inventory dynamics and business cycles what has changed to what extent can information technology led improvements in inventory management account for the apparent moderation of economic fluctuations in the united states since the mid 1980s we argue that changes in inventory dynamics played a reinforcing rather than a leading role in the reduction of output volatility since the mid 1980s inventory dynamics have changed in a manner consistent with a faster resolution of inventory imbalances however these changes appear to be a consequence of changes in the response of industry level sales and aggregate economic activity to monetary policy shocks our results suggest that it is the interaction between the changes in inventory behavior at the industry level and the macroeconomic environment where the latter likely includes changes in the conduct of monetary policy and the responses of the economy to policy disturbances rather than any single factor that has contributed importantly to the observed decline in economic volatility

the marginal cost of public funds and tax reform in africa abstract in this paper we propose estimates of the marginal cost of public funds mcf in 38 african countries we develop a simple general equilibrium model that can handle taxes on five major tax classes and can be calibrated with little more than national accounts data a key feature of our model is the explicit recognition of the informal economy our base case estimate of the average mcf from marginal increases in all five tax instruments is 1 2 focusing on the lowest cost tax instruments in each country commonly the vat but not always the average mcf is 1 1 finally extending the tax base to include sections of the informal economy by removing some tax exemptions offers the potential for a low mcf source of public funds and a lowering of mcfs on other tax instruments

the less volatile u s economy a bayesian investigation of timing breadth and potential explanations using a bayesian model comparison strategy we search for a volatility reduction in u s real gross domestic product gdp growth within the postwar sample we find that aggregate real gdp growth has been less volatile since the early 1980s and that this volatility reduction is concentrated in the cyclical component of real gdp sales and production growth in many of the components of real gdp display similar reductions in volatility suggesting the aggregate volatility reduction does not have a narrow source we also document structural breaks in inflation dynamics that occurred over a similar time frame as the gdp volatility reduction

interpreting the great moderation changes in the volatility of economic activity at the macro and micro levels most advanced economies have experienced a striking decline in the volatility of aggregate economic activity since the early 1980s volatility reductions are evident for output and employment at the aggregate level and across most industrial sectors and expenditure categories inflation and inflation volatility have also declined dramatically previous studies offer several potential explanations for this great moderation we review evidence on the great moderation in conjunction with evidence about volatility trends at the micro level we combine the two types of evidence to develop a tentative story for important components of the aggregate volatility decline and its consequences the key ingredients are declines in firm level volatility and aggregate volatility most dramatically in the durable goods sector surprisingly this has occurred without a decline in household consumption volatility and individual earnings uncertainty our explanation for the aggregate volatility decline stresses improved supply chain management particularly in the durable goods sector and less important a shift in production and employment from goods to services we provide evidence that better inventory control made a substantial contribution to declines in firm level and aggregate volatility consistent with this view if we look past the turbulent 1970s and early 1980s much of the moderation reflects a decline in high frequency short term fluctuations while these developments represent efficiency gains they do not imply nor is there evidence for a reduction in economic uncertainty faced by individuals and households

stochastic modelling of renewable energy sources from operators point of view a survey abstract high penetration of renewable energy sources especially weather dependent sources has increased the power systems uncertainties for any analysis in power systems such as planning and operation it is essential to confront the stochastic nature of these sources in order to get much more precise results since operators need proper strategies and methods to decline negative effects of the stochastic behaviour of renewable power generators such as total operation cost growth this paper provides a review of different state of the art approaches from the operator s viewpoint for handling the stochastic behaviour of renewable sources hence in this paper three different strategies are categorized for stochastic analysis of these sources the first strategy is mathematical modelling including stochastic dependency and independency multi dimensional dependence forecast and scenarios afterwards demand side management which is one of the other approaches for dealing with these uncertainties is investigated and different demand response programs and some methods to model them are presented finally the effect of different electricity market schemes and relevant optimization methods to mitigate the variations of renewable energy sources are discussed the study demonstrates that an operator should choose one or a combination of these three approaches based on its requirements

strategic offering for a wind power producer as a result of subsidies and technological maturity renewable electricity producers have grown in some jurisdictions to clearly dominant positions in the market under this context we propose an offering strategy for a wind power producer with market power that participates in the day ahead market as a price maker and in the balancing market as a deviator uncertainty pertaining to wind power production and balancing market price is represented through a set of correlated scenarios the proposed model is a stochastic mathematical program with equilibrium constraints mpec that can be recast as a tractable mixed integer linear programming milp problem which is solvable using available optimization software results from an illustrative example and two case studies show the effectiveness of the proposed model

historical monetary policy analysis and the taylor rule this study examines the usefulness of the taylor rule framework as an organizing device for describing the policy debate and evolution of monetary policy in the united states monetary policy during the 1920s and since the 1951 treasury federal reserve accord can be broadly interpreted in terms of this framework with rather surprising consistency in broad terms during these periods policy has been generally formulated in a forward looking manner with price stability and economic stability serving as implicit or explicit guides as early as the 1920s measures of real economic activity relative to normal or potential supply appear to have influenced policy analysis and deliberations confidence in such measures as guides for activist monetary policy proved counterproductive at times resulting in excessive activism such as during the great inflation and at the brink of the great depression policy during the past two decades is broadly consistent with natural growth targeting variants of the taylor rule that exhibit less activism

the value of squatter dwellings in developing countries the value of squatter dwellings for a sample in the philippines is estimated and the statistical relationship between value and housing characteristics is described the results of a survey approach indicate that while the discrepancies in the estimates are quite large for individual properties they are offset by using sufficiently large samples in addition when two estimates are highly correlated with one another they yield similar results when they are used as dependent variables in a hedonic price equation methodological considerations aside the determinants of the value of squatter dwellings tend to be similar to those of conventional formal sector dwellings the external appearance and quality of materials used in construction are among the most important variables water and sanitary facilities may not be valued as much as expected age may be positively correlated with value because housing services are improved more gradually in squatter communities and because longevity in a particular area is a sign of reduced risk overall squatter housing markets appear to behave as economically rational entities that valuate dwelling units similarly to conventional markets

optimal integrated generation bidding and scheduling with risk management under a deregulated daily power market in the deregulated power industry a generation company genco sells energy and ancillary services primarily through bidding at a daily market developing effective strategies to optimize hourly bid curves for a hydrothermal power system to maximize profits becomes one of the most important tasks of a genco this paper presents a unified framework for optimizing energy and reserve bidding strategies under a deregulated market in view of high volatilities of market clearing prices mcp the hourly mcps and reserve prices are modeled as discrete random variables whose probability mass functions are predicted with a classification based neural network approach the mean variance method is applied to manage bidding risks where a risk penalty term related to mcp and reserve price variances is added to the objective function to avoid buying too much power from the market at high prices a genco may also require covering at least a certain percentage of its own customer load this self scheduling requirement is modeled similar to the system demand in traditional unit commitment problems the formulation is a stochastic mixed integer optimization with a separable structure an optimization based algorithm combining lagrangian relaxation and stochastic dynamic programming is presented to optimize bids for both energy and reserve markets numerical testing based on an 11 unit system in new england market shows that the method can significantly reduce profit variances and thus reduce bidding risks near optimal energy and reserve bid curves are obtained in 4 5 minutes on a 600 hz pentium iii pc efficient for daily use

portfolio and contract design for demand response resources abstract electricity generation from renewable energy sources has seen significant growth in recent years to improve grid integration of these volatile energy resources demand side flexibility can be operationalized through intelligent scheduling of flexible electrical loads prior research has mainly focused on determining dispatch schedules for exogenously given portfolios of flexible electricity demand we expand on this literature by considering both contracting and dispatch of flexible loads to this end we formulate a demand aggregator s problem of designing and dispatching a portfolio of supply volatile renewable and conventional generators and demand inflexible base shiftable and curtailable load assets as a stochastic program to account for different contracting regimes we consider three market scenarios 1 a liquid flexibility market where the energy retailer is a price taker 2 an opaque market where non strategic customers will accept any individually rational contract offer and 3 a bi level model with strategic customers optimally self selecting into available contracts in the last case we also explore the effect of price discrimination versus uniform pricing we evaluate these models using empirical load and generation data contrary to conventional wisdom we find that flexibility contracting is not monotone increasing in renewable generation capacities our research also suggests that curtailable load is a closer substitute to supply flexibility than shiftable load finally we find that contracting of curtailing flexibility will be harder to implement if the aggregator has limited market power

bidding strategies for electricity producers in a competitive electricity marketplace this paper presents a methodology for the development of bidding strategies for electricity producers in a competitive electricity marketplace initially the problem is modeled as a two level optimization problem where at the first level a market participant tries to maximize his expected profit under the constraint that at the second level an independent system operator dispatches power solving an optimal power flow problem that minimizes total system cost it is assumed that each supplier bids a linear supply function and chooses his bidding strategy based on probabilistic estimates of demand and rival behavior monte carlo simulation is used to calculate the expected profit and genetic algorithms are employed to find the optimal strategy subsequently the formulation is expanded to account for different market participants risk profiles it is shown that risk aversion may influence the optimal bidding strategy of an individual

monetary policy shifts and the term structure we estimate the effect of shifts in monetary policy using the term structure of interest rates in our no arbitrage model the short rate follows a version of the taylor s 1993 discretion versus policy rules in practice carnegie rochester conference series on public policy 39 195 214 rule where the coefficients on the output gap and inflation vary over time the monetary policy loading on the output gap has averaged around 0 4 and has not changed very much over time the overall response of the yield curve to output gap components is relatively small in contrast the inflation loading has changed substantially over the last 50 years and ranges from close to zero in 2003 to a high of 2 4 in 1983 long term bonds are sensitive to inflation policy shifts with increases in inflation loadings leading to higher short rates and widening yield spreads

optimal involvement in futures markets of a power producer this paper addresses the optimal involvement in a futures electricity market of a power producer to hedge against the risk of pool price volatility the considered trading horizon spans one whole year recognizing the highly uncertain nature of future pool prices a stochastic programming framework with recourse is used to model this decision making problem the resulting problem is a large scale mixed integer linear programming problem scenario reduction techniques are used to make this problem tractable risk is properly modeled using the cvar methodology results from a realistic case study are provided and analyzed some conclusions are finally drawn

worst case robust profit in generation self scheduling recent research has shown that portfolio optimization theory can be extended to generation self scheduling in a competitive energy market this letter considers the self scheduling problem in the case where the mean vector and covariance matrix of the probability distribution of prices are only known within given bounds and the probability distribution is otherwise arbitrary under the above assumptions it is shown that a method for optimization over symmetric cones can be used to 1 compute the worst case robust profit with probability level beta and 2 optimize the self schedule for a given probability level beta of the corresponding worst case robust profit

monetary policy trend inflation and the great moderation an alternative interpretation with positive trend inflation the taylor principle does not guarantee a determinate equilibrium we provide new theoretical results on determinacy in new keynesian models with positive trend inflation and new empirical findings on the federal reserve s reaction function before and after the volcker disinflation to find that i while the fed likely satisfied the taylor principle before volcker the us economy was still subject to self fulfilling fluctuations in the 1970s ii the us economy switched to determinacy during the volcker disinflation and iii the switch reflected changes in the fed s response to macroeconomic variables and the decline in trend inflation jel e12 e23 e31 e32 e52

offering strategies and simulation of multi item iterative auctions of energy contracts the objective of this work is threefold we firstly present an optimization model for a price taker hydrothermal generation company genco to devise bidding strategies in multi item iterative auctions of long term contracts the bidding model calculates a bidder s best response function which takes into account the key issues on the auctioned contracts such as its time horizon the risk factors that affect the future contract outcomes interdependence between auctioned products and the agents risk profile the risk profile of the gencos are represented as piecewise linear utility functions and a practical specification approach is proposed we finally present a simulator of a uniform pricing and iterative multi item contract auction where the set of auction rules is implemented and the optimization model developed is used to determine the gencos s best responses at each auction round the simulator enables auctioneers and generators to estimate the auction s competitive equilibrium price and to study the auction dynamics a real multiproduct descending clock auction is simulated for the brazilian power system under the proposed bidding scheme

choosing rural road investments to help reduce poverty the author examines how rural road investment projects should be selected and appraised when the objective is poverty reduction after critically reviewing past and current practices the author develops an operational approach grounded in a public economics framework in which concerns of equity and efficiency are inseparable information is incomplete in important ways and resources are limited she addresses a key problem that an important share of the benefits to the poor from rural roads cannot be measured in monetary terms the selction formula she proposes aims to identify places where poverty and economic potential are high and access is low she illustrates the method using data for and project experience in vietnam among the advantages of proceeding as outlined in her proposal this approach holds the hope of building capacity and is participatory it extracts local information that may not be readily available to the central government and it appears to be feasible because it relies on local authorities participating in the appraisal of subprojects

robust self scheduling under price uncertainty using conditional value at risk in a deregulated power industry power producing companies bid in the hour ahead and day ahead power markets in an attempt to maximize their profit for a successful bidding strategy each power producing company has to generate bidding curves derived from an optimal self schedule this self schedule is commonly obtained from a profit maximizing optimal power flow model based on predicted locational marginal prices lmps however at the time of self scheduling the predicted values of the lmps are largely uncertain therefore it is desired to produce robust self schedules that can be used to lessen the risk resulting from exposure to fluctuating prices in portfolio optimization theory methods of risk management include value at risk var and conditional value at risk cvar cvar is known to be a more consistent measure of risk than var in fact whilst cvar is the mean excess loss the var provides no indication on the extent of losses that might be suffered beyond the amount indicated by this measure this research proposes a method for robust self scheduling based on cvar it will be shown that polynomial interior point methods can be used to obtain the robust self schedules from a second order cone program the obtained schedules provide a compromise solution between maximum profit and minimum risk simulation results on a standard ieee bus test system will be used to demonstrate the scheduling model based on cvar

using satellite imagery to create tax maps and enhance local revenue collection although taxes on land and property have many desirable attributes the challenge of ensuring completeness of tax rolls and currency of valuations preclude their effective use to support urbanizati

inflation dynamics when inflation is near zero this paper discusses the likely evolution of u s inflation in the near and medium term on the basis of 1 past u s experience with very low levels of inflation 2 the most recent japanese experience with deflation and 3 recent u s micro evidence on downward nominal wage rigidity our findings question the view that stable long run inflation expectations and downward nominal wage rigidity will provide sufficient support to prices such that deflation can be avoided we show that an inflation model fitted on japanese data over the past 20 years which accounts for both short and long run inflation expectations matches the recent u s inflation experience quite well while the model indicates that u s inflation might be subject to a lower bound it does not rule out a prolonged period of mild deflation going forward in addition our micro evidence on wages suggests no obvious downward rigidity in the firm s wage costs downward rigidity in individual wages notwithstanding as a consequence downward nominal wage rigidity may provide little offset to deflationary pressures in the current u s situation despite some circumstantial evidence that this channel might have been at work in the past

optimization based generation asset allocation for forward and spot markets one of the most important daily decisions that a genco has to make is to allocate generation assets between the forward and spot markets that is how much capacity should be contracted in the forward market and how much should be kept to bid in spot market this paper focuses on generation asset allocation between monthly forward contracts such as bilateral contracts futures contracts options contracts and daily spot markets considering operating costs and constraints of generating units as well as spot price risk the problem is to find the optimal hedging position based on the known forward price and the forecasted hourly spot prices and is formulated based on the model of pjm market the double dynamic programming method is applied to solve this optimal asset allocation problem with all the short term operating constraints of the generating unit satisfied three types of forward contracts that are commonly used in practice are considered and their impact on generation asset allocation are analyzed and compared the analytic relationship between the optimal contract quantity of a particular type and spot generation is established based on this relationship the applicability and characteristics of a particular type of contract are discussed furthermore with the solution to the generation asset allocation problem as a basis the pricing strategy in the forward market is analyzed a nash game model is established and an iterative process is developed to determine the equilibrium pricing of futures contracts numerical testing shows that the method for the generation asset allocation is effective various factors influencing the decision of generation asset allocation and the relationship between futures contract price and spot price are tested and analyzed

urban growth and transportation we estimate the effects of interstate highways on the growth of u s cities between 1983 and 2003 we find that a 10 increase in a city s initial stock of highways causes about a 1 5 increase in its employment over this 20 year period to estimate a structural model of urban growth and transportation we rely on an instrumental variables estimation that uses a 1947 plan of the interstate highway system an 1898 map of railroads and maps of the early explorations of the u s as instruments for 1983 highways we investigate the role of interstate highways in the growth of u s cities our investigation is in three parts in the first we develop a simple structural model describing the joint evolution of highways and employment in cities in the second we develop an instrumental variables strategy that allows us to identify key parameters of our structural model we are also able to provide out of sample evidence for the validity of our estimates and for the central assumptions of our model in the third we use our estimates to assess counterfactual transportation policies we find that a 10 increase in a city s stock of interstate highways causes about a 1 5 increase in its employment over 20 years and that an additional kilometre of highway allocated to a city at random is associated with a larger increase in employment or population than is a road assigned to a city by the prevailing political process our results also suggest that too many new highways were built between 1983 and 2003 these findings are important for three reasons first transportation generally and infrastruc ture in particular are large segments of the economy the median u s household devotes about 18 of its income to road transportation while all levels of government together spend another 200 billion dollars annually overall the value of capital stock associated with road transporta tion in the u s tops 5 trillion dollars united states bureau of transportation statistics 2007 2010 given the magnitude of transportation expenditures it is important that the impact of these expenditures on economic growth be carefully evaluated and not assessed on the basis of the claims of advocacy groups our analysis provides a basis for assessing whether these resources are well allocated our results also provide useful guidance to policy makers charged with planning cities since changes in a city s transportation infrastructure cause changes to the city s employment new transportation infrastructure causes complementary changes in the demand for public utilities and schools our results provide a basis for estimating the magnitude of such changes finally this research is important to furthering our understanding of how cities operate and grow transportation costs are among the most fundamental quantities in theoretical models

valuing rail access using transport innovations this paper uses a powerful empirical method to evaluate the benefits of rail access to consumers we study the effects on house prices of a transport innovation that altered the distance to the nearest station for some households but left others unaffected the transport innovation we study is the construction of new stations in london in the late 1990s using this innovation we implement a quasi experimental approach that allows us to avoid the biases inherent in cross sectional valuation work our evidence on distance station effects on local prices identified through distance changes induced by the transport innovation suggests that households value rail access and that these valuations are large compared to the valuations of other local amenities

three or two stage stochastic market clearing algorithm as the power industry considers moving from a deterministic paradigm to a stochastic one to clear the day ahead market in systems with significant stochastic production the following question arises how should a stochastic clearing algorithm be formulated our analyses indicate that a three stage stochastic approach is clearly superior to a two stage one to show this we propose a model that includes three stages the first one represents the day ahead market the second stage the intraday market and the third one the real time operation the objective is to clear the day ahead market but with a prognosis of the future the intraday market and the real time operation to assess the impact of the intraday market on the day ahead outcomes we compare the results obtained from the proposed model with those of a simpler but more common two stage model which represents the day ahead market and the real time operation

integrated risk management for an electricity producer abstract electricity suppliers face two sources of risk uncertainty of spot prices and uncertainty of production costs uncertainty in selling the output is usually solved by signing forwards and the two sources of risk are dealt with separately however managing the integrated risk optimally is the direction we will suggest we intend to analyse the problem a power producer is confronted to upon acting in a market where spot and forward agreements are available since forwards allow to sell production in advance at a given price but do not hedge against cost volatility the total risk can be reduced by selling also in the spot market the analysis is further detailed to encompass the spread option inherent in electricity production we find a benchmark value for forwards to sign and the optimal spot forward combinations the analysis is carried out by accounting for market figures for input and output variables in the german market eex

is being flexible advantageous for demands this paper analyzes the impacts of flexible demands on day ahead market outcomes in a system with significant wind power production we use a two stage stochastic market clearing model where the first stage represents the day ahead market and the second stage represents the real time operation on one hand flexibility of demands is beneficial to the system as a whole since such flexibility reduces the operation cost but on the other hand shifts in demands from peak periods to off peak periods may influence prices in such a way that demands may not be willing to provide flexibility specifically we investigate the impacts of different degree of demand flexibility on day ahead prices a number of scenarios modeling the uncertainty associated with wind production at the operation stage and nonconvexities due to start up costs of generators and their minimum power outputs are taken into account

risk constrained self scheduling of a thermal power producer this paper addresses the self scheduling problem of a price taker power producer it focuses on risk modeling emphasizing the tradeoff existing between maximum profit and minimum risk the paper analyzes a self scheduling model that considers simultaneously profit and risk this model is formulated as a mixed integer quadratic programming problem which is solved using commercially available software relevant results from a realistic case study are discussed

a test for allocative efficiency in the local public sector abstract this paper develops a test for pareto efficiency in the local public sectorusing the analytical result that aggregate property value is maximized at the public output level which satisfies the samuelson condition for efficiency by using cross section data it is possible to deduce whether a representative community provides its public goods in a property value maximizing and hence efficient fashion the empirical results show no systematic tendency to either under or over provide public goods in a sample of massachusetts communities

a review on risk constrained hydropower scheduling in deregulated power market in deregulated power market hydro producer has in principle no other objective than to produce electricity and sell with maximum profit with lower market risk attention must focus on profit uncertainty caused by uncertainty in spot prices and reservoir inflow the purpose of this review is to assess the state of the art in hydropower operations considering profit risk under uncertainty and consider future directions for additional research and application physical and financial tools to hedge risk in bilateral market and risk assessment methods are all discussed in detail furthermore production resources can also be used to manage risk to a certain extent this concept when be integrated with variety of risk management methods under stochastic optimal framework has operational significance for hydro producer participating in electricity market

a single settlement energy only electric power market for unpredictable and intermittent participants we discuss a stochastic programming based method for scheduling electric power generation subject to uncertainty such uncertainty may arise from either imperfect forecasting or moment to moment fluctuations and on either the supply or the demand side the method gives a system of locational marginal prices that reflect the uncertainty and these may be used in a market settlement scheme in which payment is for energy only we show that this scheme is revenue adequate in expectation

optimal response of a thermal unit to an electricity spot market this paper addresses the optimal response of a thermal unit to an electricity spot market the objective is to maximize the unit profit from selling both energy and spinning reserve in the spot market the paper proposes a 0 1 mixed integer linear programming approach that allows a rigorous modeling of i nonconvex and nondifferentiable operating costs ii exponential start up costs iii available spinning reserve taking into account ramp rate restrictions and iv minimum up and down time constraints this approach overcomes the modeling limitations of dynamic programming approaches and is computationally efficient results from realistic case studies are reported

does the federal reserve care about the rest of the world many economists are accustomed to thinking about federal reserve policy any economists are accustomed to thinking about federal reserve policy in terms of the institution s dual mandate which refers to price stability in terms of the institution s dual mandate which refers to price stability and high employment and in which the exchange rate and other interand high employment and in which the exchange rate and other international variables matter only insofar as they infl uence infl ation and the output national variables matter only insofar as they infl uence infl ation and the output gap which is to say not very much gap which is to say not very much in fact this conventional view is heavily shaped by the distinctive and pecuin fact this conventional view is heavily shaped by the distinctive and peculiar circumstances of the last three decades when the infl uence of international liar circumstances of the last three decades when the infl uence of international considerations on fed policy has been limited in this paper i will discuss how the considerations on fed policy has been limited in this paper i will discuss how the federal reserve paid signifi cant attention to international considerations in its fi rst federal reserve paid signifi cant attention to international considerations in its fi rst two decades followed by relative inattention to such factors in the two plus decades two decades followed by relative inattention to such factors in the two plus decades that followed then back to renewed attention to international aspects of monetary that followed then back to renewed attention to international aspects of monetary policy in the 1960s before the recent period of benign neglect of the international policy in the 1960s before the recent period of benign neglect of the international dimension this longer perspective is a reminder that just because the fed has not dimension this longer perspective is a reminder that just because the fed has not attached priority to international aspects of monetary policy in the recent past we attached priority to international aspects of monetary policy in the recent past we have no guarantee that it will not do so in the future indeed i will argue in the have no guarantee that it will not do so in the future indeed i will argue in the conclusion that in the next few decades international aspects are likely to play a conclusion that in the next few decades international aspects are likely to play a larger role in federal reserve policy making larger role in federal reserve policy making 1

a rehabilitation of monetary policy in the 1950 s monetary policy in the united states in the 1950s was remarkably modern analysis of federal reserve records shows that policymakers had an overarching aversion to inflation and were willing to accept significant costs to prevent it from rising to even moderate levels this aversion to inflation was the result of policymakers beliefs that higher inflation could not raise output in the long run that the level of output that would trigger increases in inflation was only moderate and that inflation had large real costs in the medium and long runs furthermore both narrative and empirical analysis indicates that policymakers were not wedded to free reserves or other faulty indicators in their implementation of policy empirical estimates of a forward looking taylor rule show that policymakers in the 1950s raised nominal interest rates more than one for one with increases in expected inflation and suggests that monetary policy in the 1950s was more similar to policy in the 1980s and 1990s than to that in the late 1960s and 1970s one implication of these findings is that the inflation of the late 1960s and 1970s must have been the result of a change in the conduct of policy this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the value of school facility investments evidence from a dynamic regression discontinuity design author s cellini stephanie riegg ferreira fernando rothstein jesse abstract despite extensive public infrastructure spending surprisingly little is known about its economic return in this paper we estimate the value of school facility investments using housing markets standard models of local public goods imply that school districts should spend up to the point where marginal increases would have zero effect on local housing prices our research design isolates exogenous variation in investments by comparing school districts where referenda on bond issues targeted to fund capital expenditures passed and failed by narrow margins we extend this traditional regression discontinuity approach to identify the dynamic treatment effects of bond authorization on local housing prices student achievement and district composition our results indicate that california school districts underinvest in school facilities passing a referendum causes immediate sizable increases in home prices implying a willingness to pay on the part of marginal homebuyers of 1 50 or more for each 1 of capital spending these effects do not appear to be driven by changes in the income or racial composition of homeowners and the impact on test scores appears to explain only a small portion of the total housing price effect c 2010 by the president and fellows of harvard college and the massachusetts institute of technology

negotiating bilateral contracts in electricity markets in mixed pool bilateral electricity markets participants can sign forward bilateral contracts several months in advance of its delivery in addition generators may sell to and loads may buy from the pool at the spot price through the day ahead or balancing markets forward bilateral contracts have the advantage of price predictability in comparison with the uncertain spot price however the risk is that such a contract commits the partners to a price that may be disadvantageous compared to the spot price here we propose a systematic negotiation scheme through which a generator and load can reach a mutually beneficial and risk tolerable forward bilateral contract either physical or financial under this approach the generator and load respond rationally to a stream of bilateral bids counter bids and offers counter offers considering their respective benefits while accounting for the risks incurred by the prediction uncertainty in the pool spot price and other market parameters over the length of the contract each negotiating party can choose its own definition of risk which can be influenced by regret value at risk or dispersion from the mean numerical tests show that this flexible negotiating approach can be readily put into practice

weekly self scheduling forward contracting and pool involvement for an electricity producer an adaptive robust optimization approach abstract this paper addresses the optimization under uncertainty of the self scheduling forward contracting and pool involvement of an electricity producer operating a mixed power generation station which combines thermal hydro and wind sources and uses a two stage adaptive robust optimization approach in this problem the wind power production and the electricity pool price are considered to be uncertain and are described by uncertainty convex sets to solve this problem two variants of a constraint generation algorithm are proposed and their application and characteristics discussed both algorithms are used to solve two case studies based on two producers each operating equivalent generation units differing only in the thermal units characteristics their market strategies are investigated for three different scenarios corresponding to as many instances of electricity price forecasts the effect of the producers approach whether conservative or more risk prone is also investigated by solving each instance for multiple values of the so called budget parameter it was possible to conclude that this parameter influences markedly the producers strategy in terms of scheduling profit forward contracting and pool involvement these findings are presented and analyzed in detail and an attempted rationale is proposed to explain the less intuitive outcomes regarding the computational results these show that for some instances the two variants of the algorithms have a similar performance while for a particular subset of them one variant has a clear superiority

do professional forecasters trust in taylor type rules evidence from the wall street journal poll this article uses the monthly wall street journal poll between 2002 and 2010 to analyse whether professional economic forecasters believe in and thus apply taylor type rules for their own forecasts using their forecasts for the federal funds rate the inflation rate and capacity utilization we estimate whether these are internally consistent with the message of taylor type rules we find that the expectation formation can indeed be described by taylor type rules

regime switches agents beliefs and post world war ii u s macroeconomic dynamics the evolution of inflation and output over the last 50 years is examined through the lens of a micro founded model that allows for changes in the behavior of the federal reserve and in the volatility of structural shocks agents are aware of the possibility of regime changes and their beliefs have an impact on the law of motion underlying the macroeconomy the results support the view that there were regime switches in the conduct of monetary policy however the behavior of the federal reserve is identified by repeated fluctuations between a hawk and a dove regime instead of by the traditional pre and post volcker structure counterfactual simulations show that if agents had anticipated the appointment of an extremely conservative chairman inflation would not have reached the peaks of the late 70s and the inflation output trade off would have been less severe these beliefs counterfactuals are new in the literature finally the paper provides a bayesian algorithm to handle the technical difficulties that arise in a rational expectations model with markov switching regimes

a tale of two effects abstract this paper investigates the relationship between nominal interest rates and prices using nearly two centuries of data from ten industrial countries both a positive relationship between interest rates and price levels that is a positive gibson effect and a negative relationship between interest rates and subsequent price changes that is a negative fama fisher effect prevailed until world war i we propose a simple explanation wherein this doubly paradoxical juxtaposition of effects arises when money is supplied inelastically and prices are flexible this double paradox disappeared after world war ii when economies became mostly characterized by elastic money and sticky prices during that period a positive fama fisher effect emerged while the gibson effect largely dissipated

do old habits die hard central banks and the bretton woods gold puzzle abstract we assess the importance of individual and institutional experience in shaping macroeconomic policy by studying the persistence of gold standard monetary practices in the bretton woods system using new data from the imf archives we show that although they were not required to countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold the longer an institution spent in the gold standard and the older the policymakers the tighter the link between gold and currency such old habits prevented dollars and gold from working as perfect substitutes and ultimately contributed to the demise of the bretton woods system our findings highlight the persistence of past practices even in the face of radical institutional change and its consequences on the international monetary system

a century of us central banking goals frameworks accountability several key episodes in the 100 year history of the federal reserve have everal key episodes in the 100 year history of the federal reserve have been referred to in various contexts with the adjective great attached to been referred to in various contexts with the adjective great attached to them the great experiment of the federal reserve s founding the great them the great experiment of the federal reserve s founding the great depression the great infl ation and subsequent disinfl ation the great moderation depression the great infl ation and subsequent disinfl ation the great moderation and the recent great recession here i ll use this sequence of great episodes and the recent great recession here i ll use this sequence of great episodes to discuss the evolution over the past 100 years of three key aspects of federal to discuss the evolution over the past 100 years of three key aspects of federal reserve policymaking the goals of policy the policy framework and accountability reserve policymaking the goals of policy the policy framework and accountability and communication the changes over time in these three areas provide a useful and communication the changes over time in these three areas provide a useful perspective i believe on how the role and functioning of the federal reserve have perspective i believe on how the role and functioning of the federal reserve have changed since its founding in 1913 as well as some lessons for the present and for changed since its founding in 1913 as well as some lessons for the present and for the future the future

opportunity cost bidding by wind generators in forward markets analytical results wind generation must trade in forward electricity markets based on imperfect forecasts of its output and real time prices when the real time price differs for generators that are short and long the optimal forward strategy must be based on the opportunity costs of charges and payments in real time rather than a central estimate of wind output we present analytical results for wind s optimal forward strategy in the risk neutral case the optimal strategy is determined by the distribution of real time available wind capacity and the expected real time prices conditioned on the forward price and wind out turn our approach is simpler and more computationally efficient than formulations requiring specification of full joint distributions or a large set of scenarios informative closed form examples are derived for particular specifications of the wind price dependence structure in the usual case of uncertain forward prices the optimal bidding strategy generally consists of a bid curve for wind power rather than a fixed quantity bid a discussion of the risk averse problem is also provided an analytical result is available for aversion to production volume risk however we doubt whether wind owners should be risk averse with respect to the income from a single settlement period given the large number of such periods in a year

the effects of rural electrification on employment new evidence from south africa this paper estimates the impact of electrification on employment growth by analyzing south africa s mass roll out of electricity to rural households using several new data sources and two different identification strategies an instrumental variables strategy and a fixed effects approach i find that electrification significantly raises female employment within five years this new infrastructure appears to increase hours of work for men and women while reducing female wages and increasing male earnings several pieces of evidence suggest that household electrification raises employment by releasing women from home production and enabling microenterprises migration behavior may also be affected jel h54 l94

economic valuation of reserves in power systems with high penetration of wind power this paper proposes a methodology to determine the required level of spinning and nonspinning reserves in a power system with a high penetration of wind power the computation of the required reserve levels and their costs is achieved through a stochastic programming market clearing model spanning a daily time horizon this model considers the network constraints and takes into account the cost of both the load shedding and the wind spillage the methodology proposed is illustrated using an example and a realistic case study some conclusions are finally drawn

choosing the federal reserve chair lessons from history stable noninflationary growth has been the goal of monetary policymakers since the inception of the modern federal reserve in the mid 1930s policymakers however have come closer to achieving this goal in some eras than in others under chairmen william mcchesney martin jr in the 1950s and early 1960s and alan greenspan in the late 1980s and beyond the federal reserve presided over decades of low inflation and mild real fluctuations under paul volcker in the 1980s the federal reserve oversaw a significant recession but one that returned the american economy to near price stability and steady growth in contrast under marriner eccles in the late 1930s the federal reserve triggered a recession that was second in severity only to the great depression and that resulted in severe deflation and under arthur burns and g william miller in the 1970s the u s economy experienced high and rising inflation and painfully variable real growth an obvious question is why monetary policy has been so much more successful under some federal reserve chairmen than others this question has taken on new urgency because current chairman alan greenspan will need to be replaced in the near future it is crucial to understand what has determined policy success in the past and to identify factors that help predict success only by learning the lessons of history will we be able to choose a new federal reserve chair who is likely to replicate our policy triumphs and avoid our policy failures this paper demonstrates that the key determinants of policy success have been policymakers views about how the economy works and what monetary policy can

the road to power partisan loyalty and the centralized provision of local infrastructure this paper sets out a simple dynamic probabilistic voting model in which a government allocates a fixed budget across electoral districts that differ in their loyalties to the ruling party the model predicts that the geographic pattern of spending depends on the way the government balances long run machine politics considerations and the more immediate concern to win over swing voters empirical results obtained from a panel of electoral districts in quebec provide robust evidence that districts which display loyalty to the incumbent government receive disproportionately more spending especially close to an election at odds with the standard swing voter view

risk and profit in self scheduling for gencos this letter addresses the risk based self scheduling problem of a price taker generation company in the day ahead competitive electricity markets the letter analyzes a self scheduling model that accounts for profit and risk simultaneously the effect of risk is explicitly modeled in the self scheduling problem taking into account the variance of the market clearing prices the tradeoff of maximum profit versus minimum risk is properly addressed

risk constrained scheduling and offering strategies of a price maker hydro producer under uncertainty this paper presents a stochastic mixed integer linear programming smilp approach to maximize total expected profit of one price maker hydro producer in a pool based electricity market head dependence commitment decisions discharge ramping startup costs and forbidden zones are all effectively handled in our approach uncertainty about the competitors offers is adequately represented by residual demand curves rdcs scenarios the management of risk is suitably addressed by conditional value at risk cvar to provide the efficient frontier i e the solutions set for which the expected profit may not be augmented without enlarging the variance of profit appropriate offering strategies to the pool are also developed consisting of supply functions built for different risk levels a representative cascaded hydro system with 7 reservoirs is considered to analyze and compare risk neutral versus risk averse results

electricity forward curves with thin granularity theory and empirical evidence in the hourly epexspot market we propose a constructive definition of electricity forward price curve with cross sectional timescales featuring hourly frequency on the curve is jointly consistent with both risk neutral market information represented by baseload and peakload futures quotes and historical market information as mirrored by periodical patterns exhibited by the time series of day ahead prices from a methodological standpoint we combine nonparametric filtering with monotone convex interpolation such that the resulting forward curve is pathwise smooth and monotonic cross sectionally stable and time local from an empirical standpoint we exhibit these features in the context of epex spot and eex derivative markets we perform a backtesting analysis to assess the relative quality of our forward curve estimate compared to the benchmark market model of benth koekebakker and ollmar 2007

a robust optimization approach to energy and reserve dispatch in electricity markets abstract to a large extent electricity markets worldwide still rely on deterministic procedures for clearing energy and reserve auctions however increasing shares of the production mix consist of renewable sources whose nature is stochastic and non dispatchable as their output is uncertain and cannot be controlled by the operators of the production units stochastic programming models allow the joint determination of the day ahead energy and reserve dispatch accounting for the uncertainty in the output from these sources however the size of these models gets quickly out of hand as a large number of scenarios are needed to properly represent the uncertainty in this work we take an alternative approach and cast the problem as an adaptive robust optimization problem the resulting day ahead energy and reserve schedules yield the minimum system cost accounting for the cost of the redispatch decisions at the balancing real time stage in the worst case realization of the stochastic production within a specified uncertainty set we propose a novel reformulation of the problem that allows considering general polyhedral uncertainty sets in a case study we show that in comparison to a risk averse stochastic programming model the robust optimization approach progressively trades off optimality in expectation with improved performance in terms of risk these differences however gradually taper off as the level of risk aversion increases for the stochastic programming approach computational studies show that the robust optimization model scales well with the size of the power system which is promising in view of real world applications of this approach

monetary policy rules under heterogeneous inflation expectations this paper evaluates the role of inflation forecast heterogeneity in u s monetary policymaking the deviation between private and central bank inflation forecasts is identified as a significant explanatory factor behind the fed s monetary policy decisions a discretionary policy rule that includes the forecast deviation as an additional argument is estimated empirically for the period 1975 2009 covering the chairmanships of arthur burns george miller paul volcker alan greenspan and the beginning of ben bernanke s term by using inflation forecasts obtained from the federal open market committee s greenbook and the survey of professional forecasters and real time estimates of the output gap the estimated rule appears to provide a consistent description of the fed s policy during the sample period presenting an alternative perspective regarding the key drivers of the high inflation phase in the 1970s as well as of the successful volcker disinflation in the early 1980s and the gradual transition to a regime of lower inflation and high policy credibility that has increasingly characterized monetary policy over the past two decades jel e50 e52 e58

paving streets for the poor experimental analysis of infrastructure effects abstract we provide the first experimental estimation of the effects of the supply of publicly financed urban infrastructure on property values using random allocation of first time street asphalting of residential streets located in peripheral neighborhoods in mexico we show that within two years of the intervention households are able to transform their increased property wealth into significantly larger rates of vehicle ownership household appliances and home improvements increased consumption is made possible by both credit use and less saving a cost benefit analysis indicates that the valuation of street asphalting as capitalized into property values is about as large as construction costs

public infrastructure investments productivity and welfare in fixed geographic areas abstract measures of the value of public investments are critical inputs into the policy process and aggregate production and cost functions have become the dominant methods of evaluating these benefits this paper examines the limitations of these approaches in light of applied production and spatial equilibrium theories a spatial equilibrium model of an economy with nontraded localized public goods like infrastructure is proposed and a method for identifying the role of public capital in firm production and household preferences is derived empirical evidence from a sample of large us cities suggests that public capital provides significant marginal benefits but the marginal productivity of public capital is low and aggregate city willingness to pay for large increases in public capital is less than their cost the paper concludes with a brief discussion of the political economy of urban infrastructure investment

optimal bidding strategies for hydro electric producers a literature survey in a competitive environment with bid based markets power generation companies desire to develop bidding strategies that maximize their revenue in this paper we ask what approaches and methodologies have been used to model the bidding problem for hydro electric producers we present the problem s developments over time and through reviewing different variants of the problem progressively build to the case in which the agent is a price maker hydro electric producer in each variant of the bidding problem we examine how the approaches used to solve it may or may not be applicable to other variants last for the price maker hydro electric producer s bidding problem we recognize the most recent developments and illuminate a path for future efforts