INFLATION AND ASYMMETRIC OUTPUT ADJUSTMENTS BY FIRMS

Using ordered probit analyses of a unique micro data set, we find evidence of output asymmetry that is systematically related to inflation and to price asymmetry. As predicted by theory, firms are more likely at higher rates of inflation to raise prices in response to positive cost and demand shocks and less likely to lower prices in response to negative cost and demand shocks. The expected effects of higher inflation on output asymmetry, however, come primarily from cost and demand increases and to a lesser (and statistically insignificant) extent from cost and demand decreases. (JEL E3, D4)     

THE RELATIVE STICKINESS OF WAGES AND PRICES

While many modern business cycle theories posit the existence of nominal wage and/or output price stickiness, their relative importance remains an unsettled issue. Using a structural VAR model, this paper exploits evidence on the behavior of real wages to assess the relative importance of these two sources of stickiness. The empirical results suggest that a positive shock to aggregate demand causes a significant temporary fall in real wages. This is taken as evidence that sticky wages have played a more important role than sticky prices in transmitting aggregate demand shocks to real economic activity in the post-war U.S. (JEL E32)     

AN ECONOMETRIC MODEL OF THE DEMAND FOR CHILD CARE

Child care denotes any arrangement used by a working parent for care of a child, including self-care. This paper is concerned with the factors that influence the demand for market modes of child care by two parent families with working mothers. An econometric model is specified that relates the demand for child care to price, income, and other economic variables. Because of the discrete nature of the child care decision, the multinomial logit probability model is used to analyze the data. The empirical results suggest that the demand for child care is sensitive to both prices and income.     

2011年：宽松货币政策实施与退出的“滞胀”效应——来自2002～2010年货币存量变动研究的见解

通过对2002～2010年我国货币存量、价格波动与产出增长关系的实证研究,有两个重要的发现：一是一个高的货币存量增长率会带来物价上涨的趋势,而抑制物价上涨的根本之策是降低货币增长率;二是2009～2010年实施的宽松货币政策对产出增长的短期效应开始消褪,而价格则进入了一个上升通道,＂滞胀＂风险已经出现,因而中央银行转向降低通胀的一个明确的货币政策规则应是优选的政策目标。     

UNANTICIPATED MONEY GROWTH AND OUTPUT FLUCTUATIONS

A rational expectations model is developed in which prices are fixed during a period. The implications of this model are that output fluctuations are correlated with unanticipated aggregate demand but not with unanticipated inflation. Empirical tests of the model indicate that the persistence of business cycles cannot be explained solely by unanticipated aggregate demand .     

Major Determinants of Current Account in Russia

The objective of this study is to uncover empirically factors that influence the Russian current account balance. This study employs the Johansen Cointegration analysis and Error Correction Model for the period from 1995 to 2008 on the quarterly basis. The empirical results illustrated the existence of long-run relationships between current account balance and selected variables. Sufficient evidence was found to assume that in the Russian Federation the current account is mostly affected by trade and financial variables rather than by mineral resources prices in the long-run. However, in the short-run, investments and prices of mineral resources appeared to have the most significant impact on the current account.     

Economywide Impact of Maize Export Bans on Agricultural Growth and Household Welfare in Tanzania: A Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Model Analysis

Export bans have been frequently used by developing countries in recent years in an attempt to ensure domestic food supplies and insulate domestic market prices from international price hikes. This article uses Tanzania to examine the impact of export bans using a computable general equilibrium model. We find that banning cross‐border maize exports has very little effect on the national food price index and that the benefits from lower maize prices are captured primarily by urban households, while maize producer prices decrease significantly. The export ban further decreases the wage rate for low‐skilled labour and the returns to land, while returns to non‐agricultural capital and wage rates for skilled labour increase, further hurting poor rural households and thus increasing poverty for the country as a whole.     

Time in eating and food preparation among single adults

We investigate factors affecting the duration of eating and food preparation among adults in single decision-maker households. Eating time is differentiated into primary and secondary eating time and further differentiated by location: at home versus away from home. We construct a simple theoretical model, based on Becker’s household production approach, to motivate empirical equations for eating and food preparation time. Empirical analysis is performed using data from the 2006 to 2008 Eating and Health Module of the American Time Use Survey. Higher food-at-home prices are found to be associated with more time in food preparation and primary eating at home. Higher fast food prices are associated with more time in food preparation and less time in primary eating at home. We conclude that food prices influence home production and time allocation decisions. We also find that low-income adults spend more time in food preparation and primary eating at home and are less likely to eat away from home than those with more income. The presence of children in the household is associated with more time in food preparation and less time in primary eating away from home. Public policies attempting to effect an increase in food preparation among low-income, single adult households with children may need to account for limited opportunities such households can have to acquire and prepare healthier foods when additional time is required.     

THE LAW OF ONE PRICE REVISITED: NEW EVIDENCE ON THE BEHAVIOR OF INTERNATIONAL PRICES

This paper is an empirical investigation of the long-run behavior of international prices at the microeconomic level. It analyzes the time-series behavior of a unique set of carefully matched, disaggregated export prices for manufactured goods from the U.S., Gemany, and Japan over the period 1974–90. The results provide little evidence of a long-run linear relationship between global prices of similar export goods from different sources, casting doubts on the empirical relevance of the law of one price.     

Sugar,Land Markets and the Williams Thesis: Evidence from Jamaica's Property Sales, 1750–1810

The economic-history literature of eighteenth-century British America is rich in its quantitative measures of staple production, output prices and demography, but relatively thin in its analysis of input prices. This paper addresses one aspect of this gap by, for the first time, applying a hedonic regression technique to land sales in Britain's most important colony. The results indicate that land values increased over the course of the late eighteenth century, despite economic challenges such as the American Revolution and a series of punishing hurricanes in the 1780s. The model estimates that values reached their peak in 1800, only to decline during the first decade of the nineteenth century.     

Impact of government and industrial agglomeration on industrial land prices: A Taiwanese case study

Government intervention in industrial development is important in promoting national economic development in numerous Asian countries. This study aims to examine the influence of government and industrial agglomeration on industrial land prices by constructing hedonic pricing functions. Based on model testing, this study indicates that variables related to general attributes, locational attributes, industrial agglomeration and government determine land prices. Moreover, industrial agglomeration is positively related to land prices; that is, industrial parks with a stronger agglomeration economy have higher land value. However, the role of government is negatively related to land prices, indicating that government intervention has no influence in increasing land prices and probably results from the inappropriate location of industrial parks and dissatisfaction of those parks' management services. To increase the development efficiency and industry competitiveness, this study proposes that government should identify and improve the weaknesses of industrial parks and promote the establishment of industrial clustering and information transfer among firms.     

Unionization and productivity in commercial banking

This paper examines the net effect of unions on productivity in the commercial banking industry. The focus of the study is on three methodological issues. First, an attempt is made to determine whether individual unions have a differential impact on banking productivity. The influence of unions on output per man-hour was initially estimated by including a union dummy variable in a Cobb-Douglas formulation of bank production. Separate binary variables were then entered into alternative specifications of the model to test the heterogeneity hypothesis. This hypothesis postulates differential productivity effects among the individual unions operating in the commercial banking sector. Second, the sample banks were paired on a case-by-case basis to assure the homogeneity of the two groupings: i.e., union and nonunion. Sample homogeneity is necessary because of the assumptions of identical production functions and output prices between the groups. Third, a complete covariance model was specified in order to estimate the impact of unionization on each parameter of the production function. In general, the unionized banks were less productive than their nonunion peers. It should be noted, however, that the standard errors were large in all the specifications. Moreover, the labor relations problems associated with one union had a large impact on the sector results.     

POLICY INFERENCE USING VAR MODELS

There has been relatively little systematic investigation of the sensitivity of policy inferences derived from VAR models to changes in the lag structure. We investigate this issue using a simple macro model consisting of output, prices, money and interest rates. Using six different lag length selection criteria that vary the bias-efficiency tradeoff, we compare the policy inferences derived from the different estimations of our VAR model. The evidence shows that policy recommendations are quite sensitive to changes in the lag structure.     

A POSITIVE THEORY OF INFLATION AND INFLATION VARIANCE

Empirically, inflation and the variance of inflation are positively associated. This paper develops a model that provides a potential explanation for this relationship in tern of the incentives facing the policymaker in a "discretionary equilibrium." The model can also account for an empirical association between inflation and measures of real output instability. There is, however, no direct causal link whatever from the average rate of inflation to either the variance of inflation or that of real output.     

The impact of union-sponsored boycotts on the stock prices of target firms

An empirical analysis of the impact of union-sponsored boycotts on the stock prices of target firms strongly suggests that union boycott announcements initially lead to economically and statistically significant losses in the stock prices of the target firms. However, this short-term price decline is almost completely erased by rebounds in stock prices over the ensuing 15 trading days.     

EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF DEPRECIATION

This paper surveys empirical research on depreciation based on an econometric model of asset prices introduced by Hall in 1971 and shows how Hall's model provides a vehicle for unifying research on constant quality price indices and depreciation. An additional objective of the paper is to illustrate the use of this research in constructing an integrated system of income, product, and wealth accounts. A system of vintage accounts, like that originated by Christensen and Jorgenson in 1973, is the key to successful integration.     

The supply of physicians' services

This paper presents a model of the supply of physicians' services based upon the assumption that physicians are price-taking utility maximizers. Assuming physicians' services are produced using physicians' labor and purchased inputs, the paper shows that the impact of changes in final product or input prices on the supply of physicians' services depends on the physicians' labor-leisure choice and on the degree of substitutability between physicians' labor and purchased inputs. The empirical results presented indicate that the physicians' labor supply curve is backward-bending, but that the supply curve of physicians' services is positively sloped.     

SMOKE-FREE AIR LAWS, CIGARETTE PRICES, AND ADULT CIGARETTE DEMAND

This article examines the impact of cigarette prices and smoke-free air laws on adult smoking. Probit methods and a generalized linear model with log-link and Gaussian distribution are employed to model adult smoking propensity and intensity, respectively. After controlling for unobserved state-level heterogeneity, which can influence both tobacco policy and smoking behavior, the estimates from this study imply that an inverse relationship exists between cigarette prices and both smoking prevalence and average cigarette consumption by adult smokers. The estimates also imply that more restrictive smoke-free air laws decrease average smoking by adult smokers but have little impact on prevalence. (JEL I18 )     

RELATIVE PRICE DISPERSION, AGGREGATE PRICE MOVEMENT, AND THE NATURAL RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper develops a model of relative price stickiness and examines its implications for the relationship between relative prices, inflation, and the natural rate of unemployment. Estimation of the model demonstrates that causality in the relationship between relative and aggregate prices runs in both directions. However, microeconomic disturbances have been the primary source of relative price change variance over the postwar period, and these micro disturbances have exerted a strong effect on inflation in the short run. It also is shown that micro relative price change dispersion has had a significant influence on the natural rate of unemployment.     

IDENTIFYING THE ROLE OF RISK SHOCKS IN THE BUSINESS CYCLE USING STOCK PRICE DATA

I analyze the sources of U.S. business cycle fluctuations in an estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model with a rich set of nominal and real rigidities and various exogenous disturbances. The model includes a shock to the expected risk‐premium, which introduces a time‐varying wedge between the policy rate set by the central bank and the cost‐of‐capital of firms. In the aggregate data, most U.S. corporations finance their investment using internal funds, and stock prices reveal the opportunity cost of this type of financing. I therefore use corporate market value and dividend data in the Bayesian estimation of the model to identify risk shocks. Variance decomposition exercises show that these shocks account for a substantial part of the variation in the stock market, as well as the variation in output and investment, especially at short forecast horizons. The variation of these variables at longer forecast horizons are mainly captured by shocks to investment‐specific technological change. Historical decomposition points to the important role played by risk shocks in the run up of stock prices and output in the late 90s, and in the reversal of these variables in the early 2000s and during the recent recession. (JEL E32, E44)