the pricing of durable exhaustible resources partial or total durability characterizes a large class of exhaustible resources hotelling s r percent rule will apply to a durable resource produced in a competitive market but will not apply if the resource is produced in a monopolistic market however the r percent rule does not mean that price is steadily rising it is shown that in general the competitive market price will fall initially as the stock in circulation increases and later will rise as the stock decreases and eventually depreciates toward zero after production ceases accounting for durability may thus help explain the u shaped long term price profiles observed for many resources 11 references 3 figures

empirical investigation of the long term movement of resource prices a preliminary report abstract this note reports the results of an investigation into the long run movements of natural resource prices and their relationship to interest rates and extraction costs the results do not support the equilibrium type hotelling rule but rather a more general asset market approach

unexpected inflation and bank stock returns the case of france 1977 1991 abstract this paper evaluates the impact of unexpected inflation on the stock returns of a sample of french banks it offers an empirical test of theories that have predicted an impact of inflation on the stock returns of banks the paper complements a large literature that has focused exclusively on the impact of unexpected interest rates the analysis provides empirical support to the hypothesis that in periods of volatile inflation there exists an inflation risk factor which is independent of the well documented interest rate factor

risk the financial market and macroeconomic equilibrium growing recognition of the importance of stock market phenomena to the real economy underscores the need for models linking exogenous uncertainty asset market performance and the rest of the economy in an optimizing framework without certainty equivalence this paper constructs a three agent model with continuous time stochastic variables uncertain private production and government expenditure and forward looking rational agents the growth rate of output physical capital accumulation financial asset returns and uncertain inflation are determined as functions of the exogenous uncertainty in the economy analysis of the model finds that increased risk associated with government policy often reverses in an explainable way the conventional comparative static predictions of nonstochastic macro models

jointly produced exhaustible resources abstract natural resources are often produced jointly from composite ores which in turn are extracted from fixed reserve endowments in this paper market behavior is examined for such resources and it is shown how the price of each resource will depend on its demand and the demands and storage costs for the other resources present in the ore the measurement of resource scarcity is discussed and the effects of uncertainty over future resource demands are examined it is shown that the competitive market will still extract produce and store at socially optimal rates if firms are risk neutral and the average cost of storage is constant policy implications are noted particularly with reference to government stockpiling programs

multiproduct technology and market structure a recent line of research has exposed some technological determinants of the structure of industries that produce more than one good the analyses of both multiproduct perfect competition and natural monopoly require a generalized notion of average cost and in addition several newly identified technological characteristics pertinent only to joint production this paper provides an overview of these new results and suggests a unifying framework in which the theory can be further developed

money and asset prices with uninsurable risks abstract we present a theory of differences of liquidity across assets based on an endogenous ranking of assets as media of exchange arising from their relative quality as hedging devices when assets have two distinct roles as intertemporal media of exchange and hedging devices buyers have generically a strict preference for paying sellers with the asset which is the relative better hedging device for sellers the consequence of this preference is that there are three monetary policy regimes and these regimes differ in which assets serve as media of exchange whether assets carry a liquidity premium and in the impact that monetary policy has on asset prices

modeling opec behavior economic and political alternatives the predominant approach to modeling opec behavior depends upon the assumption that economic self interest provides the best predictor of the cartel s price and production strategy with rational monopoly behavior the exogenous characteristics of the oil market determine an optimal price path for the group but opec members have diverse economic as well as political goals and uncertainty about oil market responses provides substantial leeway to argue about what is optimal an examination of the five key opec price decisions since 1973 shows that an operational code of advancing political priorities on arab israeli issues while deflecting security challenges better explains saudi arabia s decision making than the economic optimizing approach moreover no economic formula alone is consistent with saudi behavior the balance of internal and external forces of a political or security character on saudi leadership suggests more of a tilt toward price hawkishness than pure considerations of economic self interest would indicate this tilt is reinforced by a systematic weakness on the part of the u s government to exercise a sustained countervailing influence on the kingdom on behalf of moderation

macroeconomic determinants of stock volatility and volatility premiums how does stock market volatility relate to the business cycle we develop and estimate a no arbitrage model and find that i the level and fluctuations of stock volatility are largely explained by business cycle factors and ii some unobserved factor contributes to nearly 20 to the overall variation in volatility although not to its ups and downs instead this volatility of volatility relates to the business cycle finally volatility risk premiums are strongly countercyclical even more than stock volatility and partially explain the large swings of the vix index during the 2007 2009 subprime crisis which our model captures in out of sample experiments

the relation between stock prices and inflationary expectations the international evidence this paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between stock returns and inflationary expectations for nine countries over the period 1971 80 the fisherian assumption that real returns are independent of inflationary expectations is soundly rejected for each major stock market of the world using interest rates as a proxy for expected inflation our data provide consistent support for the geske and roll model whose basic hypothesis is that stock price movements signal negative revisions in inflationary expectations finally a weak real interest rate effect was found for some of these countries

the optimal production of an exhaustible resource when price is exogenous and stochastic this paper examines the optimal production of a resource such as oil when its price is determined exogenously e g by a cartel such as opec and is subject to stochastic fluctuations away from an expected growth path we first examine the dependence of production on extraction cost and show that the conventional exponential decline curve is indeed optimal if marginal cost is constant with respect to the rate of extraction but is a hyperbolic function of the reserve level we next show that uncertainty about future price affects the optimal production rate in two ways first if marginal cost is a convex concave function of the rate of production stochastic fluctuations in price raise lower average cost over time so that there is an incentive to speed up slow down production second the option value of the reserve i e the ability to withhold production indefinitely and never incur the cost of extraction provides an incentive to slow down the rate of production

money and asset prices in a cash in advance economy an asset pricing model with money introduced via a cash in advance constraint is presented the monetary velocity is variable hence money demand does not obey the trivial quantity equation the effects of disturbances in output and money growth on real balances the price level and interest rates are examined monetary policy has effects on real asset prices the fisher relation and the premium on nominal bonds are discussed the precise role of the timing of information and transactions for properties of price levels and interest rates are clarified

inflation and real stock returns revisited i introduction this article empirically reinvestigates the relationship between real stock returns and inflation according to fisher 1930 1 in an efficient market real stock returns should reflect expectations only about real factors such as growth in output and time preference of savers such that real stock returns and inflation should vary independently in other words on average investors are fully compensated for erosions in purchasing power over time however this so called generalized fisher hypothesis has received little empirical support while kaul 1990 boudoukh and richardson 1993 solnik and solnik 1997 madsen 2005 and ryan 2006 find positive or weakly positive correlation between stock returns and inflation most empirical studies including nelson 1976 fama 1981 1983 geske and roll 1983 gultekin 1983 kaul 1987 and solnik 1983 uncover a negative effect of inflation anticipated and or unanticipated on real or nominal stock returns these apparent inconsistencies between the data and the predictions of economic theory have been termed as the stock return inflation puzzle and cited as evidence of monetary nonsuperneutrality or irrationality and market inefficiency 2 to reconcile the seemingly conflicting contributions danthine and donaldson 1986 provide a rational expectations equilibrium model in which a negative relation between stock returns and inflation arises from non monetary sources e g a real output shock and a positive relation is driven by purely monetary sources stulz 1986 marshall 1992 and bakshi and chen 1996 also assert that stock returns may be negatively correlated with inflation especially when the source of inflation is related to nonmonetary factors evidently hess and lee 1999 khil and lee 2000 and lee 2003 find that while monetary shocks drive a positive correlation real fiscal or real output shocks result in a negative correlation between stock returns and inflation from a different perspective kaul 1987 1990 argues that the relation between these two variables depends on both the money demand and the money supply specifically while the combination of money demand effects with a countercyclical monetary response accentuates a negative correlation money demand shocks along with a procyclical monetary response lead to a neutral or positive correlation between real stock returns and inflation similar arguments can be found in day 1984 kaul and seyhun 1990 boudoukh richardson and whitelaw 1994 and gallagher and taylor 2002 and are supported by compelling empirical evidence see e g kim 2003 lee 1992 as an alternative this article models the real stock return inflation relationship as intrinsically dynamic explicitly distinguishing between the short run and the long run such a distinction is crucial because imperfect information rigidity and or contractual obligations are more prevalent in the short run than in the long run in that sense the response of real stock returns to inflation could differ in the short run versus long run moreover we assess the long and short run impacts of inflation uncertainty on real stock returns as argued the real costs of inflation are associated with its uncertainty greater inflation uncertainty resulting from higher inflation may lead to economic inefficiency lower real investment and unemployment thereby reducing economic growth thus it is interesting to see if there are independent effects of inflation uncertainty on real stock returns both in the short run and in the long run in so doing this article uses an innovative econometric technique to explore the long and short run relationships between real stock returns and inflation both anticipated and unanticipated and the relationships with inflation uncertainty it departs from earlier work and complements recent evidence in at least three aspects

the equity premium in brock s asset pricing model abstract in this paper we combine dynamic programming methods with projection methods for solving stochastic growth models as an application of these methods we solve brock s asset pricing model with a variety of parameterizations we focused on finding parameterizations that result in an equity premium that is high relative to the variation in consumption we show both analytically and numerically that the equity premium can be higher in a production based asset pricing model than it is in the consumption based asset pricing model even when the real output level is the same in both models

monetary uncertainty in discrete time utility of money models abstract in a discrete time model higher variability of the future money supply affects current macroeconomic variables when beginning of period money is the argument of utility but not when end of period money is the effect is through the existence of a precautionary money demand

a technique for estimating the discount rate in pindyck s stochastic model of nonrenewable resource extraction abstract the purpose underpinning this paper is to develop an empirically verifiable model of the economic behavior of a single competitive firm operating to exploit a single deposit of oil using pindyck s methodology this model is derived using a continuous time framework and stochastic optimal control the main contribution of the research lies in making the connection between dynamic economic modeling and statistical methods that arise naturally from stochastic optimization

migration and the environment policy reform in a polluted open economy previous literature on labour migration has paid little attention to the influence of environmental attributes this paper attempts to remedy this void by developing a simple two region general equilibrium model with amenities playing a key role in affecting migration flows specifically we argue that in the presence of an environmental externality interregional labour migration depends not only on wages but also on amenities people may leave a region offering higher wages if the resulting utility loss from worsened amenities exceeds the gain in wages policies should be adopted by regions or nations to regulate the environment to provide for the quality of living to attain this goal regional or international policy cooperation on tradable pollution permits can be superior to pollution permits supplied independently by each region or nation while non tradable between them

sticky goods prices flexible asset prices monopolistic competition and monetary policy a monetary general equilibrium asset pricing model with sticky goods prices is developed goods prices are set by monopolistically competitive firms that maximize stock market value equilibria with underutilization of resources excess capacity in some states result in contrast to previous monetary asset pricing models the degree of competition affects capacity utilization monetary policy can affect output and resource utilization in addition to real asset prices depending upon the amount of information available to the monetary authority

are stocks a good hedge against inflation evidence from emerging markets theory suggests that equities are a good hedge against inflation however most of the empirical evidence for industrialized economies suggests that the relationship between stock returns and inflation is negative one explanation is the negative correlation between inflation and real output growth this paper examines the relationship between inflation and stock returns for ten important emerging stock market esm markets namely chile mexico brazil argentina thailand s korea malaysia hong kong philippines and turkey during the 1990s to anticipate the results the relationship between stock returns and inflation for the whole sample period is positive and statistically significant for three of the sample esms while it is positive but statistically insignificant for a further three only for one esm is the relationship negative and statistically significant this result may be due to the role of money and the positive relationship between consumer prices and output

the emergence of equilibrium cycles in a monetary economy with a separable utility function abstract this paper analyzes the dynamic properties of the monetary economy when money held during the period induces some utility it is shown that the price level and real money balances may have chaotic dynamic paths even if the utility function is separable in real money balances and consumption a crucial point is that a constraint on the utility of money yields the wealth effect that inflation will reduce the real value of assets hence as in the overlapping generations model the conflict between substitution and wealth effects may cause globally stable periodic orbits as well as the complicated dynamics

inflation human capital and tobin s q a pervasive empirical finding for the us economy is that inflation is negatively correlated with the normalized market price of capital tobin s q and growth a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of endogenous growth is developed to explain these stylized facts in this model human capital is the principal driver of self sustained growth long run comparative statics analysis suggests that inflation diverts scarce time resource to leisure which lowers human capital utilization this impacts growth adversely and modulates capital adjustment cost downward resulting in a decline in tobin s q for the short run a tobin effect of inflation on growth weakens the negative association between inflation and q

a money demand function with output uncertainty monetary uncertainty and financial innovations in a general equilibrium framework incorporating the money in the utility function approach we show that output uncertainty and monetary uncertainty as well as output interest rates and financial innovations affect money demand the estimated long run relationships are consistent with our postulated relation but not with the conventional one our model delivers a high income elasticity consistent with cross sectional evidence and helps resolve m1 demand puzzles the model estimated in dynamic error correction form exhibits a good level of stability and forecastability providing little support for the recent de emphasis of monetary aggregates due to the instability of money demand

nominal prices and interest rates in general equilibrium endowment shocks the outstanding problem of neoclassical monetary theory has been to determine the effect of changes in the money stock on nominal prices and interest rates the classic result is that in the absence of money illusion contracts fixed in nominal terms and other such impedimenta money is neutral thus a doubling of the money stock results in a doubling of the nominal price level and in no change in nominal interest rates except at most for a temporary liquidity effect while the price level is rising to its new level during the adjustment period the nominal interest rate might temporarily drop this neutrality result has conventionally been proved in a static framework in intertemporal models it is necessary to distinguish between static neutrality and dynamic neutrality if a model displays dynamic neutrality fluctuations in the money stock immediately induce a proportional change in the nominal price level and no change in nominal interest rates or any real variable this property is different from and stronger than static neutrality which in dynamic models states only that if the money stock at all dates is doubled so will be the price level at all dates the effects of exogenous shocks in the monetary growth rate on nominal prices and interest rates are analyzed a representative individual rational expectations framework is adopted and a demand for money is generated by entering money in the utility function the effects of monetary shocks on inflation and interest rates are shown to depend on the autocorrelation of the monetary growth rate for example under serial independence the inflation rate equals the monetary growth rate and the nominal interest rate is nonrandom while under positive negative autocorrelation the nominal interest rate is affected positively negatively by positive growth rate shocks i am grateful to the staff of the federal reserve bank of philadelphia to the finance groups at the university of southem california and virginia polytechnic institute and to c j lacivita dan peled john seater and jon sonstelie for valuable comments on earlier drafts

sources and propagation of international output cycles common shocks or transmission abstract this paper studies the generation and transmission of international cycles in a multi country model with production and consumption interdependencies two sources of disturbance are considered and three channels of propagation are compared technology disturbances which are mildly correlated across countries are more successful than government expenditure disturbances in reproducing actual data the presence of a common component to the shocks and of production interdependencies appear to be crucial in quantitatively matching the properties of the data

energy and depletable resources economics and policy 1973 1998 abstract this paper reviews the impact of the literature in depletable resources and energy economics over the period 1973 1998 particularly the initial period of publication of the journal of environmental economics and management 1974 1998 a discussion of prominent policy issues in this arena is provided along with an indication of what academic economics papers have contributed to that debate this is followed by a citation analysis of contributions in the fields of energy and exhaustible resource economics for each of these two fields a list of the top papers in each five year period from 1974 to 1998 is presented along with a list of the top journals in each decade based on average citations per article the top ten cited articles in the fields in the journal of environmental economics and management are also presented

comparative dynamics of an equilibrium intertemporal asset pricing model this paper uses recursive competitive theory to develop a general equilibrium asset pricing model in this framework all prices and rates of return are endogenously determined thus enabling us to analyze the effects of changes in preferences technological uncertainty and expectations on the structure of security prices in particular we focus on how the market risk premium varies with changes in the underlying economic environment an issue which other asset pricing models have chosen not to address