nonmonetary effects of the financial crisis in propagation of the great depression this paper examines the effects of the financial crisis of the 1930s onthe path of aggregate output during that period our approach is complementary to that of friedman and schwartz who emphasized the monetary impact of the bank failures we focus on non monetary primarily credit related aspects of the financial sector output link and consider the problems of debtors as well as those of the banking system we argue that the financial disruptions of 1930 33 reduced the efficiency of the credit allocation process and that the resulting higher cost and reduced availability of credit acted to depress aggregate demand evidence suggests that effects of this type can help explain the unusual length and depth of the great depression this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

devaluation investment and growth in ldcs abstract this paper examines the short and long run effects of devaluation in a model where following structuralist theories investment is treated as output of a composite good produced by combining domestic and imported components in fixed proportions introducing investment goods of this type alters a number of results most notably the marshall lerner condition is neither necessary nor sufficient for an expansionary outcome and under simple and plausible conditions a devaluation may worsen the payments balance

inflation growth and wage policy a brazilian perspective abstract a growth inflation model based on recent brazilian experience is developed the paper focuses on brazilian compulsory wage policy in order to analyse current stabilization policy issues in this context it is argued that orthodox stabilization policies as exemplified by an autonomous reduction in the rate of monetary growth implies both a temporary and a permanent decrease in output growth if the wage formula as in brazil provides for lagged price indexation the idea of promoting stabilization through full wage indexation is also examined

a minsky crisis a model is developed to illustrate hyman minsky s financial crisis theories a key assumption is that the level of wealth in the economy is determined mac roeconomically with the value of firms assets responding to the state of confidence as reflected by discounted quasi rents on capital the second assumption is that there is high substitutability between liabilities of firms and money in the public s portfolio a downward shift in anticipated profits leads wealth to contract and the public to shift portfolio preferences toward money interest rates rise leading to further dampening of expected profits and a debt deflation crisis can occur

exchange rate rules and macroeconomic stability this paper discusses exchange rate rules in their role as macroeconomic instruments we abstract throughout from the trend part of exchange rate behaviour a crawling peg necessitated by differences in trend inflation and emphasise instead the implications of exchange rate rules in providing flexibility of real wages or in affecting the stability of output or prices

issues in controllability and the theory of economic policy abstract the paper demonstrates that the concepts of dynamic controllability are useful for the theory of economic policy by establishing four propositions first dynamic controllability is a central concept in stabilization policy second the ability to achieve a target state even if it cannot be maintained may be of economic interest third dynamic controllability is of special interest for historical models fourth the conditions for any notion of dynamic controllability are distinct from and weaker than those for tinbergen static controllability

stabilization with liberalization an evaluation of ten years of chile s experience with free market policies 1973 1983 the recent post 1973 economic experience of chile has attracted considerable attention both from professional economists and from the media most observers have been particularly impressed by the sharp contrasts observed in chile in such a short period of time for example in 1973 chile had one of the highest rates of inflation in the world over 600 whereas in 1981 it experienced one of the lowest rates of inflation 9 5 also in 1975 real gnp declined by 12 9 but during 1977 80 real gnp grew at an average rate of 8 5 per annum in 1982 however the country faced a new recession with real gnp dropping by 14 5 in 1983 the gnp was reduced further by 2 3 the fact that these episodes developed while the military government was actively pursuing free market oriented policies that greatly liberalized the economy adds considerable interest to the chilean case 2 the year 1973 marked an important turning point in chile s economic and political history in september of that year the military took over the government from president salvador allende and a period of dramatic economic changes began chile was transformed from an economy isolated from the rest of the world with strong government intervention into a liberalized world integrated economy where market forces were left free to guide most of the economy s decisions the period 1973 81 was characterized by important achievements inflation was greatly reduced the government deficit was virtually eliminated the economy went through a dramatic liberalization of its foreign sector tariffs were reduced to a uniform 10 level and prices including interest rates were full liberalized probably one of the most interesting aspects of the chilean economy during this period is that major

the interest elasticity of savings in developing countries the existing evidence abstract this paper presents a critical analysis of some of the most recent empirical work on the interest elasticity of savings in developing economies supported by a set of empirical results the paper argues that a the real interest elasticity of savings is not easily detected using the existing empirical models which generally yield insignificant interest rate parameters in the seventies b the existing models suffer from serious defects that make if very difficult to interpret the estimated parameters

a survey of the literature on the optimal peg abstract it is widely agreed that floating is not an appropriate exchange rate policy for most developing countries but in a world of generalized floating the question of exchange rate policy is not resolved by deciding to peg rather than to float it is also necessary to decide to what to peg this is the question of the optimal peg on which a significant literature has emerged since 1976 the present paper provides a survey of that literature section 2 summarizes the principal papers section 3 compares the objectives and rules advocated by different authors section 4 evaluates the alternative approaches arguing that in general the peg should be chosen to stabilize the nominal trade weighted effective exchange rate section 5 considers whether this criterion points to the sdr as a satisfactory peg

devaluation stabilization policies and the developing countries a macroeconomic analysis abstract this paper analyzes the short run effects of traditional balance of payments policies for a small developing country the country is assumed to be running persistent payments deficits under a fixed exchange rate regime this paper illustrates how conventional results are affected by the presence of a imported intermediate inputs b partial wage indexation and c a large initial trade deficit stagflationary effects of a currency devaluation are particularly noteworthy a tariff subsidy policy that leaves the price of imported inputs unaffected is shown to be likely to achieve the payments objectives without creating significant adverse supply side effects

optimal fiduciary monetary systems abstract in a fiduciary monetary system there is a social agreement to quote prices and denominate financial instruments in terms of a specific paper liability of the government what are the best terms for this paper instrument i investigate a system where the terms involve not only paying market interest rate on the monetary instrument as proposed by many economists earlier but also indexing the returns to the price level the result is a homeostatic monetary system with a highly stable price level in the face of shifts in money demand and other disturbing influences the paper examines the performance of the new fiduciary standard in equilibrium and disequilibrium models

stagnation income distribution and monopoly power the deceleration in the rate of industrial growth in the indian economy since the middlesixties initially interpreted by some as a temporary downward deviation from trend hasnow come to be generally accepted as reflecting long run tendencies towards stagnation several explanations for these tendencies have been offered bhagwati and desai 1970 and bhagwati and srinivasan 1975 have focused on inefficiencies and the misallocationof resources arising from industrial policies pursued by the government others chakravarty 1974 raj 1976 and vaidyanathan 1974 among them have emphasisedthe sluggishness of agricultural growth which is alleged to have retarded industrial growthby limiting markets and the supply of wage goods and raw materials a third view reflectedin srinivasan and narayana 1977 for example has put the blame on a slackening of invest ment demand due to lower public investment but does not explain why public investmentfell or why its fall restrained industrial growth finally there is the explanation put forthin bagchi 1970 1975 1982 in nayyar 1978 and in parts of mitra 1977 that inequali ties in income distribution have resulted in a limited demand for industrial goods reducedincentives for investment and therefore reduced growth this view seems to suggest apositive relation between growth and income equality which is opposed to the generallyaccepted idea derived from cambridge growth models that higher growth requires greaterinequality the purpose of this paper is to examine the last explanation by considering the inter action between growth and income distribution in an underdeveloped economy with thehelp of a simple macroeconomic model the model is a stylisation of the indian economy so that we will be able to use the model to assess the argument that a deceleration in therate of growth of the indian industrial economy could have been caused by an unequaldistribution of income the argument will not be made that this income distributional con straint is the binding constraint on industrial growth the model will merely examine theinternal consistency of the argument that a bad income distribution could explain stagnation in the sense of reduced growth and show that in the indian context as in other similarcontexts this argument can be put forward in explaining stagnation our argument is first presented with a highly simplified schematisation of the indianeconomy which we shall call the basic model the economy modelled produces only one

stock equilibrium in flexprice markets in macromodels for less developed economies the case of food speculation abstract this paper extends macroeconomic models of less developed economies with a flexprice agricultural sector and a fixprice non agricultural sector to allow for stock equilibrium in flexprice markets as advocated by hicks and to thereby incorporate the empiricallu important phenomenon of food speculation it is shown that models ignoring such features may yield incorrect insights regarding reality and that increased speculation in foodgrains is likely to result in adverse consequences for both growth prospects and the distribution of income

terms of trade and class conflict in a computable general equilibrium model for mexico a computable general equilibrium model for mexico is constructed in which class conflict over the distribution of the surplus is the principal determinant of the terms of trade the model consists of seven social classes and eight productive sectors classes are distinguished as fundamental or subsumed according to whether their incomes are primarily determined by conscious class struggle or by the resulting system of relative prices flexible prices are assumed to clear markets for which non produced means of production such as agricultural land limit supply while output in the remaining sectors is determined by the level of effective demand for the latter sectors two theories of price formation are compared and are seen to differ radically in their implicit conception of the nature of class conflict a keynes kalecki closure is considered in which prices are determined by a fixed mark up on costs this enables capitalists to protect themselves from incursions on the rate of profit due to labou

price setting in indian industry abstract price setting models with variable mark up rates are specified and estimated for four sectors of indian industry it is found that capacity utilisation has a significant effect on mark up rates implying a phillips curve type trade off between output and prices international prices do not appear to be as important in the price setting behaviour of firms

the liquidity trap and the pigou effect a dynamic analysis with rational expectations a keynesian idea of considerable historical importance is that in the presence of a liquidity trap a competitive economy may lack despite price flexibility automatic market mechanisms that tend to eliminate excess supplies of labor the standard classical counterargument which relies upon the pigou effect has typically been conducted in a comparative static framework but as james tobin has recently emphasized the more relevant issue concerns the dynamic response in real time of an economy that has been shocked away from full employment the present paper develops a dynamic analysis in a rather standard model under the assumption that expectations are formed rationally the analysis permits examination of tobin s suggestion that because of expectational effects such an economy could be unstable also considered is martin j bailey s conjecture that in the absence of a stock pigou effect keynesian problems could be eliminated by expectational influences on disposable income this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

interest rate management in ldc s the mckinnon argument that higher time deposit rates raise output and lower inflation in the short run and increase medium term growth by raising the savings rate are shown to depend crucially on the assumption that portfolio shifts into td s come out of an asset providing less intermediation than the banking system we show that if instead the shift is out of an asset providing more intermediation e g loans on a curbmarket raising td rates is contractionary in the short run may have negative impacts on growth and can lead to more rather than less inflation in the short run

good bye financial repression hello financial crash some unintended consequences of financial liberalization in latin america are analyzed in this paper intrinsic imperfectious in financial markets and the policy dilemmas they pose are reviewed first the stylized facts of southern cone experiments in financial liberization are then presented alternative ways of organlzing domestic capital markets under latin american conditions are discussed and an eclectic reform mongering program is proposed

tight money and inflation abstract in a recent paper sargent and wallace present an example where tightening of monetary policy over a specified time interval in conjunction with a constant deficit leads to an increase in the rate of inflation not only beyond this interval but even from the outset in the present paper i show how the latter result can be derived from a standard monetary growth model of the sidrauski brock type this enables a relatively simple interpretation of the apparent paradox

financial repression the new structuralists and stabilization policy in semi industrialized economies abstract this paper examines the short and long run effects of a variety of macroeconomic policies in a simple model where the curb market plays a pivotal role as the marginal supplier of loanable funds it is found that financial liberalization may fail in the short run and contrary to the claims of the new structuralists that the financial market repercussions of devaluation may be favorable in evaluating any policy the time horizon is critical short and long run multipliers may differ in sign in all cases save that of a contraction in the stock of bank credit

a stagnationist model of economic growth in an economy subject to persistent excess capacity demand related factors will play a key role in determining patterns of secular change this thesis has a long history in econ omics sometimes in the underworld and occasionally at the height of fashion as recounted by rowthorn 1982 recent manifestations in the first world are the theories of monopoly capitalism of baran and sweezy 1966 and steindl 1952 who in turn follow kalecki 1971 hobson 1902 luxemburg 1951 and the marx of realisation crises and reproduction schemes in volume ii of capital other radicals such as boddy and crotty 1975 add a profit squeeze explanation of the cycle which underlays the dynamics of the growth model specified here in developing countries difficulties in both realisation and sectoral proportions are emphasised as obstacles to growth witness lustig s 1980 review of latin american structuralist theory and dutt s 1984 model which formalises an ongoing controversy in india about how income redistribution might affect prospects for industrialisation all these authors are stagnationist in assuming that both the growth rate and the level of capacity utilisation can be different under different conditions of income distribution and or macroeconomic policy their preferred policies will presumably lead to greater equality increase utilisation or step up growth they typically ask two analytical ques tions how does output respond in the short run to shifts in the income distribution how do output adjustments feed back into distributional dynamics especially under conditions when price and wage inflation rates may be influenced by employment levels productivity changes and conflicting income claims in what follows we set out a simple model to address these questions and explore the implications for macroeconomic policy of the answers that arise since the approach is not familiar to economists with a standard training a verbal description of the growth model is given first those who wish to jump directly into a formal presentation can proceed to section 1 output x is assumed to meet demand in an instantaneous short run we measure activity as the ratio of firms net cash inflow to the value of capital stock i e the rate of profit r during the short run the price level p is fixed by a mark up rule p 1 x wb where r is the mark up rate w the money wage and b the labor output ratio with this rule the share of profits or mark up income in the value of output is r l t let u stand for the output capital ratio or capacity utilization xik by simple identity

coffee money and inflation in colombia abstract the purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between coffee money inflation and international competitiveness in colombia the basic hypothesis being investigated is that higher lower prices of coffee will tend to result through the accumulation of international reserves in higher lower inflation in turn this higher inflation will generate for a given rate of devaluation of the nominal exchange rate a reduction of the real exchange rate with the consequent loss of competitiveness in the non coffee tradable goods sector a dutch disease type of model is developed to discuss analytically the relationship between coffee prices money creation and competitiveness in the short and long run empirical results for 1952 1980 are presented these results support the hypothesis that there has been a positive relationship between the price of coffee money creation and inflation in colombia

conditioning carry trades less risk more return abstract prior studies show that extreme interest rate differentials irds and high foreign exchange rate fx volatility have substantial explanatory power for the validity of uip we show that these contemporaneous drivers also have predictive power by implementing a conditional currency carry trade ct strategy that excludes regimes for which uip is likely to hold conditioning high fx volatility only or on both fx volatility and extreme irds outperforms the base case unconditional ct strategy in virtually any of the settings analyzed conditioning on very large irds only shows mixed findings our strategy works best for smaller ct portfolios

exchange rate management and stabilization policies in developing countries abstract we outline three channels via which a devaluation has a direct contractionaly impact on the aggregate supply side of the economy local currency costs of intermediate imports wage indexing in the presence of food imports and reduced volume of real credit to firms contractionary effects via the supply side are more damaging than krugman taylor effects via aggregate demand since a cut in aggregate supply leads to upward pressure on inflation while a cut in aggregate demand tends to abate inflation upward pressure on inflation may over time threaten the increase in competitiveness a nominal devaluation also intends to achieve we also discuss the implications of a substantial foreign debt we demonstrate that a successful devaluation raises the real in terms of domestic goods debt service burden causing a krugman taylor like contractionary effect on aggregate demand we then analyse the effects of a preannounced slowdown of the rate of depreciation our results of course do not imply that a devaluation should never be considered they do suggest however that a devaluation is likely to be an ineffective tool for demand management since it may cut aggregate supply as much or more in the short run

increasing returns and the foundations of unemployment theory current approaches to macroeconomic theory divide roughly into two basic schools of thought one approach typically associated with rational expectations views the economy as basically at or near walrasian market clearing equilibrium in which case it becomes very difficult to explain away convincingly the undeniable persistence at times of involuntary unemployment another approach views the underemployed economy as being in a state of temporary fixed price disequilibrium in which case aside from having to repress suspicions that the essence of effective demand failure might not have to do with prices fixed at wrong values there is a lot of rationalising to be done about why profitable adjustments are so slow this paper argues that something like an internally consistent theory of steady state involuntary unemployment is possible and even plausible the cornerstone of this third approach is increasing returns to scale which blocks unemployed agents from breaking out of a low level equilibrium trap unless there is overall coordination or stimulation a simple model is presented which contains the basic ideas

price inertia and policy ineffectiveness in the united states 1890 1980 this paper introduces a new approach to the empirical testing of the lucas sargent wallace lsw policy ineffectiveness proposition which compares the lsw hypothesis with an alternative that states that prices respond fully in the long run but only gradually in the short run to nominal aggregate demand disturbances the empirical equations estimated for a new set of quarterly data extending back to 1890 exhibit uniformly high responses of real output and low responses of price changes to anticipated changes in nominal gnp the paper compares and tests three alternative methods of introducing persistence effects into the lsw framework

macroeconomic issues for latin america abstract recent macroeconomic issues in latin america are reviewed with an emphasis on theory topics covered include multiple equilibria from hysteresis or increasing returns exchange rate management and the output and asset market effects of devaluation speculation interest rate management and financial reform government behavior income distribution and growth inertial inflation and heterodox policy shocks and disequilibrium theories

credit policy inflation and growth in a financially repressed economy this report analyzes credit policy in an open economy macro model incorporating stylized facts about the financial sector of ldc s absence of security markets existence of a curbmarket these facts are incorporated in the financial sector part of a keynes wicksell growth model it focuses on a transmission channel of monetary policy into the supply side of the economy via the cost of working capital it shows that ignoring this effect when analysing restrictive credit policy leads to underestimates of inflation and overestimation of output and current account improvements it is shown that a credit crunch can be stagflationary in the short run a cut in the real stock of credit is shown to lead to a lower steady state capital stock