuming that in the long run output and employment are only affected by aggregate supply innovations the empirical results show that aggregate demand shocks bear significant responsibility for business cycles providing evidence against strong versions of equilibrium business cycle models however aggregate supply shocks are also found to be important for short run fluctuations

defence spending and unemployment rates an empirical analysis disaggregated by race this analysis brings u s time series evidence to bear on the relationship of defense spending and unemployment rates results indicate that defense increases during the 1970s were associated with improvements in the overall unemployment rate however during the 1980s such increases were associated with a worsening of the unemployment rate furthermore upon disaggregation into black and white unemployment rates it was found that in general whites were helped by defense spending increases while blacks were hurt this evidence offers support for the claim that an increasing complex military production process will lead to diminished employment gains particularly for minorities who are not proportionately represented in the high tech industries that serve the military copyright 1990 by oxford university press

economic energy and greenhouse emissions impacts of some consumer choice technology and government outlay options abstract the impacts of selected spending options in the australian economy are determined in terms of energy consumption greenhouse gas emissions and a range of economic parameters six case studies of one current practice and one alternative environmentally motivated spending option are carried out describing consumer choices technologies and government outlays the assessment method is based on input output theory and as such enables both the direct and indirect effects of spending to be quantified in general the results indicate that pro environmental objectives such as reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are compatible with broad socio economic benefits such as increases in employment and income and reductions in imports

rail accidents and property values in the era of unconventional energy production abstract we estimate the effect of 33 derailments involving hazardous materials on property values in new york state between 2004 and 2013 difference in differences analyses show that on average a derailment depreciates housing values within a one mile radius by 5 8 the prices of affected properties return to pre accident levels after about 480 days in addition we find that the impacts of derailments on property values are limited to the local area these results provide evidence for evaluating the economic costs of rail transportation to nearby communities and for considering policy options in the current era of u s energy transformation resulting in substantial increases in the rail shipment of fuels

macroeconomic fluctuations demand or supply permanent or temporary abstract we use generalized method of moments to estimate a rational expectations aggregate demand aggregate supply macroeconomic model for five european economies and the united states our aim is to examine whether supply or demand shocks have predominated in these economies during the post war era and whether shocks of either type have been primarily temporary or permanent in nature we find that permanent or temporary demand shocks have been the dominant source of variance in output growth in all six countries but there is a less consistent pattern for inflation permanent supply shocks had the dominant influence on autocorrelations

a traditional interpretation of macroeconomic fluctuations under the traditional interpretation of macroeconomic fluctuations aggregate demand shocks move output and prices in the same direction while aggregate supply shocks move output and prices in opposite directions this paper examines the joint behavior of u s output unemployment prices wages and nominal money and asks whether it is consistent with this interpretation the answer is a qualified yes

how well does the is lm model fit postwar u s data postwar u s time series for money interest rates prices and gnp are characterized by a multivariate process driven by four exogenous disturbances those disturbances are identified so that they can be interpreted as the four main sources of fluctuations found in the is lm phillips curve model money supply money demand is and aggregate supply shocks the dynamic properties of the estimated model are analyzed and shown to match most of the stylized predictions of the model the estimated decomposition is also used to measure the relative importance of each shock to interpret some macroeconomic episodes and to study sources of permanent shocks to nominal variables

budget reallocation and the peace dividend energy and pollution tradeoffs abstract despite the attention received during times of crisis energy conservation policy and pollution abatement strategies are seldom considered in the formulation and implementation of government expenditure decisions not directly related to energy use and pollution emissions this paper deals with measurement of the energy and pollution costs associated with various budgetary categories including defence education and other non defence components of expenditure in deciding between alternatives such knowledged provides a broader decisionmaking context potentially useful in assessing the major alterations in defence and non defence expenditures that may soon take place as tensions between the usa and the ussr diminish empirical estimates show that budgetary reallocation away from defence can result in important reductions in energy use and pollution emissions

demand and supply shocks in italy an application to industrial output abstract we investigate the impact of three different kinds of disturbances on industrial output in italy they originate respectively in aggregate demand technology and the labour supply we first illustrate the theoretical restrictions which permit identification of the three shocks then econometric identification is achieved by extending the blanchard and quah 1989 the american economic review 79 pp 655 673 procedure to a multivariate case our main conclusion is that output variability is significantly affected by technological shocks at all frequencies labour supply disturbances are also relevant while demand shocks have a minor impact on the series although they act in the expected direction therefore the short run behaviour of industrial production is largely explained by supply side shocks

inventory investment over the business cycle in the eu and the us abstract this paper investigates the business cycle properties of aggregate inventory investment in the countries of the european union eu and the us given the experience of the latest recessions this issue becomes particularly interesting for the study of the propagation mechanism of business cycles the kydland prescott methodology was used to derive and organize the business cycle features the results showed that business cycle fluctuations in the eu are more volatile than those in the us the contribution of the declines of inventory investment in recessions has also been greater in the eu important similarities though were identified as to the extent of the destabilizing effect of inventory investment cycles in the overall economic activity

natural resources national accounting and economic depreciation abstract the current value hamiltonian in an aggregate optimal growth problem with heterogeneous capital stocks including exhaustible renewable and environmental stocks is the nnp function routine substitutions reveal that the using up of natural resource stocks is representable as easy to interpret economic depreciation magnitudes we obtain true nnp inclusive of natural resource stock diminution implications for actual national accounting practices are also discussed

environmental hazards and residential property values evidence from a major pipeline event this study uses a hedonic price model to estimate the effect of proximity to a major fuel pipeline on housing prices both before and after a high profile accident using data for bellingham washington the site of a 1999 rupture and explosion we find no significant effect of proximity to the pipeline prior to the accident following the accident we find a substantial price effect however the effect decays rapidly with distance from the pipeline and also diminishes over time results suggest that for this type of environmental hazard an adverse event leads to an increase in perceived risk

estimating the liquidity effect in post reform chile do inflationary expectations matter abstract in this paper we estimate the dynamic effects of domestic money supply shocks in chile over its post reform era we analyze chile since inflationary expectations could be very sensitive to changes in the money supply given past inflationary experience in the context of a var model containing both chilean and us variables we identify money supply shocks using long run monetary neutrality and block exogeneity restrictions our findings suggest that in chile over the period from 1977 to 1998 unexpected domestic money supply shocks have had a positive impact on interest rates in the short run and a negative impact on real money balances this differs markedly from the estimated responses of the us the findings are consistent with the notion that at least in chile inflationary expectations are very sensitive to news about the nominal money supply possibly due to high inflationary uncertainty and the lack of credibility of monetary reforms our results are generally robust to alternative model specification and identifying restrictions

real business cycles in this paper we demonstrate how certain very ordinary economic principles lead maximizing individuals to choose consumption production plans that display many of the characteristics commonly associated with business cycles our explanation is entirely consistent with i rational expectations ii complete current information iii stable preferences iv no technological change v no long lived commodities vi no frictions or adjustment costs vii no government viii no money and ix no serial dependence in the stochastic elements of the environment we also provide a completely worked out example of the type of artificial economy we have in mind the time series properties of the example exhibit some major features of observed business cycles although this type of model may not be capable of explaining all of the regularities in actual business cycles we believe that it provides a useful well defined benchmark for assessing the relative importance of factors e g monetary disturbances