Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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January 1, 0001
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1999
June 1, 1999
Explaining International Comovements of Output and Asset Returns: The Role of Money and Nominal Rigidities
Description: Empirically, output and asset returns are highly positively correlated across the United States and the other major industrialized countries. Standard business cycle models that assume flexible prices and wages, in the Real Business Cycle tradition, have great difficulties explaining this fact. This paper presents a dynamic-optimizing stochastic general equilibrium model of a two-country world with sticky nominal prices and wages and a flexible exchange rate. The structure here predicts positive international transmission of country-specific monetary policy and technology shocks, and it generates sizable cross-country correlations of output and of asset returns.
June 1, 1999
Real Wage Rigidities, Fiscal Policy, and the Stability of EMU in the Transition Phase
Description: EMU started with eleven member countries as scheduled on January 1, 1999. The paper shows that the primacy of politics over economics in this decision could have serious consequences concerning the stability of EMU in the transition phase. Speculative attacks against currencies which are in economic distress due to asymmetric shocks can still happen. A speculative attack as such cannot force a country out of EMU. However, the country concerned might voluntarily decide to leave the system as the costs of staying inside EMU, e.g., due to further rising unemployment, become too large to bear.
June 1, 1999
Common Trends and Structural Change: A Dynamic Macro Model for the Pre- and Postrevolution Islamic Republic of Iran
Description: This paper uses a common trends model to study how prices, the black market exchange rate, money, and real output have developed over a period covering both pre- and post-revolution Iranian data. It is shown that monetary shocks have significant short-run effects on output, but permanent effects on the price level and exchange rate, that is, expansionary monetary policy is not consistent with achieving low inflation or a stable unified exchange rate. The real shocks generate higher growth and lower inflation, suggesting that supply-side policies are consistent with the goals in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s second five-year development plan.
June 1, 1999
Co-Movements in Long-Term Interest Rates and the Role of PPP-Based Exchange Rate Expectations
Description: This paper investigates international co-movement in bond yields by testing for uncovered interest parity (UIP). Existing work is supplemented by focusing on long instead of short-term interest rates and by employing exchange rate expectations derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) instead of actual outcomes. Among the major currencies during 1975-97, the paper does not find a further increase in co-movement beyond that associated with the wave of financial market liberalization in the early 1980s. Given the similarity between PPP-based UIP tests and those employing actual exchange rate outcomes, the value added of the former lies mainly with data availability.
June 1, 1999
Do Hong Kong SAR and China Constitute An Optimal Currency Area? An Empirical Test of the Generalized Purchasing Power Parity Hypothesis
Description: The paper explores the behavior of the long-run real exchange rate (RER) of Hong Kong SAR and China by testing the generalized-purchasing power parity hypothesis (G-PPP). The hypothesis argues that if the fundamental variables determining RERs are sufficiently integrated, as in a currency area, the RERs should share common trends. The findings of this study suggest (1) at present, Hong Kong SAR and China do not satisfy the conditions necessary for forming an optimal currency area by themselves; (2) when Japan and the United States are added to the group, common trends can be found; and (3) the long-run elasticity between the RERs of Hong Kong SAR and China is negative.
June 1, 1999
Price Imputation and Other Techniques for Dealing with Missing Observations, Seasonality and Quality Change in Price Indices
Description: Price index compilers frequently face situations where price observations are missing due to seasonal unavailability, supply shortages, or the discontinuation of products. Incorrect treatment of such situations can result in biased price indices. This paper presents statistical imputation techniques that index compilers can use to prevent bias and suggests the extension of these same techniques to assist with adjustments for quality differences. The use of additional procedures for dealing with some of the problems caused by seasonal commodities is also discussed.
June 1, 1999
Sources of Economic Growth: An Extensive Growth Accounting Exercise
Description: A growth accounting exercise is conducted for 88 countries for 1960-94 to examine the source of cross-country differences in total factor productivity (TFP) levels. Two differences distinguish this analysis from that of the related literature. First, the critical technology parameter—the share of physical capital in real output—is econometrically estimated and the usual assumption of identical technology across regions is relaxed. Second, while the few studies on the determinants of cross-country differences in TFP have focused on growth rates of real output this analysis is on levels. Recent theoretical as well as empirical arguments point to the level of TFP as the more relevant variable to explain.
June 1, 1999
Price Liberalization, Money Growth, and Inflation During the Transition to a Market Economy
Description: This paper examines the influence of economic liberalization and monetary growth on inflation during the transition from central plan to market. It concludes that price decontrol had a substantial, one-time effect on the price level but no lasting effect on inflation; that economic liberalization broadly defined may have helped dampen price increases; and that monetary expansion has been the fundamental determinant of inflation in the region. The paper also finds that the intensity of liberalization has been related to geographic proximity to market economies, to the size of the underground economy, and to the degree of political freedom.