optimal state dependent rules credibility and inflation inertia abstract we use a state dependent model where pricing rules are optimal to examine the costs of a money based disinflation under various assumptions about the credibility of the policy change our analysis allows us to relate actual credibility and future inflation inertia to the asymmetry of the price deviation distribution an important implication of our state dependent setting is that disinflation can be attained without substantial cost even in a situation of low credibility provided that a mechanism of price alignment eliminates the asymmetry of the price deviation distribution we also develop an analytical framework for analyzing intermediate imperfect credibility cases

asymmetric price adjustment and economic fluctuations this paper considers a possible explanation for asymmetric adjustment of nominal prices the authors present a menu cost model in which positive trend inflation causes firms relative prices to decline automatically between price adjustments in this environment shocks that raise firms desired prices trigger larger price responses than shocks that lower desired prices the authors use this model of asymmetric adjustment to address three issues in macroeconomics the effects of aggregate demand the effects of sectoral shocks and the optimal rate of inflation copyright 1994 by royal economic society

a reexamination of purchasing power parity a multicountry and multiperiod study abstract this paper re examines the purchasing power parity ppp theory in a multiple exchange rate world owing to a lack of precision in estimating the parameters many authors concluded that ppp did not hold very well in the 1970s using a time series cross sectional estimation procedure we are unable to reject the hypothesis that ppp holds in several currencies simultaneously in addition the parameters are precisely estimated this result follows from the estimation procedure which allows us to exploit the cross sectional variation in the data and the contemporaneous correlation in the deviations from ppp

towards establishing a scale for assessing the attractiveness of petroleum fiscal regimes evidence from malaysia this paper identifies a gap in the current literature relating to the attractiveness of petroleum fiscal regimes and suggests that establishing a measurement scale based on relevant factors drawn from the extant literature and on the perceptions of experts would complement the economic models currently in use and could become an industry standard it will undoubtedly influence the petroleum fiscal policies and practices of petroleum producing countries the methodology used involved a review of literature to identify factors that enhance the attractiveness of petroleum fiscal regimes deploying experts to validate the appropriateness of the identified factors conducting exploratory factor analysis and evaluating the internal consistency reliability of the construct s dimensions performing confirmatory analysis for convergence and discriminant validity of the dimensions and computing model fit indices to evaluate the goodness of fit of the four factor correlated attractiveness petroleum fiscal regime scale the results obtained suggest that a credible and manageable scale for assessing the attractiveness of petroleum fiscal regimes can be readily constructed this research has taken the first important pioneering step in the construction of a globally applicable scale the mechanics of which will require extension of our research and consequently makes a significant contribution to policymaking and literature

state dependent pricing and the dynamics of money and output standard macroeconomic models of price stickiness assume that each firm leaves its price unchanged for a fixed amount of time we present an alternative model in which the pricing decision depends on the state of the economy we find a method of aggregating individual price changes that allows a simple characterization of macroeconomic variables the model produces a positive money output correlation and an empirical phillips curve in addition the impact of monetary shocks depends crucially on the current level of output which points to a natural connection between state dependent microeconomics and state dependent macroeconomics i introduction there is a long tradition in macroeconomics of attributing the real effects of nominal demand shocks to nominal price stickiness in this view if there is no change in prices when nominal demand rises then quantities must bear the burden of adjustment hence nominal price rigidity provides the friction needed for nominal demand shocks to be transmitted to the real economy standard models of this transmission mechanism such as fischer 1977 and taylor 1980 are based on the assumption that each firm leaves its price unchanged for a fixed amount of time the main reason for considering such time dependent pricing rules is their analytic tractability constraining firms to adjust their prices at prespecified times both simplifies the derivation of equilibrium strategies and allows the use of powerful time series techniques to analyze aggregate dynamics the main disadvantage of the timedependent approach is that between price adjustments firms are not allowed to respond even to extreme changes of circumstance this makes it difficult to know whether the qualitative effects of money in these models are the result of nominal rigidities per se or of the exogenously imposed pattern of price changes an alternative approach to modeling price stickiness is to allow the price setting decision to depend on the actual state of the

the behavior of prices and inflation an empirical analysis of disaggregat price data this paper analyzes the effects of inflation on the dispersion of prices as well as other aspects of price behavior using disaggregated data on prices of foodstuffs in israel during 1978 84 we find that the effect of expected inflation on intramarket price variability is stronger than the effect of unexpected inflation we show that even in times of high inflation price quotations are not trivially short and price changes are not synchronized across firms these facts taken together confirm that there is some staggering in the setting of prices we find that the distribution of real prices is far from being uniform as many menu cost based models assume or conclude in fact as inflation increases to very high levels this distribution is not even symmetric when the annual inflation rate reaches 130 percent there are equal chances of finding real prices above or below the market average but upward deviations in the real price are further away from zero than downward ones furthermore as the annu

deviations from purchasing power parity in the long run this paper demonstrates that deviations from purchasing power parity reveal a remarkable and possibly startling consistency with martingale behavior during both fixed and flexible rate periods for a wide variety of countries and in both monthly and annual data since this pattern appears to be much more general than one would expect on the basis of models founded on international commodity arbitrage the paper proposes an alternative explanation which instead relies on financial arbitrage in bonds as the underlying mechanism this paper will demonstrate that deviations from purchasing power parity ppp reveal a remarkable and possibly startling consistency with martingale behavior during both fixed and flexible exchange rate periods for a wide variety of countries and in both monthly and annual data this pattern appears to be much more general than one would expect on the basis of models founded on international commodity arbitrage the paper therefore proposes an alternative explanation which does not presuppose free trade in goods but which instead relies on financial arbitrage in bonds as the underlying mechanism the major implication of the theory and the results is that ppp is as likely to be violated in the long as in the short run as an empirical matter deviations from ppp can be observed for most currencies at any instant see kravis et al 21 stockman 37 and genberg 15 among others these deviations are typically both cumulative and persistent the real exchange rate can remain on either side of parity for lengthy but variable time intervals of a year or more as a consequence the current consensus shared

menu costs and markov inflation a theoretical revision with new evidence abstract we revisit a foundational theoretical paper in the menu cost literature sheshinski and weiss 1983 optimum pricing policy under stochastic inflation review of economic studies 50 3 513 529 one of the few to treat stochastic inflation with persistent deviations from trend in contrast to the original finding we show that optimal pricing in this environment entails using different s s bands in high inflation and low inflation states of the world the low inflation band is strictly contained within the high inflation band this revised solution has very different implications from the original one firms are generally risk loving not risk averse with respect to inflation an increase in the variance of inflation increases price dispersion when inflation is high and decreases price dispersion when inflation is low on an aggregate level this optimal pricing would lead to bunching of prices and non neutrality of money in the setting of caplin and spulber 1987 menu costs and the neutrality of money quarterly journal of economics 102 4 703 725 to test the main finding we construct an establishment level dataset from the months surrounding mexico s tequila crisis in 1995 in the high inflation state price increases are larger and establishments allow their prices to vary more widely around their respective long run mean relative prices cross establishment price dispersion is lower but this result seems due to decreased establishment heterogeneity rather than narrower s s bands overall the evidence suggests that establishments employ wider s s bands in the high inflation state

national price levels purchasing power parity and cointegration a test of four high inflation economies abstract the time series properties of exchange rates and wholesale prices from four high inflation countries show some evidence in support of purchasing power parity tests for stationarity of real exchange rates and cointegration among price and exchange rate variables are presented for argentina brazil chile and israel during the 1970s and 1980s error correction models describe the mechanism of adjustment to long run equilibrium

purchasing power parity modeling and testing mean reversion abstract a model of mean reversion of exchange rates to purchasing power parity is developed and tested where exchange rates are assumed to follow a mean reverting elastic random walk toward a stochastic ppp rate the model recognizes the possibility that mean reversion towards ppp may be nonlinear which allows greater flexibility in the adjustment process regression equations consistent with the theoretical model are derived the model is tested using long and short term data for six countries while the results are generally consistent with the findings of previous studies evidence is presented which demonstrates that the mean reversion process is not linear for some countries

can more frequent price changes lead to price inertia nonneutralities in a state dependent pricing context the authors present a generalized s s state dependent pricing model in which menus are changed not just in response to price misalignment but also in response to factors such as changing product mix their model generates aggregate price inertia and so reverses an important earlier result on neutrality in state dependent pricing contexts in more general settings than previous modifications it also provides a compromise between state and time dependent rules gives a glimpse at the dynamic implications of menu cost models and reproduces two recent results one on phillips curve slopes and one on asymmetric fluctuations copyright 1997 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

evidence on the functional relationship between relative price variability and inflation with implications for monetary policy this paper considers the functional relationship between relative price variability rpv and inflation using quarterly personal consumer expenditure data in the us over 1967q1 2003q1 deriving some implications for monetary policy non parametric regression techniques are used to explore the shape of the rpv function and this shape is related to the theory outlined by rotemberg 1982 1983 the empirical rpv function yields a plausible optimal value of inflation in the region of five percentage points which is consistent with this theory and lies within the range of values cited by recent evaluations of sand and grease effects

the collapse of purchasing power parities during the 1970 s one of the striking facts concerning the relationship beiveen prices and exchange rates during the 1970 s has been the dismal performance of the predictions of the simple versions of the purchasing power parity doctrine ppp that doctrine in its absolute version states that the equilibrium exchange rate between domestic and foreign currencies equals the ratio of domestic to foreign price levels the relative version of the doctrine relates equilibrium changes in exchange rates to changes in the ratio of domestic to foreign prices during the 1970 s short run changes in exchange rates bore little relationship to short run differentials in national inflation rates and frequently divergences from purchasing power parities have been cumulative this paper reviews and analyzes the empirical record of exchange rates and prices during the 1970 s and the analysis is based on the experience of the dollar pound the dollar frecch franc and the dollar dm exchange rates section 2 presents the evidence on ppp during the 1970 s and contrasts it with the evidence from the 1920 s a period during which the doctrine held up reasonably well this analysis is relevant for assessing whether the flexible exchange rate system was successful in providing national economies with an added degree of insulation from foreign shocks and whether it provided policymakers with an added instrument for the conduct of macroeconomic policy the evidence regarding devia tions from purchasing power parities is also relevant for determining whether there is a case for managed float section 3 attempts to explain what went wrong with

integration of inventory and pricing decisions with costly price adjustments motivated by the widespread adoption of dynamic pricing in industry and the empirical evidence of costly price adjustments in this paper we consider a periodic review inventory model with price adjustment costs that consist of both fixed and variable components in each period demand is stochastic and price dependent the firm needs to coordinate the pricing and inventory replenishment decisions in each period to maximize its total discounted profit over a finite planning horizon we develop the general model and characterize the optimal policies for two special scenarios namely a model with inventory carryover and no fixed price change costs and a model with fixed price change costs and no inventory carryover finally we propose an intuitive heuristic policy to tackle the general system whose optimal policy is expected to be very complicated our numerical studies show that this heuristic policy performs well

real and nominal exchange rates in the long run an empirical investigation abstract this paper reports on econometric tests of the hypothesis that purchasing power parity holds as a long run relationship using data on eight industrialized countries during the flexible exchange rate period the empirical work proceeds by i testing whether nominal exchange rates and relative price levels are co integrated and ii conducting impulse response analysis of long run exchange rate and relative price level changes to explain the data keynesian models suggest that shocks during the estimation period were due principally to exogenous shifts in aggregate demand while equilibrium models suggest that monetary factors have been relatively more important

purchasing power parity as a long run relation dickey fuller and stock watson tests of purchasing power parity ppp as a long run proposition are provided within the cointegration framework proposed by granger since different countries use different weights to construct price indices the traditional constraint that the coefficients on the price indices should be unity in the log linear ppp relation is relaxed the absence of a general ppp relation cannot be rejected at most a ppp relation is indicated in five out of fifteen country pairs that are examined even if a long run ppp relation exists it is not found to be useful in predicting future nominal exchange rates which is consistent with efficient speculative markets

productivity differentials the relative price of non tradables and real exchange rates abstract this paper reconciles the apparent contradiction between recent panel unit root tests of real exchange rates and the productivity differential model proposing an alternative view that explains the coexistence of such findings real exchange rates and the relative price of non tradables reflect the gradual adjustment of mean reverting and endogenously competing factors supply and demand shocks as well as traded goods arbitrage granger causality and variance decomposition results indicate substantial simultaneity and feedback effects between real exchange rates the relative price of non tradables and productivity differentials

asymmetric nominal flexibility and economic fluctuations recent research has produced strong evidence that supports the asymmetric effects of positive and negative money supply shocks using quarterly data for the united states the evidence of cover 10 suggests that positive money supply shocks do not have an effect on output while negative money supply shocks do the asymmetric impact of demand shocks on real output growth is not addressed in the context of mainstream business cycle theories which include the equilibrium explanation pioneered by lucas 21 and neo keynesian models emphasizing nominal wage rigidity 14 15 or price rigidity 2 in the context of lucas s paradigm agents are scattered in informationaly isolated islands across the economy an unexpected positive or negative change in aggregate demand may be misperceived by agents as being specific to their markets in the case of a positive demand shock producers and workers expand the output and labor supplied to take advantage of the perceived increased demand in their island similarly agents are expected to contract the output produced in response to a perceived reduction in the demand for their output this scenario does not provide an obvious theoretical channel through which the slope of the short run supply curve can be differentiated depending on the direction of the change in aggregate demand in the context of a contractual wage rigidity framework the nominal wage is fixed for a duration that is determined by contractual agreements according to this framework a change in aggregate demand deviates the real wage from its market clearing value for a duration that is determined by the contract length a positive demand shock will raise the price level decrease the real wage and in turn cause an expansion in labor demand and the output produced in the short run a negative demand shock in contrast raises the realized real wage which has a negative impact on labor demand and the output produced in the short run in the absence of any stipulation in contracts that differentiates the degree of wage rigidity in response to a positive and negative demand shock the slope of the short run supply curve is not likely to be differentiated based on the direction of change in aggregate demand in the context of the sticky price explanation of business cycles the price level across sectors of the economy is fixed for a specific duration a change positive or negative in aggregate demand will be absorbed in output as long as the price level remains fixed in the short run in the absence of any stipulation that differentiates the upward and downward stickiness of the price

menu costs and the neutrality of money a model of endogenous price adjustment under money growth is presented firms follow s s pricing policies and price revisions are imperfectly synchronized in the aggregate price stickiness disappears and money is neutral the connection between firm price adjustment and relative price variability in the presence of monetary growth is also investigated the results contrast with those obtained in models with exogenous fixed timing of price adjustment

relative price variability and inflation in europe the relationship between inflation and the relative variability of prices has been the subject of careful investigation in the united states using data for product groups at the city level yet in europe where the relationship could have profound effects on the viability of monetary integration no attempt has been made to study the relationship this paper fills the gap by examining data disaggregated to the commodity level across 10 eu countries evidence is found for logistic smooth transitions in the relative price variability measures within countries and within product groups when this deterministic component is removed the stochastic element is not persistent and does not always have the positive relationship with inflation commonly found in us city data

variable price adjustment costs i introduction costly price adjustment models often called menu cost models see mankiw 1985 are based on the assumption that nominal price changes in product markets are costly with aggregate inflation the optimal pricing policies are state contingent the firm lets its real price drift until it reaches a threshold the nominal price is then changed so as to make the new real price equal to a target value the simplest case is the one sided s s policy studied by sheshinski and weiss 1977 the real price is increased to s after it has been eroded by inflation to s 1 nominal prices are held constant for extended periods of time as is apparent to anyone with eyesight rotemberg 1987 as the timing of price changes is chosen optimally the optimal policies dominate time contingent policies 2 not surprisingly the models have been adopted in the new keynesian literature as a microfoundation for nominal rigidities along with monopolistic competition and coordination failures they have entered the mainstream of that literature 3 given their importance for the new keynesian approach costly price adjustment models require closer scrutiny there are two basic problems first it is not clear what the costs of price adjustment are second there is empirical evidence inconsistent with the standard fixed cost model 4 1 more complex policies are studied by barro 1972 tsiddon 1988 caplin and leahy 1991 and dixit 1991 2 see discussions in blanchard and fischer 1990 and caplin and leahy 1991 a notable exception are time inconsistent problems which may arise in long term contracts 3 rotemberg 1987 ball mankiw and romer 1988 blanchard 1990 and gordon 1990 review macroeconomic applications textbook expositions are in blanchard and fischer 1990 mccafferty 1990 abel and bernanke 1992 and mankiw 1992 4 another issue is how a smooth aggregate price level results from lumpy individual adjustments on this see caplin and spulber 1987 and caballero and engel 1991 the costs of price changes are of two basic types first are the costs of market response customers switching competitors pricing more aggressively etc second are the costs of changing the menu deciding on the new price changing labels informing salesmen and customers etc in existing literature the costs are assumed to be fixed which suggests that they are of the latter type 5 the main criticism of this approach is that as menu costs are small the results are unlikely to be empirically relevant or economically significant mccallum 1989 summarizes this argument in response akerlof and yellen 1985 and mankiw 1985 argued that as the profit function is flat around its maximum profits are not responsive to changes in the real price thus even small costs may result in infrequent price changes empirical evidence supports neither the criticism nor the response the observed frequency of price changes is often too low and real price variations are too large to be generated by a small menu cost for example cecchetti 1986 finds that a typical u s weekly magazine would change its nominal price once every four to six years allowing the real price to deteriorate by about 25 percent results for monopolistic newspapers in canada studied by fisher and konieczny 1992 are similar the average price increase for the twenty six products in israel studied by lach and tsiddon 1992 was 12 percent when the monthly inflation rate was 7 3 percent also in kashyap 1990 price changes vary greatly in size across products sold in the same catalog even though presumably the menu cost is similar with respect to the second problem fixed cost models imply that the size of adjustment rises with inflation the real price is allowed to be eroded more and is reset to a higher value yet in lach and tsiddon 1992 this holds for only sixteen out of twenty six products adjustments become smaller for eight and there is no effect in two cases

panel unit root tests of purchasing power parity for price indices abstract this paper adopts four panel unit root tests to evaluate ppp over the floating period for six different price indices results generally support ppp albeit the speeds of adjustment differ considerably between price indices and test procedures the degree of contemporaneous and serial correlation as well as heterogeneity of the series in the panel affect stationarity and the speed of mean reversion

the asymmetric effects of demand shocks international evidence on determinants and implications the analysis focuses on the asymmetric effects of demand shocks the evidence across a sample of 19 industrial countries differentiates the effects of expansionary and contractionary aggregate demand shocks on real output growth and nominal wage and price inflation the difference appears consistent with a kinked supply curve that is dependent on the asymmetric flexibility of wages and or prices across countries furthermore the evidence does not support the endogeneity of asymmetric nominal flexibility with respect to demand variability or trend price inflation across countries on average across countries demand variability increases nominal wage and price inflation relative to deflation while exacerbating output contraction relative to expansion the apparent trade off between changes in real and nominal trends provides further support to the supply side explanation of asymmetry

pass through of exchange rates and purchasing power parity abstract in this paper we develop and test two hypotheses about purchasing power parity ppp the first is that changes in the price of traded goods relative to domestic substitutes will affect the ppp relation due to the partial pass through of exchange rates the second is that ppp should hold on forward rather than spot exchange rates due to hedging by firms which implies that the interest rate differential should enter the ppp relation for spot rates using quarterly data for several countries we find support for both these hypotheses though the magnitude of the interest rate effect is very small

the mis behaviour of the aggregate price level this paper investigates the response of the price level to random monetary shocks through a model of the fixed cost of changing a nominal price it shows that in an inflationary environment an expansionary monetary shock is accommodated faster than a contractionary monetary shock furthermore when the average rate of monetary expansion increases the lag in response to a positive shock decreases the study also proves that the relationship between the expected rate of inflation and the variance of real prices is positive only above a critical level of expected inflation the most striking result in this area appears in the work of caplin and spulber 1987 they show that in the aggregate when inflation is monotone stickiness disappears even when all firms follow a strict s s rule in their model since firms are uniformly distributed discontinuous price adjustment at the firm level does not create stickiness at the aggregate level caballero and engel 1992 extend this analysis to incorporate idiosyncratic shocks they show that in the presence of monotone idiosyncratic shocks the long run stationary distribution of prices is the uniform distribution but in the short run when the distribution of prices is arbitrary aggregate stickiness can result from firms discontinuous price adjustments in the present work the focus shifts i use a model where aggregate stickiness emerges naturally from firms discontinuous price setting to investigate the effects of the rate of inflation on aggregate stickiness this work shows that aggregate stickiness is negatively correlated with the rate of inflation the higher the rate of inflation the less sticky the response of the aggregate price level with respect to positive nominal shocks and the closer the economy approaches the caplin and spulber model therefore when modeling a dynamic inflation tax one must account not only for the decrease in the monetary base but also for the increase in the speed at which the aggregate price level 889

cointegration tests of purchasing power parity the case of swiss exchange rates abstract this paper tests purchasing power parity ppp as a long run equilibrium condition by examining the long run relationshiop between exchange rates and wholesale price indices using cointegration tests this paper avoids some of the problems of previous cointegration tests of ppp by using more precise data pretests and by not imposing a priori restrictions upon the cointegrating vector of the nine combinations of swiss exchange rates and price indices examined cointegration is detected in seven cases thus supporting ppp as a long run equilibrium jel f31 c32

real exchange rates ppp and the relative price of nontraded goods the purchasing power parity hypothesis ppp states that nominal exchange rates move with differences in relative prices between economies the theory has received considerable attention in the economic literature since cassell 6 and is the foundation of many long run theoretical hypotheses in international finance yet its empirical validity remains in question many tests of ppp focus on the stationarity of the real exchange rate the nominal exchange rate adjusted for changes in price levels between economies if domestic and foreign price levels and the nominal exchange rate are integrated then cointegration between these variables implies the existence of both a long run equilibrium relationship and ppp the residual the real exchange rate then follows a stationary process the paper uses the multivariate cointegration methodology of johansen 16 and johansen and juselius 17 18 to examine the source of real exchange rate nonstationarity is the nonstationarity due to shifts in the domestic and foreign price of nontradeables or productivity differentials between traded and nontraded sectors or is the nonstationarity a possible outcome of difficulties in intercountry comparisons of prices movements associated with construction of these price indices most research finds the real exchange rate follows a nonstationary process due to the presence of a unit root 8 12 1 9 19 27 however the existence of a variable trend in the real exchange rate does not imply the absence of a long run relationship between relative prices levels and nominal exchange rates for two reasons first a long run relationship between price levels and nominal exchange rates may exist but not the one for one relationship implicit in the calculation of real exchange rates due to measurement differences in the construction of price indices between economies second ppp violations may occur due to the presence of permanent productivity innovations which affect the relative price of nontradeables if these shocks are not represented by measurable variables a cointegrating relationship will not exist the paper constructs traded and nontraded gdp price indices and productivity rates for 14 oecd economies and tests 1 if the variable trend the nonstationary process in the real exchange rate is due to permanent innovations in relative price of domestic and foreign nontradeables 2 if long run ppp violations are due to permanent movements in the relative price of nontradeables 3 if the nonstationarity in the real exchange rate is due to permanent innovations in domestic and foreign productivity differentials between the traded and nontraded sectors 4 if the variable trend in the relative price of nontradeables is due to permanent innovations in productivity between sectors lastly the paper constructs a cointegrating error correction model

arima and cointegration tests of ppp under fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes real exchange rates between the united states and its major trading partners were calculated for the bretton woods and flexible exchange rate periods unit root tests indicate that purchasing power parity performed poorly in both periods tests for cointegration reveal limited instances in which it is possible to estimate the deviations from ppp as an error correcting model the estimated error correcting models indicate that foreign but not u s prices responded to deviations from ppp frenkel s 1981b finding that purchasing power parity ppp worked better during the 1920s than the 1970s caused considerable controversy for example davutyan and pippenger 1985 contend that the socalled collapse of ppp is a result of an increase in the relative importance of real versus monetary shocks they argue that the 1970s as opposed to the 1920s was characterized by real supply shocks and the international coordination of monetary policies the argument is that ppp did not fail rather there was an increase in the volatility of those factors giving rise to deviations from ppp hakkio 1984 reestimated ppp over the 1920s and 1970s using cross country tests i e sure estimates to improve the efficiency of his estimates he was able to support the hypothesis that ppp worked better in the 1970s than in the 1920s on the other hand papers by adler and lehman 1983 dornbusch 1980 frenkel 1981a junge 1985 and krugman 1978 report findings contrary to the ppp hypothesis moreover kenen and rodrik 1986 find that the volatility of real exchange rates has increased throughout the flexible rate period this paper tries to shed some light on the importance and persistence of the observed deviations from purchasing power parity under alternative exchange rate systems while it is interesting to compare ppp in the 1920s versus the 1970s it is equally useful to compare the 1960s versus the 1970s and 1980s if real supply shocks and lack of monetary coordination are characteristic of the latter period ppp should perform better in the 1960s to illustrate the issues involved consider the following econometric model of relative purchasing power

synchronization of price changes by multiproduct firms evidence from canadian newspaper prices abstract using data for canadian daily newspapers we find that price changes of papers owned by the same firm are synchronized on the other hand independently owned newspapers do not appear to change their prices together

a fallacy of composition the representative agent framework has endowed macroeconomists with powerful microeconomic tools unfortunately it has also blurred the distinction between statements that are valid at the individual level and those that apply to the aggregate in this paper the author argues that probability theory puts strong restrictions on the joint behavior of a large number of units that are less than fully synchronized many fallacies arise from disregarding these restrictions for example asymmetric factor adjustment costs at the firm level need not imply asymmetric responses of aggregate employment flows to positive and negative shocks copyright 1992 by american economic association

the rigidity of prices this paper uses evidence on individual transaction prices to analyze price behavior the evidence shows that for many transactions pricesremain rigid for periods exceeding one year the rigidity of price ispositively correlated with industry concentration for several productsthe correlation of price changes across buyers is low the paper alsoinvestigates the relationship between price rigidity price change andthe length of time a buyer and seller have been doing business together the author interprets the evidence as emphasizing the importance of nonprice rationing and the inadequacy of models in whichprice movements alone clear markets copyright 1986 by american economic association

econometric methods and purchasing power parity short and long run ppp this paper defines the different versions of the purchasing power parity and establishes the existing relationships between them in the light of econometric techniques monthly and annual data for real exchange rates are studied through a variance ratio test unlike other authors it is found that there is not explosive behaviour in the real exchange rate when monthly data are used besides stationarity is easily accepted using annual data these results allow to reconcile the two main versions of the purchasing power parity and also explain why trade imbalances are persistent but not permanent

do high oil prices justify an increase in taxation in a mature oil province the case of the uk continental shelf in response to the structural shift in oil price coupled with greater import dependency concerns about security of supply have once again emerged as a major policy issue the uk the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the european union became a net importer of natural gas in 2004 and according to government estimates will become a net importer of oil by the end of the decade a weakened north sea performance means extra reliance both for the uk and europe as a whole on global oil and gas network and imports in 2002 the uk government introduced a 10 supplementary charge and in 2005 doubled the charge to 20 in an attempt to capture more revenues from the oil industry as a result of the increase in the price of crude oil however higher tax rates do not necessarily generate higher fiscal revenue and in the long term may result in materially lower revenues if investment is discouraged as indeed occurred when the 2007 uk annual budget statement showed a shortfall in north sea oil revenues below forecasts of 4 billion it is therefore argued that the increase in the fiscal take came at the wrong time for the uk continental shelf and that the uk government s concern should have been to encourage more oil production from its declining province especially in the light of the rising concern surrounding the security of supply

neutrality and efficiency of petroleum revenue tax a theoretical assessment we use an irreversible investment model of oil development to show how a fiscal regime can be both neutral with respect to development decisions and efficient in recouping economic rents we find that there is a unique rate for calculating the tax deductibility of capital costs which ensures economic neutrality while tax efficiency involves high rates of tax on profits after these deductions using parameters of the uk petroleum revenue tax prt numerical calculations in our simplified model suggest that prt was both neutral and relatively efficient in conclusion the tax efficiency of prt is compared with that of a neutral resource rent tax

on the stubbornness of sticky prices this paper presents a simple menu cost example in which there is a clear distinction between price stickiness and downward rigidity of prices while price stickiness may or may not exist in menu cost models downward rigidity shows up whenever there is a reduction of the expected rate of inflation this reduction changes the optimal target and threshold for each firm for some it also implies an immediate increase of their own price this upward jump of prices in case of a disinflationary attempt is interpreted as downward rigidity since there are no symmetric forces when expected inflation increases copyright 1991 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

cointegration and tests of purchasing power parity nonstationarity in the levels of spot exchange rates and domestic and foreign price indices makes the use of conventional tests of the absolute version of purchasing power parity ppp inappropriate if ppp is true inter country commodity arbitrage ensures that deviations from a linear combination of spot exchange rates and domestic and foreign price levels should be stationary under these conditions exchange rates and price levels should form a cointegrated system we find the null hypothesis of no cointegration cannot be rejected for all five countries thus violating the long run absolute version of ppp

microfoundations of macroeconomic price adjustment survey evidence from swedish firms this paper presents the results of a survey on price setting behavior conducted on a large random sample of swedish firms the median firm adjusts the price once a year state and time dependent price setting are about equally important the four highest ranked explanations for price rigidity in this study implicit contracts sluggish costs explicit contracts and the kinked demand curve have close correspondents among the top five places in two similar large scale surveys carried out in the uk and the u s the results point to the importance of the long term relations with customers for the rigidity of prices the estimated share of sales that go to regular customers is more than 80

real dollar exchange rate under the bretton woods and floating exchange rate regimes abstract the focus of the paper is on real exchange rates for the dollar over the period 1957 to 1985 most such exchange rates followed an almost steplike pattern showing relatively little movement in the late 1950s and 1960s falling abruptly and then remaining low in the 1970s and finally in the 1980s rising back to levels close to those that prevailed initially contrary to much recent commentary therefore the period that appears different is not the last five years but the decade that preceded them an important factor underlying this pattern of exchange rate movement according to results presented in the paper was the behavior of monetary policy and hence inflation in the united states what remains to be established is the precise mechanism linking money and real exchange rates and the relative strength of those links

asymmetry in the effects of monetary and government spending shocks contrasting evidence and implications magda kandil 1 introduction recent research on business cycles has produced evidence that demonstrates the asymmetric effects of monetary shocks on economic variables 1 specifically the effect of expansionary monetary shocks on economic variables may be different from that of contractionary shocks the empirical evidence has stimulated efforts to provide an adequate theoretical explanation to the observed asymmetry sources of asymmetry have varied sharply in the theoretical literature primary explanations may be classified into supply side and demand side sources of asymmetry a strand of the theoretical literature has viewed asymmetry of economic fluctuations to be a supply side phenomenon demand shifts along a kinked supply curve are likely to produce varying effects on the economy as to the explanation of the kinked shape of the supply curve competing models offer explanations in one direction some have explained the asymmetric shape of the supply curve by conditions in the labor market this possibility arises in the context of models that advocate the contractual nominal wage rigidity explanation of business cycles the stipulation of wage contracts may allow for asymmetric wage indexation for example if wages are more responsive to expansionary demand shocks compared to contractionary shocks asymmetric wage indexation is consistent with a kinked supply curve in labor and output markets consequently expansionary demand shocks are likely to move the economy along a steeper supply curve 2 alternatively supply side asymmetry may be attributed to conditions in the p roduct market that differentiate price adjustment in the upward and downward directions faced with menu costs firms may be inclined for more frequent and larger adjustments of prices in the upward compared to the downward direction this possibility also is consistent with a steeper supply curve in the face of positive demand shocks compared to negative shocks 3 another line of the theoretical explanations of asymmetric economic fluctuations has emphasized possible asymmetry on the demand side of the economy conditions in the money and or goods markets may differentiate the response of aggregate demand to positive and negative shocks 4 this possibility differentiates the size of aggregate demand shifts in the face of expansionary and contractionary shocks in the absence of supply side asymmetry demand side asymmetry differentiates the severity of economic fluctuations in the face of positive and negative shocks the primary difference between demand side and supply side explanations concerns the output and inflationary effects in response to asymmetry supply side asymmetry produces a trade off between the asymmetric effects of demand shocks on output and their inflationary effects on wages and or prices the response of output growth is larger in the face of demand contraction compared to expansion concurrently the inflationary effect of demand shifts exceeds the deflationary effect on nominal wage and or price in contrast demand side asymmetry produces a positive correlation between the asymmetric effects of demand shocks on real output growth and nominal wage and price inflation that is larger output contraction relative to expansion correlates with smaller inflation relative to deflation of the nominal wage and price in the face of demand shocks the purpose of this investigation is to contrast asymmetry on the demand and supply sides in the face of two specific demand shocks monetary and government spending shocks demand and or supply conditions may differentiate the expansionary and contractionary effects of monetary and fiscal policies the article s analysis will highlight the specifics of this asymmetry the empirical evidence sheds some light on potential explanations of this asymmetry as follows conditions in the credit market and the behavior of ricardian consumers may differentiate the effects of expansionary and contractionary government spending shocks on aggregate demand

exchange rate dynamics with wealth effects some theoretical ambiguities abstract this paper helps fill in a remaining gap in the exchange rate dynamics literature the role of wealth and relative price effects the analysis differs from dornbusch 1976 in the inclusion of wealth effects it differs from engel and flood forthcoming in the inclusion of relative price effects in the savings function the basic result of the paper is that when relative price effects dominate wealth effects exchange rate undershooting occurs but when wealth effects dominate overshooting may occur

the monetary model of the exchange rate long run relationships short run dynamics and how to beat a random walk abstract the monetary model is re examined for the sterling dollar exchange rate first it is demonstrated using a multivariate cointegration technique that an unrestricted monetary model is a valid framework for analyzing the long run exchange rate second we find once proper account has been taken of the short run data dynamics that an unrestricted monetary model outperforms the random walk and other models in an out of sample forecasting contest jel f31

an empirical examination of long run purchasing power parity using cointegration techniques this paper presents an empirical analysis of long run purchasing power parity ppp for five major exchange rates using recently developed econometric techniques on the cointegration of economic time series our empirical results are extremely unfavourable to the ppp hypothesis as a long run equilibrium condition even with an allowance made for measurement error and or tranportation costs in particular we are unable to reject the hypothesis of non cointegration of the exchange rate and relative prices for any of the countries concerned far from finding a stable long run proportionality between exchange rates and relative prices our results therefore suggest that they tend to drift apart without bound