Money, real output, and deficit effects of coffee booms in Colombia

This paper develops a Vector Error Correction (VEC) model and uses the recently developed technique of ‘generalized’ impulse response analysis to test the empirical relationships in the Colombian economy between coffee revenues and a set of macro variables. We find that coffee price (revenue) shocks have exerted an important influence on money growth, inflation, and real exchange rates, and the direction of these effects are in line with some of the predictions of traditional Dutch Disease type models. The major difference between our results and the results of Dutch Disease type models arise in the effects of coffee booms on real output. We find that in the time horizon of 5 years after the boom, real output has increased in response to the effects of the coffee boom. The finding that coffee booms can result in positive long-run output effects is an important finding since it contradicts the traditional conclusion of Dutch Disease type models which envision an adverse long-run effect on output. We also find that the long-run effect of coffee booms is to reduce both current account and government deficits. These results illustrate strikingly that the term “Dutch Disease” is an unfortunately pejorative term that obscures the fact that coffee booms need not be viewed as a “disease” but as an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen internal and external balances.     

Expectation management for public sector organizations

Transparency and collecting stakeholder feedback are becoming the norm also in the public sector. Though much of feedback is related to stakeholder experiences, we propose that it is more beneficial to study expectations than experiences, as expectations affect future satisfaction. This study reports a process of collecting and analyzing stakeholder expectations in one health-care oriented public sector organization in Finland, and reports how these expectations and their implications were assessed by the organization's top management. The study suggests that to ensure stakeholder satisfaction and organizational success, top management should be guided to work through the feedback. We propose a “fix or fit” approach where expectations are first grouped and then analyzed as either something that requires changing of organizational functions, or as something that requires guiding of stakeholders’ expectations to fit existing functions.     

A Comparative Note about Estimation of the Fractional Parameter under Additive Outliers

In recent articles, Fajardo et al. (2009 Fajardo Molinares, F., Reisen, V.A., Cribari-Neto, F. (2009). Robust estimation in long-memory processes under additive outliers. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference 139:2511–2525.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Reisen and Fajardo (2012) propose an alternative semiparametric estimator of the fractional parameter in ARFIMA models which is robust to the presence of additive outliers. The results are very interesting, however, they use samples of 300 or 800 observations which are rarely found in macroeconomics. In order to perform a comparison, I estimate the fractional parameter using the procedure of Geweke and Porter-Hudak (1983 Geweke, J., Porter-Hudak, S. (1983). The estimation and application of long memory time series model. Journal of Time Series Analysis 4:221–238.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) augmented with dummy variables associated with the (previously) detected outliers using the statistic τ_d suggested by Perron and Rodríguez (2003 Perron, P., Rodríguez, G. (2003). Searching for additive outliers in nonstationary time series. Journal of Time Series Analysis 24(2):193–220.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Comparing with Fajardo et al. (2009 Fajardo Molinares, F., Reisen, V.A., Cribari-Neto, F. (2009). Robust estimation in long-memory processes under additive outliers. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference 139:2511–2525.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Reisen and Fajardo (2012), I found better results for the mean and bias of the fractional parameter when T = 100 and the results in terms of the standard deviation and the MSE are very similar. However, for higher sample sizes such as 300 or 800, the robust procedure performs better. Empirical applications for seven monthly Latin-American inflation series with very small sample sizes contaminated by additive outliers are discussed.     

On Francis Galton's Difference Problem

Francis Galton proposed to split the money available for the first two prizes in a competition according to some ratio X, depending on the marks of the three best competitors, but invariant under change of location or scale of the marks. Assuming normality, Galton found that EX is about .75 and empirically he observed that X is nearly uniformly distributed between and 1. Our main purpose is to show that Galton was indeed right for a wide class of underlying distributions. As the number of competitors tends to ∞, the ratio X tends (in distribution) to a uniform random variable.     

从自卑情结看《远大前程》

分析指出,自卑情结是著名心理学家阿德勒个体心理学理论的一个重要概念。自卑是人类的正常情感,用适当的方式超越自卑也是社会进步的动力。《远大前程》中的三个主要人物皮普、郝薇仙和马格韦契都有不同程度的自卑情结,并且选择了不同的超越自卑方式。这些不当的超越自卑方式是人物悲剧命运的原因之一。     

SHIBOR期限结构的再检验

本文利用结构突变理论重新检验EH假说,发现Campbell和Shiller(1987)模型隐含了有关单一利率的结构突变特征的两个条件：存在共同结构突变点;在共同突变点的突变幅度也完全相同。只有同时满足两个条件,传统EG检验才不会错误拒绝EH假说。本文针对z这些问题改进了实证模型,重点转变为分析EH假说在中国市场不成立的原因,发现排除“利率倒挂”和各利率的共同结构突变点的干扰以后,EH假说分别在SHIBOR长短期利率成立。SHIBOR隔夜拆借利率是一个结构突变的稳定过程。     

特有冲击、共同冲击与通货膨胀持续性

中国分类价格指数的通货膨胀持续性有何特征？如何理解分类价格指数和加总价格指数通货膨胀持续性之间的关系？我们对2001年1月至2011年12月的数据进行实证分析,结果表明分类价格指数比较明显的表现出行业间异质的通货膨胀波动性和通货膨胀持续性,而与加总价格指数相比,它的通货膨胀波动性更大而通货膨胀持续性更低。通货膨胀持续性的这些现象可以从特有冲击和共同冲击的角度加以理解。共同冲击的相对重要性存在差异解释了分类价格指数的通货膨胀持续性呈现行业间异质性;特有冲击的重要性在数据加总时被削弱,解释了分类价格指数具有比加总价格指数更低的通货膨胀持续性。     

通货膨胀的宏观经济影响因素分析

本文首先利用贝叶斯向量自回归（BVAR）模型,分析了通货膨胀对宏观经济的冲击响应及其剧烈程度。然后,利用门限模型验证了通货膨胀在不同变量作为门限变量情况下的门限效应。结果表明：通货膨胀对六个因素冲击的反应程度各异,其中,对流动性过剩的反应程度最强,对股票价格、产出缺口和国际油价的反应适度,对实际有效汇率和房价的反应较弱;股票价格、汇率和国际油价具有明显的门限特征,它们分别将通货膨胀分为高低两种区制状态。以上结果有利于我们更好地认识通货膨胀的反应机制,采用合理的经济政策应对通货膨胀。     

货币政策、时变预期与融资成本

文章在货币当局与市场主体存在不对称信息条件下,探讨了货币当局实施未预期的宽松性政策时,市场主体预期时变性在这一政策行动影响信贷市场融资成本过程中的机制。首先,我们采用外部融资溢价度量融资成本,提出在经济周期的不同阶段,未预期的宽松性政策通过作用于市场主体预期的时变性特征,进而影响外部融资溢价的非线性效应假说,然后,建立包含货币政策变量的马尔科夫区制转换信贷利差模型和市场主体预期形成模型展开检验。研究显示,未预期的宽松性政策会暴露出经济不良的私有信息,从而使市场主体形成悲观的经济前景预期。而且,在经济衰退阶段,政策行动促使市场主体预期恶化的影响效应较小,会较大幅度地降低外部融资溢价;在经济扩张阶段,政策行动促使市场主体预期恶化的影响效应将会越大,进而较小幅度地降低外部融资溢价,这也就意味着,市场主体预期形成方式的时变性,影响到未预期宽松性政策降低信贷市场融资成本的力度。     

On the directional accuracy of inflation forecasts: evidence from South African survey data

We study the information content of South African inflation survey data by determining the directional accuracy of both short-term and long-term forecasts. We use relative operating characteristic (ROC) curves, which have been applied in a variety of fields including weather forecasting and radiology, to ascertain the directional accuracy of the forecasts. A ROC curve summarizes the directional accuracy of forecasts by comparing the rate of true signals (sensitivity) with the rate of false signals (one minus specifity). A ROC curve goes beyond market-timing tests widely studied in earlier research as this comparison is carried out for many alternative values of a decision criterion that discriminates between signals (of a rising inflation rate) and nonsignals (of an unchanged or a falling inflation rate). We find consistent evidence that forecasts contain information with respect to the subsequent direction of change of the inflation rate.