a multiobjective approach to vendor selection abstract purchases from vendors involve significant costs for many firms decisions related to these purchases include the selection of vendors and the determination of order quantities to be placed with the selected vendors such decisions are frequently multiobjective in nature that is they are evaluated by more than one criterion at least 23 criteria for various vendor selection problems have been identified in this article we present a multiobjective approach to systematically analyze the inherent tradeoffs involved in multicriteria vendor selection problems the approach is motivated by and demonstrated with an actual purchasing problem facing a division of a fortune 500 company

targeting inflation by constant interest rate forecasts this paper reviews the concept of constant interest rate inflation forecast cir targeting it stresses the time inconsistent nature of cir targeting and provides a new method for constructing cir forecasts consistently in the context of models with forward looking variables a dynamic new keynesian model with forward looking price setting is used as an illustration suggesting that the main reason for choosing a relatively long forecast targeting horizon lies in the monetary authorities objective to smooth interest rate movements as greater nominal and real stabilization is achieved at a relatively short inflation forecast targeting horizon

central bank design abstract starting with a blank slate how could one design the institutions of a central bank for the united states this paper explores the question of how to design a central bank drawing on the relevant economic literature and historical experiences while staying free from concerns about how the fed got to be what it is today or the short term political constraints it has faced at various times the goal is to provide an opinionated overview that puts forward the trade offs associated with different choices and identifies areas where there are clear messages about optimal central bank design

signalling commitment with monetary and inflation targets abstract this article studies a two period game between the public and a central bank about whose ability to commit to an announced target the public is uncertain the central bank chooses between announcing a target for an intermediate variable money growth and its goal variable inflation prior to setting its instrument the central bank receives private noisy information about the link between money growth and inflation monetary targeting facilitates communication of the central bank s type in that the probability of separation is always higher than under inflation targeting this advantage of monetary targets from a dependable central bank s perspective is outweighed for most parameter values by the advantage of inflation targeting in terms of inflation control if the regime choice is treated as a strategic decision over a large range of parameter values both central banks choose the regime that a dependable central bank would prefer

signaling fiscal regime sustainability abstract this paper proposes a signaling model that offers a new perspective on why governments deviate from optimal tax smoothing and delay debt stabilization in our model dependable but not fully credible governments have an incentive to tighten the fiscal regime when the signaling effect on credit ratings is larger that is when a sufficiently large stock of debt has been accumulated at this point they may deviate from tax smoothing not to be mimicked by weak governments we show that a testable prediction of our model is that primary balances and debt stocks are complementary inputs in the credit rating function and we successfully test it on italian irish belgian and danish data

identifying a forward looking monetary policy in an open economy i identify a forward looking monetary policy function in a forecast augmented var foavar model by using forecasted macroeconomic variables in addition to the realized variables used in a standard var i find that forecasted variables play a greater role than realized variables in a central bank s policy decisions i also find that a contractionary policy shock in the foavar generates impulse responses of macroeconomic variables that are consistent with the predictions of economic theory while the same shock causes a price puzzle and a delayed overshooting response of the exchange rate in the standard model

short run impacts of a severance tax change evidence from alaska energy states face a fundamental tradeoff when increasing severance tax rates potential gains in tax revenues versus potential losses in exploration development and production activity despite the significant implications of this tradeoff there is very little empirical evidence on the short run responsiveness of extraction related activities to changes in severance taxes we conduct a comparative case study to evaluate the short term impact of a severance tax increase on oil related activities and development in alaska in 2007 the introduction of alaska s clear and equitable share aces more than tripled the tax liability for much of the oil already under production in alaska we construct a synthetic alaska from a set of u s energy states with the purpose of estimating the counterfactual evolution of oil production exploration and development wells gross state product and employment in the absence of aces overall our results indicate that there is no discernible difference in the outcome variables of interest between alaska and its synthetic control after the implementation of aces suggesting that aces had a minimal effect on alaskan oil related activity and development in the short run

inflation and reputation in many macroeconomic models with rational expectations optimal policy is time inconsistent and therefore announced policy may not be credible this paper models the government s credibility explicitly using kreps and wilson s analysis time consistent optimal government policy emerges as a sequential equilibrium in a repeated game this policy is at least as good as the inconsistent optimal policy and dominates the consistent policy when reputational effects are ignored thus the analysis resolves the problem of specifying a credible optimal policy in such models the results show why attempts to disinflate may lead to recession even with perfectly flexible prices this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

is there a role for monetary aggregates in the conduct of monetary policy abstract we examine the potential policy role of monetary aggregates by attempting to use them as effectively as possible in the analysis of empirical relationships we focus on their role as information variables since any more ambitious use such as in a policy rule would presuppose some information content in the aggregates our results show that in the united states since 1979 the monetary aggregates fall considerably short of those requirements and results with german m3 are hardly more favorable we also investigate whether empirical relationships are not reflective of information relationships because of the use of these variables in countercyclical policy the results are not consistent with that interpretation

monetary policy inclinations we examine whether central banks should complement their inflation forecasts with interest rate projections introducing a central bank loss function that accounts for deviations from announcements we incorporate the publication of policy inclinations into a dynamic monetary model we show that in the presence of cost push shocks the publication of interest rate forecasts tends to improve welfare

is hotelling s rule relevant to domestic oil production a model of oil supply from known reserves is developed to incorporate geological and engineering principles in the oil field operator s decision problem oil production from existing wells within an oil field is isolated from the drilling of new wells the geo engineering

announcements of interest rate forecasts do policymakers stick to them if central banks value the ex post accuracy of their forecasts previously announced interest rate paths might affect the current policy rate we explore whether this forecast adherence has influenced the monetary policies of the reserve bank of new zealand and the norges bank the two central banks with the longest history of publishing interest rate paths we derive and estimate a policy rule for a central bank that is reluctant to deviate from its forecasts the rule can nest a variety of interest rate rules we find that policymakers appear to be constrained by their most recently announced forecasts

how forward looking is optimal monetary policy we calculate optimal monetary policy rules for several variants of a simple optimizing model of the monetary transmission mechanism with sticky prices and or wages we show that robustly optimal rules can be represented by interest rate feedback rules that generalize the celebrated proposal of taylor 1993 optimal rules however require that the current interest rate operating target depend positively on the recent past level of the operating target and its recent rate of increase in a way that is characteristic of estimated central bank reaction functions but not of taylor s proposal we furthermore find that a robustly optimal policy rule is almost inevitably an implicit rule that requires the central bank to use a structural model to project the economy s evolution under the contemplated policy action however calibrated examples suggest that optimal rules place less weight on projections of inflation or output many quarters in the future than do rules often discussed in the literature on inflation targeting or in the current practice of inflation forecast targeting central banks

pegged exchange rate regimes a trap this paper studies the empirical and theoretical association between the duration of a pegged exchange rate and the cost experienced upon exiting the regime we confirm empirically that exits from pegged exchange rate regimes during the past two decades have often been accompanied by crises the cost of which increases with the duration of the peg before the crisis we explain these observations in a framework in which the exchange rate peg is used as a commitment mechanism to achieve inflation stability but multiple equilibria are possible we show that there are ex ante large gains from choosing a more conservative not only in order to mitigate the inflation bias from the well known time inconsistency problem but also to steer the economy away from the high inflation equilibria these gains however come at a cost in the form of the monetary authority s lesser responsiveness to output shocks in these circumstances using a pegged exchange rate as an anti inflation commitment device can create a trap whereby the regime initially confers gains in anti inflation credibility but ultimately results in an exit occasioned by a big enough adverse real shock that creates large welfare losses to the economy we also show that the more conservative is the regime in place and the larger is the cost of regime change the longer will be the average spell of the fixed exchange rate regime and the greater the output contraction at the time of a regime change

the choice of exchange rate bands balancing credibility and flexibility abstract this paper develops a framework for the optimal choice of exchange rate bands within an environment in which policymakers dislike nominal exchange rate variability but value the flexibility to adjust the nominal exchange rate in response to shocks in order to attain real exchange rate objectives the paper provides an endogenous characterization of the optimal exchange rate band in terms of the underlying distribution of shocks to the current and capital accounts of the balance of payments and in terms of the commitment reputation of policymakers

credibility of policies versus credibility of policymakers standard models of policy credibility defined as the expectation that an announced policy will be carried out emphasize the preferences of the policymaker and the role of tough policies in signaling toughness and raising credibility whether a policy is carried out however will also reflect the state of the economy we present a model in which a policymaker maintains a fixed parity in good times but devalues if the unemployment rate gets too high our main conclusion is that if there is persistence in unemployment observing a tough policy in a given period may lower rather than raise the credibility of a no devaluation pledge in subsequent periods we test this implication on ems interest rates and find support for our hypothesis

inflation expectations in latin america this paper tests the rationality of inflation forecasts surveyed in mexico brazil and chile and identifies their recent formation rule there is strong evidence that forecasts are unbiased but forecasters have not been fully efficient in the use of available information the paper assesses the importance of inflation targets to anchor inflation expectations in these countries and finds that in most cases there is room for improvement in credibility

the non optimality of proposed monetary policy rules under timeless perspective commitment abstract in a near canonical forward looking model the timeless perspective form of commitment typically provides outcomes that are on average superior to those resulting from discretion the specific condition that appears in the literature is however not optimal from the relevant perspective

signalling wage controls and monetary disinflation policy focuses on wage control and monetary disinflation policy how the crucial variable to control is the money supply and wage and price controls should be avoided because of their macroeconomic costs the two types of government as being low inflation governments and high inflation governments how wage controls have microeconomic costs

time consistent collection of optimal seigniorage a unifying framework this paper reviews the existing literature on the time consistency problem of seigniorage collection when monetary policy is determined by optimal taxation considerations it develops a unifying accounting framework and suggests a general measure for seigniorage which encompasses the standard measures employed in the literature in addition the ex ante optimal solution to the optimal taxation problem is derived and interpreted in relation to the ramsey principle we show that the different recommendations of the public finance literature i e the friedman rule of optimal deflation moderately positive inflation and seigniorage maximizing inflation are specific solutions to the optimal taxation problem the paper continues with a formal illustration of the time consistency problem of the ex ante optimal policy and the characterization of the time consistent solution under discretion as possible solutions to the time consistency problem we consider reputational forces institutional reforms that establish central bank independence and specific ways of asset and debt management in particular it is formally shown that a modified version of the asset and debt management scheme suggested by persson persson and svensson is not only necessary but also sufficient for optimality although this did not hold in their model

reputation and imperfect information abstract a common observation in the informal literature of economics and elsewhere is that is multistage games players may seek early in the game to acquire a reputation for being tough or benevolent or something else but this phenomenon is not observed in some formal game theoretic analyses of finite games such as selten s finitely repeated chain store game or in the finitely repeated prisoners dilemma we reexamine selten s model adding to it a small amount of imperfect or incomplete information about players payoffs and we find that this addition is sufficient to give rise to the reputation effect that one intuitively expects

when and how much to talk credibility and flexibility in monetary policy with private information abstract this paper analyzes the role of noisy or imprecise announcements in mitigating the basic credibility problem in monetary policy based on a model where the monetary authority s private information gives rise to an unavoidable trade off between flexibility and credibility the analysis finds that noisy announcements can serve as a meaningful form of communication to make that trade off more favorable however such talk is not cheap the analysis predicts that those central banks who can speak more precisely are those who are less likely to speak at all

rational expectations and policy credibility following a change in regime we examine the dynamic path of an economy after a change in regime when neither the policy to be followed nor the reactions of the public are known the model is an application of kreps and wilson s reputation model to barro and gordon s macroeconomic policy game equilibrium is defined to be the dynamically consistent solution to a game between the government and the private sector it involves mixed strategies and bayesian learning by both sides until the uncertainty about government and public behaviour is resolved the absence of complete credibility of government policy and intransigence of private sector wage demands increase the output loss of disinflation the analysis also sheds light on the strategic nature of economic policymaking and the role of information in macroeconomics

the voting analytic hierarchy process method for selecting supplier abstract supplier selection has received extensive attention in supply chain management yahya et al j oper res soc 50 1999 916 930 integrate a collaborative purchasing programme where one of the aims is to select suppliers they illustrate a new approach based on the use of saaty s analytic hierarchy process ahp method that was developed to assist in multi criteria decision making problems in order to decide the total ranking of the suppliers we compare the weighted sum of the selection number of rank vote after determining the weights in a selected rank this investigation presents a novel weighting procedure in place of ahp s paired comparison for selecting suppliers it provides a simpler method than ahp that is called voting analytic hierarchy process but which does not lose the systematic approach of deriving the weights to be used and for scoring the performance of suppliers

taxation depletion and welfare a simulation study of the u s petroleum resource abstract exhaustible resources in the united states are subject to taxes on property value production and corporate income as applied in practice each tax can cause high grading the elimination of incentives to explore develop and produce marginal resources and each can tilt the time path of production toward the present or the future the potential for such tax induced distortions has been shown in the theoretical literature due to the dynamic nature of resource exploitation and the resulting complexity of models developed to study it however purely theoretical exercises have been unable to provide detailed results of a sort that could help guide tax policy the present paper develops a simulation model of the u s petroleum resource and uses it to study the effects of taxation on exploration and production the model is partial equilibrium in scope and views the industry as a present value maximizing representative firm given expectations on the future time path of price and a function that relates reserve additions to exploratory effort the industry chooses time paths for exploration and production parameters of relevant functions are estimated with data for u s petroleum operations in the onshore region of the lower 48 states the simulated outcomes indicate that property and production severance taxes cause substantial deadweight losses a tax on corporate income from extraction imposes a very small deadweight loss and the property tax significantly biases utilization of the resource away from the future and toward the present

unconventional energy taxation and interstate welfare an analysis of pennsylvania s severance tax policy abstract natural gas production from unconventional sources has increased over the past decade a significant portion of this increase has come from output in the marcellus region of pennsylvania this output has altered gas markets and repositioned pennsylvania as a major gas exporter it has also put pennsylvania at odds with other states as it is one of a few without a formal severance tax on extractive resources in this paper we combine results from a structural demand model with a two sector trade model to analyze the interstate welfare impacts of pennsylvania s current severance tax proposal our results demonstrate that most of the welfare losses from this proposed policy are likely to be shifted to residents in other states we also demonstrate how fluctuations in gas prices can substantially reduce tax revenue these findings have important implications for both pennsylvania and u s energy policy given the significant rise in energy production from new sources throughout the u s

announcements inflation targeting and central bank incentives this paper studies the incentives a central bank faces in announcing inflation targets when the central bank has private information about the economy and the public is uncertain about the central bank s preferences targeting rules in the absence of announcements reduce the inflationary bias of discretionary policy but they distort the central bank s response to private information about the economy this distortion is eliminated when the central bank is allowed to announce the inflation target announcements also affect credibility although the way they do so depends on the exact definition of credibility that is employed in standard models of monetary policy in which dynamic inconsistency plays a prominent role announcements from the central bank about its policy inten tions are not believable the central bank has an incentive to lie yet central banks often do make announcements and they are legally required to do so in some cases the bank of england for example must issue periodic inflation reports the chairman of the federal reserve is required by the humphrey hawkins act to testify before congress twice each year to explain the fed s policy actions and to detail the fed s outlook for future economic develop ments similarly the reserve bank of new zealand is required under the reserve bank act of 1989 to publish policy statements that spell out its plans the january 1994 legislation governing the banque de france requires its gov ernor to appear before parliament and the european central bank must under the maastricht treaty report at least annually to the european parlia ment if public statements about policy intentions are not credible the question naturally arises as to why central banks are frequently required to make them the answer of course is that announcements do provide the public with some information given the growing interest in policy transparency particu larly among those central banks that have adopted some form of inflation targeting it is perhaps surprising that there has been relatively little explicit analysis of how inflation targeting requirements might combine with reporting requirements to influence the informational content of announcements the conduct of stabilization policies and the central bank s credibility the purpose of this paper is to analyse the way inflation targeting affects the incentives the central bank faces in announcing targets when the central bank has private information about the economy and the public is uncertain about the central bank s preferences inflation targeting has seen increased popularity in recent years but a fixed target for inflation is generally suboptimal in the face of supply shocks while state contingent targets are viewed as not feasible an important result of this paper is that allowing the central bank to announce its own inflation target

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

solution and estimation of re macromodels with optimal policy macro models of monetary policy typically involve forward looking behavior except in rare circumstances we have to apply some numerical method to find the optimal policy and the rational expectations equilibrium this paper summarizes a few useful methods and shows how they can be combined with a kalman filter to estimate the deep model parameters with maximum likelihood simulations of a macro model with staggered price setting interest rate elastic output and optimal monetary policy illustrate the properties of this estimation approach

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

performance of inflation targeting based on constant interest rate projections monetary policy is sometimes formulated in terms of a target level of inflation a fixed time horizon and a constant interest rate that is anticipated to achieve the target at the specified horizon these requirements lead to constant interest rate cir instrument rules using the standard new keynesian model it is shown that some forms of cir policy lead to both indeterminacy of equilibria and instability under adaptive learning however some other forms of cir policy perform better we also examine the properties of the different policy rules in the presence of inertial demand and price behaviour

optimal policy with credibility concerns abstract this paper considers a reputation model of optimal taxation in which the public is unsure about the government type a long lived government can be trustworthy meaning that it commits to its announced tax rate or opportunistic meaning that it retains the ability to change its tax rate after announcing it unlike in most prior studies the committed strategy in this model is optimally chosen by the trustworthy type we show that this change has significant consequences for the equilibrium dynamics the optimal committed strategy is found to vary with the time preferences of the two government types the initial reputation of the government and the elasticity of household production this formulation explains differences in policy responses across governments in the face of similar credibility problems

the quest for prosperity without inflation abstract in recent years activist monetary policy rules responding to inflation and the level of economic activity have been advanced as a means of achieving effective output stabilization without inflation advocates of such policies suggest that their flexibility may yield substantial stabilization benefits while avoiding the excesses of overzealous discretionary fine tuning such as is thought to characterize the experience of the 1960s and 1970s in this study i present evidence suggesting that these conclusions are misguided using an estimated model i show that when informational limitations are properly accounted for activist policies would not have averted the great inflation but instead would have resulted in worse macroeconomic performance than the actual historical experience the problem can be attributed in large part to the counterproductive reliance of these policies on the output gap the analysis suggests that the dismal economic outcomes of the great inflation may have resulted from an unfortunate pursuit of activist policies in the face of bad measurement specifically overoptimistic assessments of the output gap associated with the productivity slowdown of the late 1960s and early 1970s

the dynamics of optimal gradual stabilizations inflation inertia may be quite tenacious because of the simultaneous interaction between policy actions and inflationary expectations under imperfect credibility this result is particularly relevant for understanding some of the failed efforts to stabilize inflation in south america this article deals with the issue of inertia in the framework of imperfect information about the type of the policymaker and extends the existing models to an infinite horizon because policymakers do not have perfect control of inflation a frivolous stabilizer may deviate from the policies of a serious stabilizer without necessarily being unmasked immediately when the difference in the ability of strong and weak policymakers to control inflation is large unexpected inflation may be persistently negative for quite a while thus causing reduced economic activity and giving the indication that credibility is low if the policymaker persists with the stabilization this pattern gradually disappears as his reputation rises but before this final stage the serious policymaker has to compromise his inflation objective in view of adverse expectation about this type and pay the cost of imperfect credibility

environmental and land use regulation in nonrenewable resource industries implications from the wyoming checkerboard this paper examines how the oil and soning that these effects should be similar gas industry responds to changes in environmental to those of production and property taxes and land use regulations pertaining to drilling by like stollery however they do not conexamining differences in regulatory practices on sider the situation where environmental federal and private land a simulation model for regulations directly affect explo ration and wyoming is used to estimate losses of oil and gas development output over the next 60 years because of higher activities in any case the drilling costs found on federal property the pres limited number of studies in this area and ent value of these losses comes to about 800 mil their narrow scope is surprising in light of lion a lso this case study is of interest because it the importance of environmental complishows that future production is more sensitive to ance costs to firms that produce from nonchanges in environmental regulations that apply to renewable resources and because of the drilling than to changes in severance taxes levied observation by jaffe et al 1995 that a on production

indicator variables for optimal policy the optimal weights on indicators in models with partial information about the state of the economy and forward looking variables are derived and interpreted both for equilibria under discretion and under commitment an example of optimal monetary policy with a partially observable potential output and a forward looking indicator is examined the optimal response to the optimal estimate of potential output displays certainty equivalence whereas the optimal response to the imperfect observation of output depends on the noise in this observation

speed limit policies the output gap and optimal monetary policy in a standard new keynesian model a myopic central bank concerned with stabilizing inflation and changes in the output gap will implement a policy under discretion that replicates the optimal timeless perspective precommitment policy by stabilizing output gap changes the central bank imparts inertia into output and inflation that is absent under pure discretion even a fully optimizing i e non myopic central bank operating in a discretionary policy environment achieves better social outcomes if it focuses on inflation and changes in the output gap than are achieved under inflation targeting this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

changes in uk monetary policy rules and discretion in practice abstract in october 1992 following sterling s departure from the exchange rate mechanism britain adopted a new framework for monetary policy that comprised two components first an explicit target for inflation and second institutional changes designed to give greater influence to the bank of england by increasing the transparency and openness of the process by which interest rates are set this paper analyses those changes from the perspective of the debate on rules versus discretion and argues that an appropriate design of institutional arrangements can provide incentives for central bankers to pursue the first best state contingent monetary policy

gaining and losing erm credibility the case of the united kingdom the model of this paper highlights two aspects of credibility signaling the type of government which is assumed not to be known and for any type the likelihood that if circumstances are sufficiently unfavorable a devaluation will be impossible to avoid since not to do so would go against the government s interests these two factors have opposite implications for the link between unemployment and interest differentials high unemployment signals a tough government but also makes it less likely that even a tough government will maintain an existing parity copyright 1995 by royal economic society

pitfalls of forward looking monetary policy a distinctive feature of the procedures recently adopted by inflation targeting central banks is their forward looking character forecasts of the economy s future evolution conditional upon alternative policies play a central role in the banks deliberations to an extent that the procedures adopted are sometimes characterized as forecast targeting this emphasis upon the future consequences of policy is unsurprising in an approach that tries to maintain as transparent as possible a relation between the banks9 decisions and the ultimate goals of monetary policy after all current decisions can still affect the future but not the past nonetheless common descriptions of how inflation targeting is or should be practiced go too far in proposing purely forward looking procedures i shall argue instead that an optimal framework for the conduct of monetary policy must generally be history dependent in ways

controlling private mineral exploitation firms using conditional license renewal schemes in the early 1980 s the governments of canada and newfoundland disagreed concerning jurisdiction over the hibernia oil field the dispute revealed the belief that the scope and kind of economic benefits generated by the development would depend on which level of government had control differences in objectives could have practical significance only if there exist control instruments with which to influence the pattern of resource exploitation we examine one such instrument here the government of a province or state can most strongly influence the form of the extraction program through direct management as it may be difficult for such a government to recruit the necessary expertise it might have no alternative but to import this by encouraging outside firms to extract in return for shares of the profits the local government is assumed to be interested in using the newly found revenues to finance a project such as a college or other training facility which will provide benefits after the deposit is exhausted such a project would require a near constant flow of funds over many periods an extraction firm maximizes the total discounted profit by extracting successively declining amounts each period unless the discount rate is zero and there are no stock effects on marginal extraction cost this implies that revenue from taxes on production or profit will also decline through time use of such taxes alone would force the government to save significant portions of the revenues from early periods to fund its new program later on this can create political problems for democratically elected officials since surpluses indicate to voters that their tax bills are excessive a forward looking government could earmark the newly found revenue to fund the new program effectively instituting a precommitment device see strotz 1955 56 its next task would be to find a way of altering the declining revenue flow so that tax collections over time are even or nearly so one simplistic solution would have the government require a fixed payment

a quantitative description of state level taxation of oil and gas production in the continental u s abstract we provide a quantitative description of state level taxation of oil and gas production in the continental u s for 2004 2013 aggregate revenues from production taxes nearly doubled in real terms over the period reaching 10 3 billion and accounting for 20 of tax receipts in the top ten revenue states the average state had a tax rate of 3 6 nationally the average dollar of production was taxed at 4 2 the oil specific rate estimated for the study period is 2 4 per barrel or 5 5 per ton of carbon lastly state level tax rates are two thirds higher in states excluding oil and gas wells from local property taxes suggesting that the policies are substitutes for one another

financial intermediation and macroeconomic analysis a macroeconomic framework in which fi nancial intermediation matters for the allocation of resources allocation of resources in this paper i fi rst discuss why neither standard macroeconomic models that in this paper i fi rst discuss why neither standard macroeconomic models that abstract from fi nancial intermediation nor traditional models of the bank lending abstract from fi nancial intermediation nor traditional models of the bank lending channel are adequate as a basis for understanding the recent crisis i argue that channel are adequate as a basis for understanding the recent crisis i argue that instead we need models in which intermediation plays a crucial role but in which instead we need models in which intermediation plays a crucial role but in which intermediation is modeled in a way that better conforms to current institutional intermediation is modeled in a way that better conforms to current institutional realities in particular we need models that recognize that a market based fi nan realities in particular we need models that recognize that a market based fi nan cial system one in which intermediaries fund themselves by selling securities in cial system one in which intermediaries fund themselves by selling securities in competitive markets rather than collecting deposits subject to reserve require competitive markets rather than collecting deposits subject to reserve require ments is not the same as a frictionless system ments is not the same as a frictionless system i then sketch the basic elements of an approach that allows fi nancial inter i then sketch the basic elements of an approach that allows fi nancial inter mediation and credit frictions to be integrated into macroeconomic analysis in a mediation and credit frictions to be integrated into macroeconomic analysis in a straightforward way i show how the model can be used to analyze the macroeco straightforward way i show how the model can be used to analyze the macroeco nomic consequences of the recent fi nancial crisis and conclude with a discussion of nomic consequences of the recent fi nancial crisis and conclude with a discussion of some implications of the model for the conduct of monetary policy some implications of the model for the conduct of monetary policy

commodity price volatility with endogenous natural resources abstract natural resource reserves are exogenous in models of small commodity exporters changes in the stock of reserves play no role in the macroeconomy including in business cycle volatility trade dynamics or exchange rate volatility we consider richer supply dynamics and model exploration and depletion we show that an endogenous supply of reserves is important for capturing the stylised facts associated with commodity price shocks including a commodity currency the crowding out of non commodity activity dutch disease and a volatile business cycle we also consider how exploration and depletion affect the ranking of optimal monetary and taxation policies when natural resource reserves are held fixed monetary policy is an efficient tool for stabilising the effects of commodity price shocks however when exploration and depletion are accounted for using interest rates to stabilise the effects of commodity price changes becomes inefficient using taxes on the resource sector specifically an ad valorem royalty remains efficient

inflationary finance under discrepion and rules inflationary finance involves first the tax on cash balances from expected inflation and second a capital levy from unexpected inflation from the standpoint of minimizing distortions these capital levies are attractive ex post to the policymaker in a full equilibrium two conditions hold 1 the monetary authority optimizes subject to people s expectations mechanisms and 2 people form expectations rationally given their knowledge of the policymaker s objectives the outcomes under discretionary policy are contrasted with those generated under rules in a purely discretionary regime the monetary authority can make no meaningful commitments about the future behavior of money and prices under an enforced rule it becomes possible to make some guarantees hence the links between monetary actions and inflationary expectations can be internalized there is a distinction between fully contingent rules and rules of simple form a simple rule allows the internalization of some connections between policy act ion and inflationary expectations but discretion permits some desirable flexibility of monetary growth this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

cheap talk and the fed a theory of imprecise policy announcments this paper examines the problem faced by the federal reserve in announcing its private information about its future policies because it would like to manipulate expectations and pursue a time inconsistent policy the fed cannot reveal its policy objectives precisely and credibly it can however communicate some information about its goals through the cheap talk mechanism of vincent crawford and joel sobel making announcements that are imprecise and only giving ranges within which these goals may lie copyright 1989 by american economic association

imperfect credibility and the zero lower bound as the nominal interest rate cannot fall below zero a central bank with imperfect credibility faces a significant challenge to stabilize the economy in a new keynesian model during a large recession we characterize the optimal monetary policy at the zero lower bound for the nominal interest rate if credibility is imperfect confronting monetary policy communication of the u s federal reserve and the swedish riksbank with such a framework the credibility of both institutions is shown to have been low in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis

optimal accommodation by strong policymakers under incomplete information abstract this paper examines the optimal behavior of a policymaker who is able to precommit labelled strong when the public entertains the possibility that he is either strong or weak unable to precommit the main result is that in the presence of doubts about their type it is optimal even for strong policymakers to partially accommodate inflationary expectations this contrasts with vickers 1986 who finds that when strength is conceived in terms of the relative concern for employment the strong policymaker inflates less under incomplete than under full information the paper also provides a theory of endogenous announcements

predation reputation and entry deterrence abstract economists often argue that predatory practices are irrational since there exist cheaper or more certain means to gain or maintain a monopoly our gametheoretic equilibrium analysis suggests that if a firm is threatened by several potential entrants then predation may be rational against early entrants even if it is costly when viewed in isolation because it yields a reputation which deters other entrants asymmetric information plays a crucial role in our analysis since it provides the rationale for entrants to base their expectations of the firm s future behavior on its past actions the analysis also suggests methods to treat general reputational phenomena

optimal interest rate smoothing this paper considers the desirability of the observed tendency of central banks to adjust interest rates only gradually in response to changes in economic conditions it shows in the context of a simple model of optimizing private sector behaviour that assignment of an interest rate smoothing objective to the central bank may be desirable even when reduction of the magnitude of interest rate changes is not a social objective in itself this is because a response of policy to irrelevant lagged variables may be desirable owing to the way it steers private sector expectations of future policy

multiple equilibria and currency crisis evidence for korea abstract this paper estimates a non linear model that allows for multiple equilibria using data on korea during the currency crisis in 1997 results suggest that korea may have been vulnerable to self fulfilling speculation as early as january 1997 an extended phase of multiple equilibria started in october 1997 the fundamentals for korea remained in this crisis zone until march 1998 korea briefly entered a multiple equilibria zone again in may and june 1998 before stabilizing in july 1998 results are supportive of roles for weakness in fundamentals and for self fulfilling beliefs in explaining currency crises

inflation targeting with imperfect information in a global games setup with imperfect commitment technology we show that low targets the ones close to the optimal inflation under perfect commitment are unattainable leading to a trade off between low and credible targets moreover since noisy public information helps to coordinate expectations around the announced target our article supports unconventional policy prescriptions first weaker countries need to impose higher targets second less transparency helps to make the announced target credible and then reduces the optimally announced target results are based on a general central bank loss function encompassing models traditionally used to discuss central bank decisions

transparency reputation and credibility under floating and pegged exchange rates this paper shows that if the cost of importing foreign inflation and real exchange rate shocks are not too high then the equilibrium nominal exchange rate regime for a country with a credibility problem is a peg under which credibility is higher and inflation is lower than under a float this holds true although devaluations of the pegged rate are assumed to be costless the reason is that as realized inflation is not perfectly controllable planned inflation under a float is private information in contrast since the exchange rate can be perfectly controlled pegging resolves the private information problem is more transparent and makes reputation more effective

a parsimonious model of tax avoidance and distortions in petroleum exploration and development abstract we present a simple model of petroleum exploration and development that can be applied to study the performance of alternative tax systems and identify potential distortions although the model is highly simplified it incorporates many factors and some of the key tradeoffs that would influence an investor s investment behavior the model recognizes the role of enhanced oil recovery and treats the impact of taxation on exploration and development in an integrated manner consistent with an investor s joint optimization of investments at both stages of the process the model is simple and user friendly which facilitates application to a broad range of problems

an optimizing is lm specification for monetary policy and business cycle analysis we ask whether relations of the is lm type can sensibly be used for the aggregate demand portion of a dynamic optimizing general equilibrium model intended for analysis of issues regarding monetary policy and cyclical fluctuations the main result is that only one change the addition of a term regarding expected future income is needed to make the is function match a fully optimizing model whereas no changes are needed for the lm function this modification leads to a dynamic forward looking model of aggregate demand that is tractable and usable with a wide variety of aggregate supply specifications theoretical applications concerning price level determinacy and gradual price adjustment are included

optimal reputation building in the new keynesian model abstract we study the optimal committed monetary policy when the private sector has imperfect information and has to infer the central banker s ability to commit the optimal policy is designed to influence learning and improve the central banker s reputation of being committed the reputation building implies that when a committed central banker first takes office he should resist the temptation to stimulate output with initially high but declining inflation he should reverse a missed inflation target rather than accommodate it and he should adopt a less accommodative inflation response to a cost push shock than a full commitment solution suggests

on the credibility of alternative exchange rate regimes abstract most anti inflation plans have used a nominal exchange rate anchor even though many other variables can serve this role the conventional wisdom is that an exchange rate anchor imposes more macroeconomic discipline than other anchors though theory does not yet provide any clear reason why this is so we explain the link between an exchange rate anchor and discipline with a model that assumes that the public can monitor the nominal exchange rate more easily that it can the other variables in our model a barro gordon game of incomplete information with imperfect monitoring we show that serious stabilizers prefer more visible anchors such as the nominal exchange rate we also show that in some circumstances serious stabilizers will choose to fix the exchange rate even when fixed exchange rates have some costs such as diminished capabilities to respond to external shocks

time varying dynamics of the norwegian economy we use tvp var models to investigate possible changes in the time series properties of key norwegian macroeconomic variables since the 1980s notably we find that inflation persistence falls during the inflation targeting period while the volatility of inflation and nominal exchange rates increases observed time variation in correlations between interest rates and the macro variables largely reflect prevailing monetary policy regimes an increase in the correlations between oil prices and other macro variables over time is also documented a counterfactual analysis discusses the observed time varying dynamics of the norwegian economy in the light of monetary policy and oil price shocks this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

a data envelopment model for aggregating preference rankings this paper presents a general model for aggregating votes from a preferential ballot the thrust of the model is to accord each candidate a fair assessment in terms of his overall standing vis a vis first place second place kth place votes the form of the model is a combined index j 1kwjvij where vij is the number of the jth place votes received by the ith candidate the weights wj are assumed to form a monotonically decreasing sequence with wj wj 1 dj e these constraints correspond to the assurance region ar side constraints in the dea framework the properties of the model are examined in terms of this discrimination intensity function d and in the special case that dj e e our model is shown to be equivalent to the consensus models of borda and kendall

reputation in a model of monetary policy with incomplete information abstract previous models of rules versus discretion are extended to include uncertainty about the policymaker s type when people observe low inflation they raise the possibility that the policymaker is committed to low inflation type 1 this enhancement of reputation gives the uncommitted policymaker type 2 an incentive to masquerade as the committed type in the equilibrium the policymaker of type 1 delivers surprisingly low inflation with corresponding costs to the economy over an extended interval the type 2 person mimics this outcome for awhile but shifts eventually to high inflation this high inflation is surprising initially but subsequently becomes anticipated

does the fed act gradually a var analysis abstract the tendency for changes in the federal funds rate to be implemented gradually has been considered evidence of an interest rate smoothing objective for the federal reserve this paper investigates whether gradual funds rate movements can be explained by the dynamic structure of the economy and the uncertainty surrounding that structure without recourse to including an ad hoc interest rate smoothing argument in the fed s objective function in the absence of parameter uncertainty the optimal policy involves more aggressive movements in the funds rate than observed parameter uncertainty however limits the responsiveness of the interest rate as a result the optimal policy under parameter uncertainty can account for a considerable portion of the gradualism observed

tax policy can change the production path a model of optimal oil extraction in alaska we model the economically optimal dynamic oil production decisions for seven production units fields on alaska s north slope we use adjustment cost and discount rate to calibrate the model against historical production data and use the calibrated model to simulate the impact of tax policy on production rate we construct field specific cost functions from average cost data and an estimated inverse production function which incorporates engineering aspects of oil production into our economic modeling producers appear to have approximated dynamic optimality consistent with prior research we find that changing the tax rate alone does not change the economically optimal oil production path except for marginal fields that may cease production contrary to prior research we find that the structure of tax policy can be designed to affect the economically optimal production path but at a cost in net social benefit

the case for forecast targeting as a monetary policy strategy at central banks around the world forecasts have come to play an increasingly important role both in policy deliberations and in communications with the public the most striking examples are the bank of england sweden s riksbank norway s norges bank and the reserve bank of new zealand all of which conduct policy on the basis of a procedure sometimes referred to as inflation forecast targeting svensson 1997 1999 under this approach the central bank constructs quantitative projections of the economy s expected future evolution based on the way in which it intends to control short term interest rates and public discussion of those projections is a critical part of the way in which the bank justifies the conduct of policy to the public what accounts for the appeal of a forecast targeting approach and should it be adopted more widely or more explicitly i begin by reviewing the long running debate between the proponents of monetary rules intended to ensure confidence in the value of money over time and the proponents of discretionary monetary policy aimed at stabilizing the real economy i will argue that inflation forecast targeting represents a powerful synthesis of the two approaches in particular it is an improvement both over simpler rules such as targeting a monetary aggregate and over weaker versions of inflation targeting i shall also argue that a much more extensive communication policy is crucial to escaping from the limitations of the traditional alternatives of rigid rules or rudderless discretion i will then explore some common questions that arise about inflation forecast targeting should only the inflation forecast matter and if not in what way should forecasts of other economic variables affect policy decisions what assumptions about the course of future policy should be used in constructing the quantitative projections that are presented to the public finally given that economic forecasts

monetary policy and the global housing bubble what caused the housing boom of the 2000s a number of researchers have suggested that loose monetary policy during the first half of the 2000s was a primary cause of the substantial run up in house prices in many countries however using a common statistical approach we find that monetary policy was not the main factor that should not be surprising although low interest rates raise house prices the increase in prices during the mid 2000s was much larger than the historical relationship between the two variables would suggest instead we investigate further the link between the marked loosening in terms and standards for mortgage credit and the most rapid increases in house prices this link provides some evidence for a story where credit provision and the demand for housing fed on each other and helped spur the housing boom our work suggests a greater role for macroprudential regulation rather than monetary policy in managing asset price booms jane dokko brian m doyle michael t kiley jinill kim shane sherlund jae sim and skander van den heuvel

communication about future policy rates in theory and practice a survey we discuss the theoretical rationale for central bank communication about future policy rates either as part of inflation targeting or in the form of forward guidance we also summarize both actual central bank communication about future policy rates and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these types of communication we argue that there is a disconnect between the theory and practice of forward guidance as theory assumes commitment on the part of the central bank while in practice central banks generally do not commit future theoretical research on forward guidance should therefore take the absence of commitment by central banks into account

managing beliefs about monetary policy under discretion in models of monetary policy discretionary policymaking is typically constrained in its ability to manage public beliefs however when a policymaker possesses private information policy actions serve as signals to the public about unobserved economic conditions and belief management becomes an integral part of optimal discretion policies this article derives the optimal time consistent policy for a general linear quadratic setting the optimal policy is illustrated in a simple new keynesian model where analytical solutions can be derived as well in this model imperfect information about the policymaker s output target leads to lower policy losses

optimal monetary policy using an unrestricted var this paper proposes a simple benchmark for monetary policy assuming the true model of the economy is unknown it is based on an unrestricted vector autoregression var the key result is that instead of deriving optimal policy using the original var equations as the constraint when no restriction is placed on the correlation structure of the var disturbances the constraint should be formed from a transformation of the var this method is applied to the usa 1964 2009 significant welfare gains are found compared with actual policy and using a taylor rule incorporating a zero interest rate lower bound lowers output and inflation

inflation forecast contracts we introduce a new type of incentive contract for central bankers inflation forecast contracts which make central bankers remunerations contingent on the precision of their inflation forecasts we show that such contracts enable central bankers to influence inflation expectations more eectively thus facilitating more successful stabilization of current inflation inflation forecast contracts improve the accuracy of inflation forecasts but have adverse consequences for output on balance paying central bankers according to their forecasting performance improves welfare

central banker contracts incomplete information and monetary policy surprises in search of a selfish central banker approaching monetary policy as a principal agent problemprovides a useful framework for interpreting alternativedelegation schemes in this paper we consider theeffectiveness of central banker incentive schemes when theprincipal delegates monetary policy through contracts butremains uncertain about the central banker s responsiveness tosuch schemes we adopt a simple principal agent model andassume that the central banker s trade off between socialwelfare and the incentive scheme is private information weconsider two types of central bankers one who responds to theincentive scheme selfish and one who does not and onlycares about social welfare benevolent we demonstratethat when a benevolent central banker accepts a contractdesigned for a selfish central banker positive inflationsurprises occur and output exceeds its natural rate wefurther show that a benevolent central banker with aninflation bias has an incentive to masquerade as selfish mechanisms exist that solve that problem by achievingpreference revelation we consider a simple mechanism indominant strategies that induces the benevolent type eithernot to breach or not to accept the appointment contract inthe first place this multi period mechanism works with eitherinflation targets or the appointment of a conservativecentral banker our results suggest that more complicatedincentive schemes embedded within broader constitutionalarrangements are required in the presence of privateinformation for them to work effectively

the political economy of oil production in latin america 1990s witnessed a significant increase in investments in the oil and gas sector in latin america in most countries private investment took the lead after the privatization and liberalization of the sector in argentina bolivia brazil ecuador and venezuela private oil investment or some form of privatization or both generated significant increases in hydrocarbon production and reserves in the last five years however the region has experienced a new wave of resource nationalism with increases in the government s take and state control oil taxes have risen significantly in argentina bolivia ecuador and venezuela in addition bolivia and venezuela have partially nationalized oil projects we argue that the recent trend is largely the outcome of the rise in the international oil price furthermore we show how the likelihood of expropriation increased after a period of successful investment in exploration and production at the same time the timing of these changes and direction in which the sector has evolved varies considerably across the region in contrast to most other countries in the region brazil colombia and peru have generally strengthened the institutional framework and the property rights of private oil producers this paper provides a political economy rationale for the divergent evolution

the choice of exchange rate regime and speculative attacks we develop a framework for studying the choice of exchange rate regime in an open economy where the local currency is vulnerable to speculative attacks the optimal regime is determined by a policymaker who trades off the loss from nominal exchange rate uncertainty against the cost of maintaining a given regime this cost is affected in turn by the likelihood of a speculative attack searching for the optimal regime within the class of exchange rate bands we show that the optimal regime is either a peg a zero width band a free float an infinite width band or a non degenerate finite width band the paper shows that lower costs of moving across currencies induce policymakers to set more flexible exchange rate systems this lowers ceteris paribus the likelihood of financial crises one implication is that a tobin tax does not necessarily reduce the likelihood of currency crises the paper also investigates the effects of country size openess variability in fundamentals and reputation on the choice of exchange rate regime the role of abrupt changes in reputation in triggerering crises even with unchanged fundamentals as an alternative to sunspots is discussed and illustrated

spatially variable taxation and resource extraction the impact of state oil taxes on drilling in the us abstract we estimate the responsiveness of nonrenewable resource firms to taxes on output using spatially explicit data from the oil sector in the united states using a model of resource firm capital allocation over space we show that responses to spatially varying taxes differ from responses to equivalent changes in the common output price a larger response to tax rates occurs because the tax change only affects the returns to drilling in a single state whereas a price change affects both the returns to drilling in a state and the opportunity cost of not drilling in other states econometrically we estimate the effect of severance taxes on oil drilling we find that the response to a one dollar increase in tax per unit of production has an effect at least eight times as large as the effect of an equivalent decrease in output price the tax response is inelastic implying that an increase in state tax rate would increase revenue we do not find evidence of spillovers between states in the local areas near state borders