toward a reconstruction of keynesian economics expectations and constrained equilibria a two period model of temporary equilibrium with rationing is presented paying particular attention to agents expectations of future constraints it is shown that with arbitrary constraint expectations many different types of current equilibrium may be consistent with the same set of current and expected future wages and prices and that constraint expectations exhibit bootstraps properties e g a higher expectation of keynesian unemployment tomorrow increases the probability that it will prevail today in addition the concept of rational constraint expectations i e perfect foresight of future constraints is introduced and shown to enhance rather than reduce the effectiveness of government policy

a theory of current account and exchange rate determinations abstract the purpose of this paper is to construct a two period two country model that derives the current account the exchange rate the terms of trade and real interest rates from optimal behavior principles this is done by constructing a model that uses money mainly as a means of exchange where the technology of exchange is flexible due to potential substitutability of time and real balances as a means of coordinating transactions the discussion results in a framework that integrates elements of net saving theories and the monetary approach into a unified structure in which the two approaches are complementary viewpoints

getting ppp right identifying mean reverting real exchange rates in panels abstract recent advances in testing for the validity of purchasing power parity ppp focus on the time series properties of real exchange rates in panel frameworks one weakness of such tests however is that they fail to inform the researcher as to which cross section units are stationary as a consequence a reservation for ppp analyses based on such tests is that a small number of real exchange rates in a given panel may drive the results in this paper we examine the ppp hypothesis focusing on the stationarity of the real exchange rates in up to 25 oecd countries we introduce a methodology that when applied to a set of established panel unit root tests allows the identification of the real exchange rates that are stationary our results reveal evidence of mean reversion that is significantly stronger as compared to that obtained by the existing literature strengthening the case for ppp

electricity intensity convergence in iea oecd countries aggregate and sectoral analysis convergence in electricity intensity is analyzed among a sample of iea countries sigma convergence the narrowing of the distribution and to a lesser degree gamma convergence movement within the distribution are detected however electricity intensity convergence is less dramatic than energy intensity convergence convergence within the end use sectors is more diverse in terms of the rates timing extent and ultimate modal structure of the distributions commercial electricity intensity has more recently converged toward a bell shape distribution by contrast industry electricity intensity is largely converging toward two distinct groups of countries one with relatively high electricity intensity and another one with relatively low electricity intensity different still is related residential electricity consumption per capita where a small group of countries has stopped growing another group has slowed considerably while a third group experienced rapid growth

consumption in developing countries tests for liquidity constraints and finite horizons adjustment programs in developing countries emphasize the importance of reducing fiscal deficits in order to improve aggregate saving and investment performance recent theoretical analyses associated with the ricardian equivalence proposition however suggest that changes in the level of public sector saving may be offset by a change in private saving the empirical relevance of this proposition depends among other things on the length of consumers horizons and on the extent to which households are liquidity constrained empirical tests of a consumption model for a sample of developing economies do not support the equivalence propositions owing to the prevalence of liquidity constraints copyright 1989 by mit press

possession and discounting behavior abstract subjects chose when they could first use financial rewards between choices 2 months apart we manipulated the early reward date and whether participants took immediate possession quasi hyperbolic discounting is rejected in favor of hyperbolic discounting without but not with possession

stabilization and redistribution of coffee revenues a political economy model of commodity marketing boards abstract domestic prices of export crops are important macroeconomic variables in primary exporting countries not only are they key determinants of the business cycle but also play a pivotal role in the resolution of distributive conflicts using a model where producers delegate pricing decisions in a fully optimizing environment this paper explores the relationship between the redistribution and stabilization functions of marketing boards the results of the model as well as the empirical evidence suggest that different institutional arrangements are helpful in explaining differences in macroeconomic performance across countries the analysis is carried out for coffee in colombia costa rica cote d ivoire and kenya

the macroeconomic implications of a resource discovery in an open economy this paper analyses the macroeconomic impact on an economy of the discovery of significant quantities of a natural resource the resource will be termed oil and the analysis is intended to be suggestive of the effects on the u k economy of the discovery of north sea oil and of possible policy responses our motivation is what appears to be an inconsistency between the commonly expressed view that north sea oil has generated unemployment by causing the exchange rate to appreciate2 and the contention of proponents of the new classical macroeconomics that the oil discovery creates no special macroeconomic problems 3 in order to abstract from microeconomic questions we shall assume that oil is perfectly tradable and that there are no extraction costs 4 we also assume that the foreign currency oil price is exogenous and rises at the foreign interest rate the effect of these assumptions is that for the economy as a whole the oil discovery can be considered as a foreign exchange windfall of fixed magnitude and we define the term oil revenue in a permanent income sense as the infinite term foreign exchange annuity value of this windfall oil revenue as defined is independent of depletion policy it accrues whether or not depletion is occurring at any date since it includes capital gains on the oil stock and depends in no way on whether the oil is exported or used domestically it will be assumed throughout that the economy operates with a flexible exchange rate and that international capital mobility is perfect at the date of discovery the economy is assumed to be at zero inflation full employment with both current and capital accounts balanced we are primarily interested in the dynamics of adjustment to the oil discovery but comparative static analysis5 provides a convenient point of departure for this purpose only we suppose that depletion is managed so as actually to realise the oil revenue each year if all the oil revenue is saved then there are no effects on demand prices or

household energy consumption versus income and relative standard of living a panel approach our fundamental premise is that energy consumption at the household level is a key indicator of standard of living we employ state of the art panel cointegration techniques to evaluate the nature of the relationship between income measures and energy consumption measures for seven east indian ocean countries the general finding is that income and household electricity consumption are not cointegrated given this finding we conclude that standard of living measures that rely on income measures and do not include household level energy consumption information will necessarily miss important indications of both levels and changes of standard of living

interest rates and currency prices in a two country world abstract this paper is a theoretical study of the determination of prices interest rates and currency exchange rates set in an infinitely lived two country world which is subject both to stochastic endowment shocks and to monetary instability formulas are obtained for pricing all equity claims nominally denominated bonds and currencies and these formulas are related to earlier closely related results in the theories of money finance international trade

an exploration in the theory of exchange rate regimes three exchange rate regimes a float a one sided peg and a cooperative peg are evaluated and compared in terms of efficiency and welfare levels the framework of analysis embodies country specific monies with the money of each country being used to transact in its commodity markets and its currency denominated bonds welfare levels depend only on consumption levels in the presence of perfect foresight all equilibrium allocations are pareto efficient in a floating exchange rate regime the perfect foresight equilibrium allocation coincides with an equilibrium of a costless barter economy the same result holds in a one sided peg if the pegging country s exchange rate stabilizing authority breaks even over time in a cooperative peg regime there is a different equilibrium allocation for each combination of exchange rate levels and monetary policies problems of policy coordination and conflicts in desired monetary policies are discussed

coffee economic fluctuations and stabilisation an intertemporal disequilibrium model with capital market imperfections abstract this paper develops a two period disequilibrium model of a small open economy under keynesian unemployment to analyse the effects of temporary anticipated and permanent coffee price shocks the model includes a government sector that administers a commodity price stabilisation fund and allows for capital market imperfections the type of capital market imperfection makes an important difference to the results of the model in particular when the government borrows on more favourable terms than individuals the coffee price stabilisation fund reduces the multiplier effects of temporary and permanent shocks not only in the first but also in the second period by contrast when individuals face an upward sloping supply of capital curve the stabilisation fund shifts some of these effects from the first to the second period

convergence in per capita energy use among oecd countries abstract unlike previous studies which mainly focus on the integration properties of energy consumption and production this study examines the convergence of per capita energy use among 25 oecd countries over the period 1960 to 2010 in particular newly developed lm and rals lm unit root tests with allowance for two endogenously determined structural breaks are employed the results indicate significant support for per capita energy use convergence among oecd countries

the handbook of international macroeconomics preface 1 introduction rick van der ploeg amsterdam 2 quantity constrained models of open economies neil rankin warwick 3 imperfect competition and open economy macroeconomics huw d dixon york 4 relative price movements in dynamic general equilibrium models of international trade david backus nyu patrick kehoe pennsylvania and finn kydland carnegie mellon 5 international fiscal policy coordination and competition assaf razin and efraim sadka tel aviv 6 capital taxation in the world economy a lans bovenberg tilburg 7 history of the international monetary system implications for research in international macroeconomics and finance barry eichengreen berkeley 8 on inflation unemployment and the optimal exchange rate regime george alogoskoufis athens 9 macroeconomic policy speculative attacks and balance of payments crisis pierre richard agenor and robert p flood imf 10 continuous time models of exchange rates and intervention giuseppe bertola princeton 11 stylized facts of nominal exchange rate returns casper g de vries leuven 12 partial versus general equilibrium models of international capital market equilibrium 13 sovereign debt kenneth kletzer santa cruz 14 growth and external debt daniel cohen cepremap 15 growth and deficits in an interdependent world index

coffee export booms and monetary disequilibrium some evidence for colombia the theoretical models that analyse the monetary consequences of export booms show that under a regime of fixed exchange rates they affect not only the demand for money via real income but also the money supply via foreign exchange accumulation within this theoretical framework this study proposes an empirical approach to determine whether the coffee booms of the second half of the 1970s and mid 1980s led to excess money supply in the colombian economy the findings provide evidence in favour of a direct association between coffee export booms and excess money supply implying that external disturbances jeopardize the ability of the economic authorities to carry out successful monetary policy

anomalies in intertemporal choice evidence and an interpretation research on decision making under uncertainly has been strongly influenced by the documentation of numerous expected utility eu anomalies behaviors that violate the expected utility axioms the relative lack of progress on the closely related topic of intertemporal choice is partly due to the absence of an analogous set of discounted utility du anomalies we enumerate a set of du anomalies analogous to the eu anomalies and propose a model that accounts for the anomalies as well as other intertemporal choice phenomena incompatible with du we discuss implications for savings behavior estimation of discount rates and choice framing effects

a club convergence analysis of per capita energy consumption across australian regions and sectors we examine convergence in per capita energy consumption across nine sectors and seven states and territories in australia over the period 19902016 using the phillips sul club convergence approach we find evidence of multiple convergence clubs for aggregate energy consumption per capita and for energy consumption per capita in eight of the nine sectors with full club convergence in the case of electricity the presence of multiple equilibria for most sectors reflect that states with similar features in terms of climate economic activities and population size among others tend to exhibit similar energy consumption patterns our results highlight the need to tailor policies designed to reduce energy consumption in specific sectors to the consumption convergence paths unique to particular clusters of states

inequality across countries in energy intensities an analysis of the role of energy transformation and final energy consumption this paper analyzes the role of the energy transformation index and of final energy consumption per gdp unit in the disparities in energy intensity across countries in that vein we use a theil decomposition approach to analyze global primary energy intensity inequality as well as inequality across different regions of the world and inequality within these regions the paper first demonstrates the pre eminence of divergence in final energy consumption per gdp unit in explaining global primary energy intensity inequality and its evolution during the 1971 2006 period secondly it shows the lower albeit non negligible impact of the transformation index in global primary energy inequality thirdly the relevance of regions as unit of analysis in studying cross country energy intensity inequality and their explanatory factors is highlighted and finally how regions around the world differ as to the relevance of the energy transformation index in explaining primary energy intensity inequality

oil prices and rural migration the dutch disease goes south abstract we construct a two period general equilibrium model to evaluate policies affecting agricultural migration and exports the model is applied to mexico for the period 1986 1987 to obtain certain qualitative policy conclusions related to the dutch disease brought about by oil price increases dutch disease phenomena can be brought about both as the result of real exchange rate changes as well as price changes caused by migration out of agriculture in the short run it may be possible to use fiscal policy such as value added subsidies to agriculture to at least partially negate the effects of an oil price increase on agricultural exports jel f31 f41

quasi hyperbolic discounting and retirement abstract some people have self control problems regularly this paper adds endogenous retirement to laibson s quasi hyperbolic discounting savings model quarterly journal of economics 112 1997 443 477 earlier selves think that the deciding self tends to retire too early and may save less to induce later retirement still earlier selves may think the pre retirement self does this too much saving more to induce early retirement the consumption pattern may be different from that with exponential discounting other observational non equivalence includes the impact of changing mandatory retirement rules or work incentives on savings and a possibly negative marginal propensity to consume out of increased future earnings naive agents are briefly considered

currency prices terms of trade and interest rates a general equilibrium asset pricing cash in advance approach currency prices terms of trade and interest rates a general equilibrium asset pricing cash in advance approach

government deficits private investment and the current account an intertemporal disequilibrium analysis this paper uses a model with full intertemporal optimization and fischer gray type short run real wage rigidities to demonstrate effects of deficit spending in different employment regimes this study attempts to bring the two strands of short run aggregate demand effects and certain intertemporal aspects together it analyses fiscal policy in the context of a model with full intertemporal optimization underlying private behavior which allows the paper to deal with the intertemporal aspects but it also explicitly incorporates the possibility of short run labour and goods market disequilibrium caused by fischer 1977 gray 1978 type contract based real wage rigidities and within period downward price inflexibility prices are however assumed to be flexible upward in a departure of the standard disequilibrium literature in section 2 the basic model is presented the paper uses a two period full optimization set up where wages and prices are set at the beginning of each period using all available information fiscal policy effects under keynesian unemployment are analyzed in section 3 while section 4 looks at the case of classical unemployment section 5 concludes

per capita carbon dioxide emissions convergence or divergence understanding and considering the distribution of per capita carbon dioxide co2 emissions is important in designing international climate change proposals and incentives for participation i evaluate historic international emissions distributions and forecast future distributions to assess whether per capita emissions have been converging or will converge i find evidence of convergence among 23 member countries of the organisation for economic co operation and development oecd whereas emissions appear to be diverging for an 88 country global sample over 1960 2000 forecasts based on a markov chain transition matrix provide little evidence of future emissions convergence and indicate that emissions may diverge in the near term i also review the shortcomings of environmental kuznets curve regressions and structural models in characterizing future emissions distributions

budget deficits and the current account an intertemporal disequilibrium approach the objective of the present paper is to develop an intertemporal disequilibrium model of a monetary economy to explain the effects of fiscal policy on the current account we wish to emphasize the role of aggregate demand determined output fluctuations and flexible exchange rates within a microtheoretic optimizing framework furthermore the differing effects of monetary versus non monetary i e tax or bond finance of government expenditures are considered

the terms of trade and the current account the harberger laursen metzler effect the paper examines the effect of terms of trade changes on a small country s spending and current account assuming optimizing behavior in an intertemporal framework with perfect international capital mobility a temporary future terms of trade deterioration implies a deterioration improvement of the trade balance whereas a permanent terms of trade deterioration has an ambiguous effect depending on the rate of time preference nominal and real variables are considered via exact price indexes two periods and an infinite horizon are examined

oil production and macroeconomic adjustment in the indonesian economy abstract this paper is concerned with identifying and modelling the macroeconomic contribution of the oil sector to the indonesian economy a brief overview of macroeconomic developments for indonesia is conducted for the period 1970 1991 focusing upon the contribution of oil revenues to gdp the current account and government revenue in addition a simple theoretical macroeconomic model incorporating oil is presented and used for numerical simulation purposes to identify and analyse potential macroeconomic developments for indonesia arising from oil related shocks the overview suggests that oil price shocks are of particular interest in the context of indonesia as are therefore the simulation results derived from this case consideration is also given to the effects upon macroeconomic outcomes arising from various policy responses to oil related shocks in particular emphasis is given to the use of oil revenues for the purpose of stimulating domestic demand or the supply side of the economy and the adoption of a more or less export oriented policy towards oil production

macro economic aspects of the effectiveness of foreign aid on the two gap model home goods disequilibrium and real exchange rate misalignment we construct an open economy disequilibrium model to assess the welfare effects of aid in different macroeconomic regimes aid is shown to have different effects in different unemployment regimes because it increases the social costs of wage price rigidities in the classical regime but decreases them in the keynesian unemployment regime a link is made with the two gap model but we highlight the role of real exchange rate misalignment failure to clear the nt goods market

energy for sustainable development a case of developing countries abstract today there are 1 4 billion people around the world that lack access to electricity some 85 of them in rural areas without additional dedicated policies by 2030 the number of people drops but only to 1 2 billion some 15 of the world s population still lack access the majority of them living in sub saharan africa the number of people relying on the traditional use of biomass is projected to rise from 2 7 billion today to 2 8 billion in 2030 addressing these inequities depends upon international recognition that the projected situation is intolerable a commitment to effect the necessary change and setting targets and indicators to monitor progress a new financial institutional and technological framework is required as is capacity building in order to dramatically scale up access to modern energy services at the local and regional levels in this paper we discussed the energy situation of the developing countries for sustainable development

dynamic linkages between globalization financial development and carbon emissions evidence from asia pacific economic cooperation countries abstract this study determines the dynamic linkages between globalization financial development and carbon emissions in asia pacific economic cooperation apec countries in the presence of energy intensity and economic growth under the framework of environment kuznets curve ekc this study employs the panel data from 1990 to 2016 westerlund cointegration technique to find long run cointegration and continuously updated bias corrected cup bc and continuously updated fully modified cup fm methods to check the long run elasticities between the variables empirical results indicate that globalization and financial development significantly reduce carbon emissions but economic growth and energy intensity increase them these results support the ekc hypothesis for apec countries the dumitrescu and hurlin causality analysis shows that globalization granger causes co2 emissions globalization also causes financial development and energy intensity a feedback effect exists between financial development and co2 emissions furthermore financial development causes economic growth but similar is not true from opposite side in granger sense finally this study presents important policy implications with respect to apec countries

convergence in energy consumption per capita among asean countries abstract we test for convergence in energy consumption per capita among asean countries over the period 1971 to 2011 using the panel kpss stationarity test and panel lagrange multiplier lm unit root test the results for the panel stationarity and unit root tests with structural breaks find support for energy convergence in asean

economic adjustment and exchange rates in developing countries in spite of the attention paid exchange rates in recent economic debates on developing countries relatively few studies have systematically analyzed in detail the various ramifications of exchange rate policy in these countries in this new volume from the national bureau of economic research leading economists use rigorous models to tackle various exchange rate issues while also illuminating policy implications that emerge from their analyses the volume divided into four main sections addresses the role of exchange rates in stabilization programs and the adjustment process the importance of exchange rate policy during liberalization reform in developing countries exchange rate problems relevant and unique to developing countries illustrated by case studies and the problems defining measuring and identifying determinants of real exchange rates authors of individual papers examine the relation between commercial policies and exchange rates the role of exchange rate policy in stabilization programs the effectiveness of devaluations as a policy tool and the interaction between exchange rate terms of trade an capital flow this research will not only prove crucial to our understanding of the role of exchange rates in developing countries but will clearly set the standard for future work in the field

endogenous time preferences of forest goods and community based forest management abstract in the economic analysis of cbfm people s discount rates are assumed exogenous and same for all goods we examined the validity of this assumption by eliciting the discount rates of households for grass timber fuelwood and money and analyzed the impacts of various personal and economic factors on households discount rates we found that time preferences are endogenous and good specific a good proportion of households have infinite discount rates for forest goods the mean values of monthly discount rates for households that indicated finite discount rates are 0 67 for timber 6 83 for fuelwood 55 49 for grass and 3 47 for money the availability of alternative sources and current consumption of the forest goods are two main determinants of a household s discount rates the study provides many useful insights for the design and implementation of cbfm programs the concept of mental accounting should be used for economic analyses of cbfm programs different management strategies should be adopted for different forest goods and alternative sources should be provided to meet the current needs of the households

can an oil discovery lead to a recession a comment on eastwood and venables in a recent paper in this journal eastwood and venables ev present an analysis of the macroeconomic consequence of an oil discovery in an open economy model which assumes perfect international capital mobility rational exchange rate expectations and sluggish adjustment of domestic goods prices in this note the authors attempt to reconcile this apparent contradiction in the literature in particular the authors show that ev s results hinge crucially on their failure to allow for a direct impact of higher oil wealth on money demand even when all the oil revenue accrues to the government this should raise private sector wealth through the anticipated reduction in future tax liabilities in any case the authors find it difficult to conceive a situation in which an oil discovery will raise spending but leave money demand permanently unaffected the purpose of this note is to show the important implications of this observation for the effects of an oil discovery when appropriate monetary accommodation does not take place

booming sector and de industrialisation in a small open economy this paper presents a theoretical analysis of the dutch disease the phenomenon whereby a boom in one traded goods sector squeezes porfitability in other traded goods sectors both by directly bi

is there a daily discount rate evidence from the food stamp nutrition cycle abstract quasi hyperbolic discounting predicts impatience over short run tradeoffs i present a direct non laboratory test of this implication using data on the nutritional intake of food stamp recipients caloric intake declines by 10 to 15 percent over the food stamp month implying a significant preference for immediate consumption these findings constitute a rejection of the permanent income hypothesis and are extremely difficult to reconcile with exponential discounting the data support an explanation based on time preference and reject several alternative explanations including highly elastic intertemporal substitution i explore implications for the optimal timing of transfer payments under alternative assumptions about preferences

are shocks to energy consumption permanent or temporary evidence from 182 countries this article applies univariate and panel data unit root tests to annual panel data for 182 countries over the period 1979 2000 to examine the stationarity properties of per capita energy consumption the univariate unit root test can only reject the unit root null for 56 countries or 31 of the sample at the 10 level or better however univariate unit root tests have low power with short spans of data and therefore failure to reject the unit root null should be treated with caution when we apply the panel data unit root test we find overwhelming evidence that energy consumption is stationary we discuss the policy implications of these findings and offer suggestions for future research

the impact of opec on east asian oil import security a multidimensional analysis abstract east asian countries such as china japan and south korea are major importers in the international oil market therefore oil import security is critical to sustainable economic development in these countries this paper uses a modified two stage dea like model to investigate the impact of the organization of petroleum exporting countries opec on oil import security in the east asian region over time specifically three dimensional variables were introduced to the model the opec internal dimension the opec and asian country interaction dimension and the international external dimension the empirical results show a substantial difference between china and the other two countries in terms of these dimensions although the impact of opec on china s oil security has increased over time its impact on japan has declined political uncertainty in opec countries and oil price volatility are the major issues for china whereas cost is the key area of concern for japan south korea s concerns are less clear the results of this study lay an important foundation for discussing policy issues involved in regional cooperation integration and sustainable growth in the east asian region

the role of saving and investment in exchange rate determination under alternative monetary mechanisms abstract we argue that the demand for national currencies depends on existing payment arrangements for imports and exports therefore exchange rate movements depend on these arrangement as a result the relationship between exchange rate movements and various macroeconomic aggregates like saving and investment depend on what we call the monetary mechanism these points are explicitly demonstrated by studying two extreme monetary mechanisms one in which all payments are done with the seller s currency and one in which all payments are done with the buyer s currency

the effect of oil discoveries on the british economy theoretical ambiguities and the consistent expectations simulation approach the finding of oil in the north sea has stimulated the interest of u k economists in the effect of resource discoveries on an open economy this has spawned a large number of theoretical papers including those by neary 1983 eastwood and venables 1982 buiter and miller 1981 and neary and purvis 1981 these papers are primarily concerned with the various dynamic effects which are likely and have typically assumed perfect capital mobility and perfect foresight in order to keep the analysis tractable however it turns out that these models can say nothing about the dynamic response to an oil discovery unless some unrealistic assumptions are made about the associated monetary effects this is demonstrated in the first part of the paper this point has been made independently by neary and wijnbergen 1982 the second part of the paper describes some results obtained by simulating the treasury macroeconomic model under similar assumptions to those used in the theoretical literature in an attempt to throw some empirical light on these ambiguities

energy demand convergence in apec an empirical analysis this paper empirically examines the cross country convergence of per capita energy and electricity usage in apec a significant economic bloc to this end the study applies conventional panel unit root tests and sequential panel selection model spsm procedure based on the panel kss unit root with a fourier function for robustness analysis the results from conventional unit root test results indicate that per capita energy usage and electricity consumption are converging for all apec countries in line with improving living standards in apec the findings also provide some support for policies to promote energy integration among apec countries according to spsm analysis evidence of energy convergence is found for 15 out of 19 apec countries and evidence of electricity convergence is found for 17 out of 19 apec countries pursuit of policies to achieve energy supply stability can move divergent countries toward convergence

global effects of national stabilization policies under fixed and floating exchange rates this paper deals with international effects of two types of stabilization policies monetary expansion directed towards the demand side and a reduction in payroll taxes directed towards the supply side the analysis focuses on employment relative prices and welfare issues it rests on a simple intertemporal general equilibrium model of two countries that includes a specific micro theory of money under floating exchange rates a country s employment is insulated from both policies abroad but its consumption generally changes under fixed exchange rates no such insulation prevails while monetary expansion is generally expansionary reduced payroll taxes constitute a beggar thy neighbor policy in both systems the welfare of a country may decrease although its employment increases an immiserizing expansion may occur

responding to the coffee crisis what can we learn from price dynamics an econometric model of coffee price dynamics is specified and estimated to capture the evolution of coffee prices at the farm wholesale and retail levels it investigates the historical influence of the international coffee agreement ica through its effects on yield and planting decisions in the short run the ica caused brazilian farm prices to become disconnected from international prices the ica helped coffee producers to better incorporate current world price information into planting decisions this created a price cycle that did not exist in non ica periods the low coffee prices experienced since the disintegration of the ica are consistent with low supply response to price information asymmetric price transmission at the retail level helped roasters and retailers benefit from upstream price interventions our results urge caution when considering future coffee price interventions

nigeria during and after the oil boom a policy comparison with indonesia nigeria and indonesia provide an interesting contrast with regard to performance and policy during and after the oil boom roughly a decade after the first oil shock nigeria is faced with several economic problems including a serious decline in its agricultural sector and a deteriorating external debt situation while some decline in the nonoil traded goods sector reflects efficient adjustment to the oil boom policy with regard to public expenditure exchange rates pricing and the trade regime could exacerbate such decline and impede readjustment as the boom subsides the links between oil prices deficits inflation and real exchange rate appreciation are analyzed and nigerian and indonesian fiscal and exchange rate and agricultural and foreign borrowing strategies are compared it is concluded that with the exception of cuts in the deficit since 1984 nigerian policy following the boom has not been conducive to adjustment to the current period of low oil prices and high real interest rates corrective measures and policy options are discussed

oil price shocks unemployement investment and the current account an intertemporal disequilibrium analysis recent work on macroeconomics of price increases of intermediate imports while theoretical rigorous and elegant is still unable to explain the stylized facts this paper attempts to remedy the shortcomings of earlier papers by using a two period model to properly analyse investment and savings behaviour and hence the current account this model also incorporates disequilibrium in first period labour and goods markets to compare the response of countries in different disequilibrium regimes to shocks in intermediate input prices

electricity use and economic development abstract a study of the relationship between electricity use and economic development in over one hundred countries constituting over 99 of the global economy has been undertaken correlations between electricity consumption capita and gdp capita have been analysed and compared with those between total primary energy supply capita and gdp capita a supporting analysis has correlated the proportion of energy used in the form electricity the e e ratio with gdp capita the general conclusions of this research are that wealthy countries have a stronger correlation between electricity use and wealth creation than do poor countries and that for the global economy as a whole there is a stronger correlation between electricity use and wealth creation than there is between total energy use and wealth the study also shows that in wealthy countries the increase in wealth over time correlates with an increase in the e e ratio the results imply that the energy ratio toe should be replaced by the electricity ratio kwh as a development indicator and more precisely by the e e ratio kwh toe

fiscal policy and the real exchange rate abstract this paper reconsiders some conventional notions about fiscal policy under flexible exchange rates using an extended version of the dornbusch overshooting model the extension allows for a long run link between output and the real exchange rate unanticipated permanent fiscal policy affects both current and long run output while the long run effect is always in the expected direction it is possible that the current effect is perverse both fiscal and monetary policy must cause either nominal exchange rate overshooting or perverse domestic interest rate effects the results suggest that real shocks are a potential source of high exchange rate variability

real interest rates home goods and optimal external borrowing the paper investigates the optimal time path of consumption and external borrowing in the dependent economy model the small country faces given world prices and a given world real interest rate the presence of a home goods sector implies that the relevant real interest rate appropriate to consumption decisions depends on the rate of change of the real price of home goods the paper shows how transitory disturbances in output or in the world real interest rate affect the time profile of consumption and the trade balance in particular it is shown that the presence of a home goods sector dampens the consumption effects of changes in the world interest rate

macro policy responses to natural resource windfalls and the crash in commodity prices policy prescriptions for managing natural resource windfalls are based on the permanent income hypothesis none of the windfall is invested at home and saving in an intergenerational swf is dictated by smoothing consumption across different generations furthermore with dutch disease effects the optimal response is to intertemporally smooth the real exchange rate smooth public and private consumption and limit sharp fluctuations in the intersectoral allocation of production factors we show that these prescriptions need to be modified for the following reasons first to cope with volatile commodity prices precautionary buffers should be put in a stabilisation fund second with imperfect access to capital markets the windfall must be used to curb capital scarcity invest domestically and bring consumption forward third with real wage rigidity consumption must also be brought forward to mitigate transient unemployment fourth the real exchange rate has to temporarily appreciate to signal the need to invest in the domestic economy to gradually improve the ability to absorb the extra spending from the windfall fifth with finite lives the timing of handing back the windfall to the private sector matters and consumption and the real exchange rate will be volatile finally with nominal wage rigidity we show that a taylor rule is a better short run response to a crash in commodity prices than a nominal exchange rate peg

the world per capita electricity consumption distribution signs of convergence abstract considering residential per capita electricity consumption as one of the most suitable economic welfare indicators the aim of this paper is to explore worldwide differences on this variable over the period 1980 2007 the paper adds to the standard practice of and convergence analysis by tracking the external shape and time evolution of the entire distribution applying nonparametric techniques density functions and stochastic kernels to a sample of 98 countries the main finding is that a weak process of electricity consumption convergence has taken place this reduction of disparities is clearly related to at least three issues firstly the rapid economic changes experienced by some developing countries secondly the energy conservation policies implemented by most developed countries following the first oil shock and thirdly the growing awareness on energy issues in rich countries notwithstanding this the ergodic distribution on per capita electricity consumption indicates that large cross country disparities will persist in the long run

saving in developing countries theory and review in the literature on economic development much of the interest in saving has been focused on the relation between saving and growth but saving is not only about accumulation it is about smoothing consumption in the face of volatile and unpredictable income and helping to ensure the living standards of poor people whose lives are difficult and uncertain this paper develops a model of households which cannot borrow but which accumulate assets as a buffer stock to protect consumption when incomes are low such households dissave as often as they save do not accumulate assets over the long term and have on average very small asset holdings but their consumption is markedly smoother than their income much of the evidence is as consistent with this view of saving as it is incosistent with standard views of smoothing over the life cycle and with explanations of the link between saving and growth in terms of life cycle saving behavior consumption smoothing is also a useful way of thinking about government policy where volatility in the world prices of taxed commodities can generate sharp fluctuations in government revenues as well as reallocations of revenue between the private and public sectors many important policy issues in developing countries hinge on issues of consumption and smoothing and research on these issues is currently likely to be more productive than work on the relation between saving and growth

estimating individual discount rates in denmark a field experiment we estimate individual discount rates with respect to time streams of money using controlled laboratory experiments these discount rates are elicited by means of field experiments involving real monetary rewards the experiments were carried out across denmark using a representative sample of 268 people between 19 and 75 years of age individual discount rates are estimated for various households differentiated by socio demographic characteristics such as income and age our conclusions are that discount rates are constant over the 12 month to 3 year horizons used in these experiments and that discount rates vary substantially with respect to several socio demographic variables hence we conclude that it would be reasonable to assume constant discount rates for specific household types but not the same rates across all households

cognitive ability and bidding behavior in second price auctions an experimental study behavioral biases are more pronounced for individuals with lower cognitive abilities this paper examines what connection if any there is between cognitive ability and bidding strategy in second price auctions despite truthful revelation being a weakly dominant strategy previous experiments have consistently observed overbidding which makes use of such auctions for inferring homegrown value problematic examining the effect of cognitive ability is important as it may help identify when one can reliably recover values from bids the results indicate that more cognitively able subjects behave in closer accordance with theory and that cognitive ability partially explains heterogeneity in bidding behavior

long term relationships of major macro variables in a resource related economic model of australia a cointegration analysis abstract the paper reports the results of a simple cointegration analysis applied to bivariate causality models using data on resource output oil prices terms of trade current account and output growth to investigate the long term relationships in the sense of granger among these major macroeconomic aggregates in a resource related economic model of australia for the period 1960 90 the empirical evidence indicates that these five macro variables as formulated in our model are not random walks in addition resource production and oil prices are significantly cointegrated and they are also significantly cointegrated with the current account terms of trade and economic growth these findings provide support to the long term adjustments foundation of our resource related model

dynamics of a floating exchange rate regime we study the full equilibrium dynamics of a two country world economy with a floating exchange rate traded and nontraded goods and explicit modeling of the use of money the resulting exchange rate equation depends on several details of the economic structure such as the supply structure and propensities to spend on various goods although real exchange rate movements have the usual association with the current account the ordinary exchange rate may appreciate or depreciate when there are deficits on current account even when the quantities of money do not change deviations from purchasing power parity and the fisher equation are shown to be the rule rather than the exception

boom or gloom examining the dutch disease in two speed economies traditional studies of the dutch disease do not account for productivity spillovers between the booming resource sector and other domestic sectors we put forward a simple theory model that allows for such spillovers we then identify and quantify these spillovers using a bayesian dynamic factor model the model allows for resource movements and spending effects through a large panel of variables while also identifying disturbances to other shocks using australia and norway as representative cases studies we find that a booming resource sector has substantial productivity spillovers on non resource sectors effects that have not been captured in previous analysis

resource price turbulence and macroeconomic adjustment for a resource exporter a conceptual framework for policy analysis abstract increased global demand for energy and other resources particularly from the rapidly developing economies of china and india and the opening up of global resource markets to global investors and speculative activity has resulted in considerable recent turbulence in resource prices the recent magnitude of change in resource prices both positive and negative and their macroeconomic implications is of considerable contemporary importance to both resource importing and exporting economies for a resource exporting economy such as that of australia the recent resource price boom has resulted in increased government taxation revenue increased employment and wages in the resource and resource related sectors increased spending in the domestic economy that contributed to buoyant economic growth increased resource exports to the booming economies of china and india and contributed to a stronger domestic currency with beneficial effects upon inflation on the other hand these developments have had adverse effects on the non resource sector by subjecting it to more intense competition for limited resources contributing to a loss of international competitiveness and reduced exports arising from a stronger exchange rate reducing employment in the relatively more labour intensive non resource sector and contributing to an eventual slow down in the overall economy these positive and negative effects and the overall impact of a resource price boom require a fundamentally closer analysis of the structure of the economy under scrutiny in this context the policy response by government is likely to be pivotal in determining the overall macroeconomic outcomes from a resource price boom the aim of this paper is to develop a generic analytical framework to appraise economic outcomes in the wake of a resource price boom for a resource producing and exporting economy to this end a dynamic long run macroeconomic model is developed emphasising the important role and contribution of government fiscal policy in influencing subsequent macroeconomic outcomes the adjustment process in the model arising from a resource price shock emphasises a spending or wealth effect an income effect a revenue effect a current account effect and an exchange rate effect which facilitate a robust analysis of subsequent macroeconomic outcomes from such a shock as well as related policy responses