bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Firm Size and the Impact of Profit-Margin Uncertainty on Investment: Do Financing Constraints Play a Role?
Authors: Ghosal Vivek , Loungani Prakash
Published: August 2019

We study the response of investment to changes in uncertainty about future profits. We find that in industries dominated by small firms, an increase in uncertainty about future profits depresses investment; in all other industries, increased uncertainty has virtually no effect (or has a positive effect) on investment. The data set from which these findings emerge is a balanced panel, consisting of annual data from 1958 to 1991 for 252 manufacturing industries in the United States. The theoretical work on this topic points to uncertainty about future profit flows as one of the important actors that determines the ease with which firms can access external credit. The prediction made by the theory is that an increase in uncertainty exacerbates informational asymmetries, and hence makes lenders reduce the flow of credit; this in turn lowers investment in credit-constrained firms. If one is willing to accept firm size as a proxy for access to external credit, then our finding that greater uncertainty lowers investment in small-firm-dominated industries is consistent with the theoretical prediction.
Stockholding Behavior of U.S. Households: Evidence from the 1983-89 Survey of Consumer Finances
Authors: Bertaut Carol C.
Published: August 2019

Most households persistently invest in riskless assets but not stocks, and may do so because they perceive the information required for market participation to be costly relative to expected benefits. In a CCAPM, increased risk aversion, income risk, and lower resources reduce the information expense sufficient to deter stockholding. Bivariate probit analysis using the 1983-89 Survey of Consumer Finances shows that households with lower risk aversion, higher education, and greater wealth who were nonstockholders in 1983 had an increased conditional probability of entering by 1989, while 1983 stockholders with lower resources, more limited education, and greater risk aversion were more likely to be nonstockholders by 1989.
Broad Money Demand and Financial Liberalization in Greece
Authors: Ericsson Neil R. , Sharma Sunil
Published: August 2019

This paper develops a constant, data-coherent, error correction model for broad money demand (M3) in Greece. This model contributes to a better understanding of the effects of monetary policy in Greece and of the portfolio consequences of financial innovation in general. The broad monetary aggregate M3 was targeted until recently, and current monetary policy still uses such aggregates as guidelines, yet analysis of this aggregate has been dormant for over a decade.In spite of large fluctuations in the inflation rate, introduction of new financial instruments, and liberalization of the financial system, the estimated model is remarkably stable. The dynamics of money demand are important, with price and income elasticities being much smaller in the short run than in the long run.
Some Evidence on the Efficacy of the U.K. Inflation Targeting Regime: An Out-of-Sample Forecast Approach
Authors: Huh Chan Gak
Published: August 2019

Inflation targeting (IT)--a policy framework that directly targets an explicit inflation goal--has gained widespread attention recently as it has been adopted by several OECD countries. There is a growing body of literature on the ultimate long-term benefits of price stability and on theoretical issues related to inflation targeting. But the short duration of this practice has limited the number of works that empirically analyze the performance of IT regimes. This paper examines the British inflation targeting experience since 1993 by focusing on the out-of-sample forecast performance of models fitted to the 1980s. The model over-predicts actual short-term and long-term interest rates, while its inflation forecast is on tract for the recent period. This implies that it took less monetary tightening to obtain a favorable inflation outcome. Identical exercises were repeated for France and the US, countries that have not adopted IT but have experienced low inflation in the recent period. The results for these countries show that recent low inflation has not been unusual when compared to forecasts from the models designed to fit the second half of the 1980s. That is, given the level of inflation, the degree of actual monetary policy tightness (measured in terms of short-term interest rate) is about what the model expects. Findings of this paper could be explained by enhanced credibility of the UK monetary policy since the adoption of IT.
Financial Innovation and the Speed of Adjustment of Money Demand: Evidence from Bolivia, Israel, and Venezuela
Authors: Copelman Martina
Published: August 2019

Traditional studies of money demand for both developed and less developed countries have shown that there are periods of "missing money," that is, there is consistent overprediction of real balances. This paper uses cointegration techniques to study the effects of financial innovation on the demand for real balances in Bolivia, Israel, and Venezuela. The results show that financial innovation can account for the instability of money demand observed in these countries. In particular, I find that the long run demand for real balances shifted down. In addition, I show that the speed at which people adjust their demand for money when out of equilibrium increases following financial innovation.
The Role of Credit in Post-Stabilization Consumption Booms
Authors: Copelman Martina
Published: August 2019

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the role of credit in the post-stabilization consumption booms of Mexico, Chile, and Israel. Credit from the banking sector to the private sector expanded very rapidly following the stabilizations. I show that this increase in credit reduced the proportion of consumers that were liquidity constrained in the economy. This reduction in liquidity constraints could have helped to fuel the observed consumption booms. In addition, I show that the most important channels for the expansion in credit to consumers in Mexico are the rapid remonetization of the economy, the fall in the ratio of debt held by banks to GDP held by banks, and the increase in the foreign liabilities of banks. For Chile, the most important channel is the remonetization of the economy, whereas in Israel, it is the crowding in effect from the fall in the ratio of public debt held by banks to GDP. The fact that only the crowding in effect was important for Israel, is explained by the differences between its banking system and those of the other countries.
The Reaction of Exchange Rates and Interest Rates to News Releases
Authors: Edison Hali J.
Published: August 2019

This paper examines the response of exchange rates and interest rates--U.S. and foreign--to economic news. The news is associated with the surprise component of the monthly release of six U.S. macroeconomic variables. The results suggest that dollar exchange rates systematically react to news about real economic activity--a surprise of 100,000 on nonfarm payroll employment leads to a 0.2 percent appreciation of the exchange rate. In general, exchange rates do not react systematically to news on inflation. By contrast, U.S. interest rates respond to both types of news, although the response continues to be extremely small, on the order of 1 to 2 basis points. Finally, Japanese interest rates systematically react, but to a very minor extent, to news about U.S. real economic activity, while German rates in general do not.
Timing of Childbearing, Family Size, and Economic Growth
Authors: Iyigun Murat
Published: August 2019

This paper incorporates the timing of childbearing into a growth model with endogenous fertility. It analyzes a model in which individuals' human capital stock depends positively on their education and parental human capital and in which producing and raising children and acquiring human capital are intensive. The model highlights how changes in the human capital stock interact with individuals' timing of childbearing in affecting the evolution of the economy. It shows that, if the complementarity between parental human capital and education in determining individuals' human capital is relatively large, then increases in the human capital stock raise the opportunity cost of having children while young and induce individuals to delay childbearing. That, in turn, accelerates human capital accumulation in the future. The model also demonstrates that early childbearing may lead to a development trap with low human capital.
An Econometric Model of Capital Flight from Developing Countries
Authors: Schineller Lisa M.
Published: August 2019

This paper analyzes capital flight from a group of seventeen developing nations over the period 1978 to 1993. The paper briefly discusses several empirical definitions of capital flight and presents estimates of capital flight for the sample based on some of these measures. In general, the data reveal periodic episodes of dramatic flight through the late 1980s, at which point many nations began to experience strong capital inflows. Anecdotal evidence for the nations in our sample underpins our hypothesis that capital flight is driven by a heightened, pervasive risk which reflects the degree of domestic macroeconomic imbalance which is domestically undiversifiable. Our econometric model of the determinants of capital flight extends previous empirical studies of flight by expanding both the cross section of nations and time horizon of analysis. Given the panel data set, we consider a country specific error component to account for the possibility of unobserved country heterogeneity and employ fixed- effects and random-effects estimation. We instrument for potentially endogenous explanatory variables and in doing so consider a fixed-effects system. The results, based on several different measures of flight, highlight the importance of modelling flight with a country specific error component. While other proxies of the risk associated with macroeconomic imbalance are not significant, the central government surplus is negatively, statistically significantly related to flight. This highlights the motivation of investors to move capital both to escape future taxation directly and indirectly via monetization of deficits. Therefore, even when taking into account other measures of risk, the higher taxation risk, both directly and indirectly through expectations of future inflation, dominates the regressions.
On the Inverse of the Covariance Matrix in Portfolio Analysis
Authors: Stevens Guy V. G.
Published: August 2019

The goal of this study is the derivation and application of a direct characterization of the inverse of the covariance matrix central to portfolio analysis. As argued below, such a specification, in terms of a few primitive constructs, provides new and illuminating expressions for such key concepts as the optimal holdings of a given risky asset and the slope of the risk-return efficiency locus faced by the individual investor. The building blocks of the inverse turn out to be the regression coefficients and residual variance optained by regressing the asset's excess return on the set of excess returns for all other risky assets.
A Guide to FRB/Global
Authors: Levin Andrew , Rogers John Harold , Tryon Ralph W.
Published: August 2019

This paper describes the structure and illustrates the key features of FRB/Global, a large-scale macroeconomic model used in analyzing exogenous shocks and alternative policy responses in foreign economies and in examining the impact of these external shocks on the U.S. economy. FRB/Global imposes fiscal and national solvency constraints and utilizes error-correction mechanisms in the behavioral equations to ensure the long-run stability of the model. In FRB/Global, expectations play an important role in determining financial market variables and domestic expenditures. Simulations can be performed using either limited-information (&amp;amp;amp;quot;adaptive&amp;amp;amp;quot;) or model-consistent (&amp;amp;amp;quot;rational&amp;amp;amp;quot;) expectations.
El Niño and World Primary Commodity Prices: Warm Water or Hot Air?
Authors: Brunner Allan D.
Published: August 2019

This paper examines the historical effects of El Niño on world prices and economic activity. Although the primary focus is on world real non-oil primary commodity prices, the effects on G-7 consumer price inflation and GDP growth are also considered. This paper has several distinct advantages over previous studies. First, several econometric models are estimated using fairly broad measures of prices and economic activity. Second, the models include continuous measures of El Niño intensity (sea surface temperature and sea-level air pressure anomalies in the Pacific Ocean) rather than dummy variable measures. Finally, confidence intervals are constructed for all estimated effects of El Niño on world prices and economic activity. The analysis indicates that El Niño has economically-important and statistically-significant effects on world real commodity prices. A one-standard-deviation surprise in El Niño, for example, raises real commodity price inflation about 3-1/2 to 4 percentage points. Moreover, El Niño appears to account for over 20 percent of commodity price inflation movements over the past several years. El Niño also has some explanatory power for world consumer price inflation and world economic activity, accounting for about 10 to 15 percent of movements in those variables.
Monetary Shocks and Real Exchange Rates
Authors: Rogers John Harold
Published: August 2019

Many explanations of the stylized facts concerning real exchange rate movements focus on monetary shocks, but it is often found empirically that monetary shocks are unimportant. I provide evidence that is contrary to this empirical finding. Using over 100 years of data, I estimate the contribution of various shocks to explaining variation in the real pound-dollar exchange rate. Monetary shocks consist of both monetary base and money multiplier shocks; real shocks include fiscal, productivity, and preference shocks. Estimates of several alternative VAR specifications provide a range for the contribution of the various shocks: from 19 to 60 percent in the short-run for monetary shocks and 4 to 26 percent for fiscal and productivity shocks combined. My modeling strategy and results are compared directly to related work. The results lend empirical support to the convention in recent quantitative general equilibrium modeling of focusing on monetary shocks.
Puzzles in the Chinese Stock Market
Authors: Fernald John G. , Rogers John Harold
Published: August 2019

Many companies on China's stock markets have separate, restricted classes of shares for domestic residents and foreigners. Other than who can own them, these shares are identical, but foreigners pay only about one-quarter the price paid by domestic residents. We show that plausible differences--about 4 percentage-points--in expected rates of return by foreign and domestic investors can account for the generally higher level and volatility of prices for domestic shares relative to foreign shares. We attribute low Chinese expected returns to the limited alternative investments available in China. We then explore the extent to which various company characteristics can explain cross-company differences in the relative price paid by foreigners. For example, foreigners pay a lower relative price for companies with a higher proportion owned by the state--reflecting, surprisingly, a higher absolute price paid by both foreigners and domestic residents. Several puzzles remain. For example, we are unable to explain why Chinese investors in Shanghai paid lower prices in 1994 and 1995 for companies with their foreign listings in Hong Kong rather than Shanghai.
Currency and Banking Crisis: The Early Warnings of Distress
Authors: Kaminsky Graciela Laura
Published: August 2019

The abruptness and virulence of the 1997 Asian crises have led many to claim that these crises are of a new breed and thus they were unforecastable. This paper examines 102 financial crises in 20 countries and concludes that the Asian crises are not of a new variety. Overall, the 1997 Asian crises, as well as previous crises in other regions, occur when the economies are in distress, making the degree of fragility of the economy a useful indicator of future crises. Based on this idea, the paper proposes different composite leading indicators of crises, which are evaluated in terms of accuracy both in-sample and out-of-sample.
A Model of Crises in Emerging Markets
Authors: Dooley Michael P.
Published: August 2019

This paper presents a "first generation" model of speculative attacks on emerging markets. Credit-constrained governments accumulate liquid assets in order to self-insure against shocks to national consumption. Governments also insure poorly regulated domestic financial markets. Given this policy regime, a variety of internal and external shocks generate capital inflows followed by anticipated speculative attacks. The model suggests that a common shock generated capital inflows to emerging markets in Asia and Latin America after 1989. Country-specific factors determined the timing of speculative attacks. Economic reform programs may also have generated capital inflow/crisis sequences.
The Current International Financial Crisis: How Much Is New?
Authors: Kamin Steven
Published: August 2019

The paper surveys a broad array of data to compare the scope and impact of three emerging-market financial crises: the debt crisis of the 1980s, the Mexican financial crisis of 1994-95, and the current international financial crisis. While certain conventional views regarding the three episodes are supported by the data examined in this paper, we find that in several respects, the current crisis is more similar to prior emerging-market crisis episodes than is commonly believed.
On the Dynamics of Trade Diversion: Evidence from Four Trade Blocs
Authors: Freund Caroline L. , McLaren John
Published: August 2019

This paper studies the dynamics of trade reorientation experienced when a country joins a regional trade bloc. We find that the joining country's trade orientation toward bloc countries typically rises along an `S'-shaped path. We estimate the size, speed, and timing of this adjustment path for a `typical' joining country, for four trade agreements. We find that, in the European Union (EU), the incumbent bloc countries' share of the joining country's trade typically rose by eighteen percentage points over the course of the adjustment; that this took twelve years; and that the adjustment began four years before the date of accession. MERCOSUR shows a similar pattern in progress, but NAFTA and EFTA are more idiosyncratic. We argue that the data provide strong evidence of anticipatory sunk investments made to prepare for accession.
Constructive Data Mining: Modeling Consumers' Expenditure in Venezuela
Authors: Campos Julia , Ericsson Neil R.
Published: August 2019

Hoover and Perez (1999) advocate a constructive approach to data mining. The current paper identifies four pejorative senses of data mining and shows how Hoover and Perez's approach counters each. To assess the benefits of constructive data mining, the current paper applies a data-mining algorithm similar to Hoover and Perez's to a dataset for Venezuelan consumers' expenditure. The selected model is economically sensible and statistically satisfactory; and it illustrates how data can be highly informative, even with relatively few observations. Limitations to algorithmically based data mining provide opportunities for the researcher to contribute value added in the empirical analysis.
Detecting Lack of Identification in GMM
Authors: Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

In the standard linear instrumental variables regression model, it must be assumed that the instruments are correlated with the endogenous variables in order to ensure the consistency and asymptotic normality of the usual instrumental variables estimator. Indeed, if the instruments are only slightly correlated with the endogenous variables, the conventional Gaussian asymptotic theory may still provide a very poor approximation to the finite sample distribution of the usual instrumental variables estimator. Because of the crucial role of this identification condition, it is common to test for instrument relevance by a first-stage F-test. Identification issues also arise in the generalized method of moments model, of which the linear instrumental variables model is a special case. But I know of no means, in the existing literature, of testing for identification in this model. This paper proposes a test of the null of underidentification in the generalized method of moments model.
The Use and Abuse of "Real-Time" Data in Economic Forecasting
Authors: Koenig Evan F. , Dolmas Sheila , Piger Jeremy Max
Published: August 2019

We distinguish between three different ways of using real-time data to estimate forecasting equations and argue that the most frequently used approach should generally be avoided. The point is illustrated with a model that uses monthly observations of industrial production, employment, and retail sales to predict real GDP growth. When the model is estimated using our preferred method, its out-of-sample forecasting performance is clearly superior to that obtained using conventional estimation, and compares favorably with that of the Blue-Chip consensus.
Log-Periodogram Estimation of Long Memory Volatility Dependencies with Conditionally Heavy Tailed Returns
Authors: Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

Many recent papers have used semiparametric methods, especially the log-periodogram regression, to detect and estimate long memory in the volatility of asset returns. In these papers, the volatility is proxied by measures such as squared, log-squared and absolute returns. While the evidence for the existence of long memory is strong using any of these measures, the actual long memory parameter estimates can be sensitive to which measure is used. In Monte-Carlo simulations, I find that the choice of volatility measure makes little difference to the log-periodogram regression estimator if the data is Gaussian conditional on the volatility process. But, if the data is conditionally leptokurtic, the log-periodogram regression estimator using squared returns has a large downward bias, which is avoided by using other volatility measures. In U.S. stock return data, I find that squared returns give much lower estimates of the long memory parameter than the alternative volatility measures, which is consistent with the simulation results. I conclude that researchers should avoid using the squared returns in the semiparametric estimation of long memory volatility dependencies.
Fiscal Federalism and European Integration: Implications for Fiscal and Monetary Policies
Authors: Gramlich Edward M. , Wood Paul R.
Published: August 2019

This paper examines European economic integration in light of standard thinking about fiscal federalism. We first describe the main features of European integration, analyzing how institutions in the European Union fit the prescriptions of a federal system. We find that in some areas the European Union has already developed arrangements that fit standard views of fiscal federalism, in other areas there is gradual movement toward prescribed arrangements, and in still other areas the European Unionâ s unique historical path may suggest some interesting new departures in the federalism literature. We try to extract some lessons from this analysis: some recommendations for Europe based on the orthodox principles of fiscal federalism, and some modifications of these orthodox principles based on the European experience.
The Use of Cyclical Indicators in Estimating the Output Gap in Japan
Authors: Haltmaier Jane
Published: August 2019

The paper uses capital and labor utilization rates to derive estimates of the Japanese output gap and potential output. Two techniques are used. The first uses the cyclical indicators to adjust potential output estimates derived from a Hodrick-Prescott filter over the most recent period when such estimates are generally considered to be unreliable. The second estimates equilibrium levels of the cyclical indicators and uses an Okun's Law-type relationship to derive output gaps and potential output. The second method is also applied to the components of potential output to derive a third estimate. These methods suggest that the current Japanese output gap is considerably larger than a simple Hodrick-Prescott filter would suggest.
A Simple Measure of the Intensity of Capital Controls
Authors: Edison Hali J. , Warnock Francis E.
Published: August 2019

We propose a monthly measure of the intensity of capital controls across 29 emerging markets. Our measure, which is based on restrictions on foreign ownership of equities, provides information on the extent and evolution of financial liberalization. Using the measure, we show that a complete liberalization results in a much sharper decrease in the cost of capital than previously reported, but following a partial liberalization the cost of capital increases. Moreover, the more complete the liberalization is, the greater are the subsequent exchange rate appreciation and capital inflows.
Exchange Rate Forecasting: The Errors We've Really Made
Authors: Faust Jon , Rogers John Harold , Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

We examine the forecasting performance of standard macro models of exchange rates in real time, using dozens of different vintages of the OECD's Main Economic Indicators database. We calculate out-of-sample forecasts as they would have been made at the time, and compare them to a random walk alternative. The resulting "time series" of forecast performance indicates that both data revisions and changes in the sample period typically have large effects on exchange rate predictability. We show that the favorable evidence of long-horizon exchange rate predictability for the DM and Yen in Mark (1995) is present in only a narrow two-year window of data vintages around that used by Mark. In addition, approximately one-third of the improved forecasting performance of Mark's monetary model over a random walk is eventually undone by data revisions. Related to this, we find the models consistently perform better using original release data than using fully revised data. Finally, we find that model-based exchange rate forecasts are sometimes better when using Federal Reserve Staff forecasts of future fundamentals instead of actual future values of fundamentals. This contradicts a cherished presumption in the literature that dates all the way back to Meese and Rogoff (1983).
Finding Numerical Results to Large Scale Economic Models using Path-Following Algorithms: A Vintage Capital Example
Authors: Berger Brett D.
Published: August 2019

This paper describes the numerical optimization methods used in Berger (2001) to find the complete time paths of key economic variables in neoclassical vintage capital models. An interior and a non-interior point method are discussed. Both of the methods are part of the general class of "path-following" algorithms. These algorithms can be efficiently applied to convex programming problems; and due to the standard shape of production and utility functions, many economic problems can be written as convex programming problems. Vintage capital models add scale and complexity to standard growth models because one must now handle the dynamics of multiple capital stocks. This increase in complexity will often prevent the discovery (or existence) of closed form solutions, making numerical solutions of the type found in Berger (2001) necessary.
On the Fragility of Gains from Trade under Continuously Differentiated Bertrand Competition
Authors: Marazzi Mario
Published: August 2019

One of the most widely accepted principles of economics is the existence of gains from trade for every nation under certain conditions including perfect competition. In the last twenty years, trade economists have revolutionized the field by firmly establishing the possibility of modeling imperfectly competitive international markets. Despite this development, most still agree there are good reasons to believe that gains from trade are still present. However, we show that in the absence of international redistributions the presence of a positive profit sector in a general equilibrium model can lead to a situation in which some nations may lose from the reduction of international trade barriers.
Monetary Union, Price Level Convergence, and Inflation: How Close is Europe to the United States?
Authors: Rogers John Harold
Published: August 2019

In light of 50 years of economic policies designed to integrate Europe -- culminating in the elimination of euro zone national currencies in early 2002 -- and a vast academic literature on international economic integration, it is of interest to assess how far European integration has come in practice. Using a unique data set, I document the pattern of price dispersion across European and U.S. cities from 1990 to 2001. I find a striking decline in dispersion for traded goods prices in Europe, most of which took place between 1991 and 1994. The level of traded goods price dispersion in the euro area is now quite close to that of the United States. A decline in dispersion of non-tradeables prices in Europe has also taken place, but to a smaller extent. For U.S. cities, there is no evidence of a decline in price dispersion, even for tradeables. I examine several possible explanations for the decline in European price dispersion, including harmonization of tax rates, convergence of incomes and labor costs, liberalization of trade and factor markets, and increased coherence of monetary policy. I also investigate how much of the variation in national inflation rates in Europe can be explained by price level convergence. Finally, after showing that prices in likely next-round entrants into the euro zone are well below prices in Western Europe, I discuss the potential inflationary consequences of accession into monetary union for Eastern Europe.
Optimal Monetary Policy with Durable and Non-Durable Goods
Authors: Erceg Christopher J. , Levin Andrew
Published: August 2019

We document that the durable goods sector is much more interest-sensitive than the non-durables sector, and then investigate the implications of these these sectoral differences for monetary policy. We formulate a two-sector general equilibrium model that is calibrated both to match the sectoral responses to a monetary policy shock derived from our empirical VAR, and to imply an empirically-realistic degree of sectoral output volatility and comovement. While the social welfare function involves sector-specific output gaps and inflation rates, the performance of the optimal policy rule can be closely approximated by a simple rule that targets a weighted average of aggregate wage and price inflation. In contrast, a rule that stabilizes a more narrow measure of final goods price inflation performs poorly in terms of social welfare.
Uncovered Interest Parity: It Works, But Not For Long
Authors: Chaboud Alain P. , Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

If an investor borrows in a low interest currency and invests in a high interest currency, the interest differential accrues in a lumpy manner. The investor will receive the interest differential at the point when a position is rolled over from one day to the next. A position that is not held open overnight receives no interest differential because intradaily interest rates are zero. Using a larget dataset of 5 minute exchange rate data, we run uncovered interest parity regressions over different short time intervals taking careful account of the settlement rules in the spot foreign exchange market. We find results that are supportive of the uncovered interest parity hypothesis over very short windows of data that span the time of the discrete interest payment.
Interest Rate Rules and Multiple Equilibria in the Small Open Economy
Authors: Zanna Luis-Felipe
Published: August 2019

In a small open economy model with traded and non-traded goods this paper characterizes conditions under which interest rate rules induce aggregate instability by generating multiple equilibria. These conditions depend not only on how aggressively the rule responds to inflation, but also on the measure of inflation to which the government responds, on the degree of openness of the economy and on the degree of exchange rate pass-through. As an important policy implication, this paper finds that to avoid aggregate instability in the economy the government should implement an aggressive rule with respect to the inflation rate of the sector that has sticky prices. That is the non-traded goods inflation rate. As a by-product of this analysis, it is shown that "fear-of-floating" governments that follow a rule that responds to both the CPI-inflation rate and the nominal depreciation rate or governments that implement "super-inertial" interest rate smoothing rules may actually induce multiple equilibria in their economies. This paper also shows that for forward-looking rules, the determinacy of equilibrium conditions depends not only on the degree of openness of the economy but also on the weight that the government puts on expected future CPI-inflation rates. In fact rules that are "excessively" forward-looking always lead to multiple equilibria.
Productivity Growth and the Phillips Curve in Canada
Authors: Gruber Joseph W.
Published: August 2019

This study examines the impact of productivity growth on the relationship between inflation and unemployment in Canada. Recently it has been suggested that higher productivity growth is responsible for a shift in the U.S. Phillips curve that occurred in the late 1990s. This paper examines whether the Phillips curve in Canada shifted in a manner similar to that of the United States, and the degree to which higher productivity growth explains this shift.
Benefits and Spillovers of Greater Competition in Europe: A Macroeconomic Assessment
Authors: Bayoumi Tamim , Laxton Douglas , Pesenti Paolo
Published: August 2019

Using a general-equilibrium simulation model featuring nominal rigidities and monopolistic competition in product and labor markets, this paper estimates the macroeconomic benefits and international spillovers of an increase in competition. After calibrating the model to the euro area vs. the rest of the industrial world, the paper draws three conclusions. First, greater competition produces large effects on macroeconomic performance, as measured by standard indicators. In particular, we show that differences in competition can account for over half of the current gap in GDP per capita between the euro area and the US. Second, it may improve macroeconomic management by increasing the responsiveness of wages and prices to market conditions. Third, greater competition can generate positive spillovers to the rest of the world through its impact on the terms of trade.
The Decline of Activist Stabilization Policy: Natural Rate Misperceptions, Learning, and Expectations
Authors: Orphanides Athanasios , Williams John C.
Published: August 2019

We develop an estimated model of the U.S. economy in which agents form expectations by continually updating their beliefs regarding the behavior of the economy and monetary policy. We explore the effects of policymakers' misperceptions of the natural rate of unemployment during the late 1960s and 1970s on the formation of expectations and macroeconomic outcomes. We find that the combination of monetary policy directed at tight stabilization of unemployment near its perceived natural rate and large real-time errors in estimates of the natural rate uprooted heretofore quiescent inflation expectations and destabilized the economy. Had monetary policy reacted less aggressively to perceived unemployment gaps, inflation expectations would have remained anchored and the stagflation of the 1970s would have been avoided. Indeed, we find that less activist policies would have been more effective at stabilizing *both* inflation and unemployment. We argue that policymakers, learning from the experience of the 1970s, eschewed activist policies in favor of policies that concentrated on the achievement of price stability, contributing to the subsequent improvements in macroeconomic performance of the U.S. economy.
The Information Content of Forward and Futures Prices: Market Expectations and the Price of Risk
Authors: Chernenko Sergey V. , Schwarz Krista B. , Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

Forward and futures rates are frequently used as measures of market expectations. In this paper we apply standard forecast efficiency tests, and some newer exact sign and rank tests, to a wide range of forward and futures rates, and in this way test whether these are in fact rational expectations of future actual prices. The forward and futures rates that we study under a common methodology include foreign exchange forward rates, U.S. and foreign interest rate futures and forward rates, oil futures and natural gas futures. For most, but not all, of these instruments, we find that we can reject the hypothesis that the forward or futures rates are rational expectations of actual future prices. It is well known that foreign exchange forward rates give less accurate forecasts than a random walk, but we show that this is also true for some interest rate futures and forward rates. We conclude that forward and futures prices are not generally pure measures of market expectations: they are also heavily affected by the market price of risk.
Is The Corporate Loan Market Globally Integrated? A Pricing Puzzle
Authors: Carey Mark S. , Nini Greg
Published: August 2019

We offer evidence that interest rate spreads on syndicated loans to corporate borrowers are economically significantly smaller in Europe than in the U.S., other things equal. Differences in borrower, loan and lender characteristics associated with equilibrium mechanisms suggested in the literature do not appear to explain the phenomenon. Borrowers overwhelmingly issue in their natural home market and bank portfolios display significant home "bias." This may explain why pricing discrepancies are not competed away, but the fundamental causes of the discrepancies remain a puzzle. Thus, important determinants of loan origination market outcomes remain to be identified, home "bias" appears to be material for pricing, and corporate financing costs differ in Europe and the U.S.
The Performance of International Portfolios
Authors: Thomas Charles P. , Warnock Francis E. , Wongswan Jon
Published: August 2019

We evaluate the performance of U.S. investors’ international portfolios over a 25-year period. Portfolio returns are formed by first estimating monthly bilateral holdings in 44 countries using high-quality but infrequent benchmark surveys that enable us to eliminate the geographical bias in reported capital flows data. In their foreign equity portfolios, U.S. investors achieved a significantly higher Sharpe ratio than global benchmarks, especially since 1990. We uncover three potential reasons for this success. First, they abstained from returns-chasing behavior and instead sold past winners. Second, conditional performance tests provide no evidence that the superior (unconditional) performance owed to private information, suggesting that the successful exploitation of publicly available information played a role. Third, well-documented preferences for cross-listed and well-governed foreign firms appear to have served U.S. investors well. We also evaluate the unconditional performance of bond portfolios, about which less information is available, and find that U.S. investors achieved higher Sharpe ratios than global benchmarks, although the difference here is not statistically significant.
Global Financial Integration: A Collection of New Research
Authors: Carey Mark S.
Published: August 2019

This introductory note summarizes and draws together the work reported in eight research papers written by staff economists of the Board's Division of International Finance as part of a project on global financial integration. The eight papers are also International Discussion Finance Discussion Papers (IFDPs), the numbers of which are specified on the table of contents that appears herein. When viewing this introduction online, the paper titles appearing on the table-of-contents page are web links that may be used to navigate directly to each paper's on-line file. All recent IFDPs are available on the Web at www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/.
International Capital Flows and U.S. Interest Rates
Authors: Warnock Francis E. , Warnock Veronica C.
Published: August 2019

Foreign flows have an economically large and statistically significant impact on long-term interest rates. Controlling for various macroeconomic factors we estimate that had there been no foreign flows into U.S. bonds over the past year, the 10-year Treasury yield would currently be 150 basis points higher; even a step-down to average inflows would imply an increase of 105 basis points. The impact of the headline-making foreign official flows -- a relatively small subset of total foreign accumulation of U.S. bonds -- is also significant but markedly smaller. Our results are robust to a number of alternative specifications.
Alternative Procedures for Estimating Vector Autoregressions Identified with Long-Run Restrictions
Authors: Christiano Lawrence J. , Eichenbaum Martin S. , Vigfusson Robert J.
Published: August 2019

We show that the standard procedure for estimating long-run identified vector autoregressions uses a particular estimator of the zero-frequency spectral density matrix of the data. We develop alternatives to the standard procedure and evaluate the properties of these alternative procedures using Monte Carlo experiments in which data are generated from estimated real business cycle models. We focus on the properties of estimated impulse response functions. In our examples, the alternative procedures have better small sample properties than the standard procedure, with smaller bias, smaller mean square error and better coverage rates for estimated confidence intervals.
Estimation of Average Local-to-Unity Roots in Heterogenous Panels
Authors: Hjalmarsson Erik
Published: August 2019

This paper considers the estimation of average autoregressive roots-near-unity in panels where the time-series have heterogenous local-to-unity parameters. The pooled estimator is shown to have a potentially severe bias and a robust median based procedure is proposed instead. This median estimator has a small asymptotic bias that can be eliminated almost completely by a bias correction procedure. The asymptotic normality of the estimator is proved. The methods proposed in the paper provide a useful way of summarizing the persistence in a panel data set, as well as a complement to more traditional panel unit root tests.
Fully Modified Estimation with Nearly Integrated Regressors
Authors: Hjalmarsson Erik
Published: August 2019

I show that the test procedure derived by Campbell and Yogo (2005, Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming) for regressions with nearly integrated variables can be interpreted as the natural t-test resulting from a fully modified estimation with near-unit-root regressors. This clearly establishes the methods of Campbell and Yogo as an extension of previous unit-root results.
Should We Expect Significant Out-of-Sample Results When Predicting Stock Returns?
Authors: Hjalmarsson Erik
Published: August 2019

Using Monte Carlo simulations, I show that typical out-of-sample forecast exercises for stock returns are unlikely to produce any evidence of predictability, even when there is in fact predictability and the correct model is estimated.
Trade Adjustment and the Composition of Trade
Authors: Guerrieri Luca , Gust Christopher J. , Erceg Christopher J.
Published: August 2019

A striking feature of U.S. trade is that both imports and exports are heavily concentrated in capital goods and consumer durables. However, most open economy general equilibrium models ignore the marked divergence between the composition of trade flows and the sectoral composition of U.S. expenditure, and simply posit import and exports as depending on an aggregate measure of real activity (such as domestic absorption). In this paper, we use a SDGE model (SIGMA) to show that taking account of the expenditure composition of U.S. trade in an empirically-realistic way yields implications for the responses of trade to shocks that are markedly different from those of a "standard" framework that abstracts from such compositional differences. Overall, our analysis suggests that investment shocks, originating from either foreign or domestic sources, may serve as an important catalyst for trade adjustment, while implying a minimal depreciation of the real exchange rate.
Ramsey Meets Hosios: The Optimal Capital Tax and Labor Market Efficiency
Authors: Arseneau David M. , Chugh Sanjay K.
Published: August 2019

Heterogeneity between unemployed and employed individuals matters for optimal fiscal policy. This paper considers the consequences of welfare heterogeneity between these two groups for the determination of optimal capital and labor income taxes in a model with matching frictions in the labor market. In line with a recent finding in the literature, we find that the optimal capital tax is typically non-zero because it is used to indirectly mitigate an externality along the extensive labor margin that arises from search and matching frictions. However, the consideration of heterogeneity makes our result differ in an important way: even for a well-known parameter configuration (the Hosios condition) that typically eliminates this externality, we show that the optimal capital income tax is still non-zero. We also show that labor adjustment along the intensive margin has an important effect on efficiency at the extensive margin, and hence on the optimal capital tax, independent of welfare heterogeneity. Taken together, our results show that these two empirically-relevant features of the labor market can have a quantitatively-important effect on the optimal capital tax.
Efficiency in Housing Markets: Do Home Buyers Know how to Discount?
Authors: Hjalmarsson Erik , Hjalmarsson Randi
Published: August 2019

We test for efficiency in the market for Swedish co-ops by examining the negative relationship between the sales price and the present value of future monthly payments or `rents'. If the co-op housing market is efficient, the present value of co-op rental payments due to underlying debt obligations of the cooperative should be fully reflected in the sales price. However, we find that, on average, a one hundred kronor increase in the present value of future rents only leads to an approximately 75 kronor reduction in the sales price; co-ops with higher rents are thus relatively overpriced compared to those with lower rents. We also find that these inefficiencies are larger at the lower end of the housing market and in poorer, less educated regions (though they are still observed in all geographic regions). These findings appear to reflect both the role played by liquidity constraints in price formation and there being more informed and `sophisticated' buyers in higher educated areas who push prices closer to efficiency. Overall, our findings suggest that there is some systematic failure to properly discount the future stream of rent payments relative to the up front sales price.