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作者：BERTOLA, G
摘要：This paper proposes a model of growth with diversifiable microeconomic uncertainty and uses it to study the efficiency costs and distributional effects of obstacles to labor mobility. Labor mobility costs reduce private and social returns to irreversible investment decisions, decrease the speed of capital accumulation, and lower a representative agent's welfare. They can however shift income distribution towards 'workers', or individuals who own no accumulated factors of production and have no...
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作者：SIMKINS, SP
摘要：Previous research indicates that real business cycle models are capable of reproducing important features of U.S. business cycle behavior. Here I employ classical methods of business cycle analysis to determine how well the cyclical properties of simulated data from a representative real business cycle model match up with postwar U.S. business cycle characteristics. While the simulated model reproduces qualitative features consistent with observed business cycle experience, quantitative goodne...
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作者：CHADHA, B; PRASAD, E
作者单位：International Monetary Fund
摘要：This paper re-examines the cyclical behavior of prices using postwar quarterly data for the G-7. We confirm recent evidence that the price level is countercyclical. However, we find strong evidence that the inflation rate is procyclical in our sample. Our results show the importance of making a clear distinction between inflation and the cyclical component of the price level when reporting and interpreting stylized facts regarding business cycles.
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作者：DIWAN, I; SPIEGEL, MM
作者单位：New York University; The World Bank
摘要：We analyze the mechanics of menu-driven debt reduction deals, similar to those recently initiated by debtor countries, in which heterogeneous banks choose freely between selling or retaining their debt claims. We show that menu deals can facilitate discrimination across heterogeneous banks because of imperfections in the secondary market for debt. This implies that menu deals are likely to dominate market buybacks and pure concerted relending agreements, particularly when banks differ widely i...
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作者：EVANS, MDD; LEWIS, KK
作者单位：University of Pennsylvania; New York University
摘要：Predictable variations in excess returns have often been attributed to the presence of time-varying risk premia. In this paper, we use an insight based upon new techniques from time series analysis to test whether stationary risk premia can alone explain the behavior of excess returns to long bonds relative to rolling over short rates. Surprisingly, we reject this hypothesis using U.S. T-bill returns. We then show that either permanent shocks to the risk premia and/or rationally anticipated sh...
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作者：BRAUN, RA
摘要：I examine the title question in a competitive framework where the transaction demand for money is modeled using a cash-in-advance constraint and only distortionary taxes are possible. Empirical evidence and simulations are used to document the plausibility of the assumptions which produce the Friedman rule; these findings suggest that it is not a good benchmark. My results suggest that an optimal monetary policy calls for nominal interest rates that can exceed 6% per year.
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作者：BILS, M; CHO, JO
作者单位：National Bureau of Economic Research; Queens University - Canada
摘要：We introduce procyclical labor and capital utilization, as well as costs of rapidly increasing employment, into a business-cycle model. Plausible variations in factor utilization enable us to explain observed variability of real GNP with considerably smaller economy-wide disturbances. The costs of adjustment create very interesting and realistic lead and lag relationships: employment does not peak until a full quarter after output; workweeks, effort, capital utilization, and productivity all s...
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作者：SAMOLYK, KA
摘要：This paper examines the empirical relationship between banking conditions and economic performance at the state level. We develop a regional credit view to explain how, due to information costs, regional banking conditions can affect local economic activity by impacting on a region's ability to fund local investments. Localized information costs suggest that banking-sector problems may constrain economic activity in financially distressed regions, whereas no such link need be evident in financ...
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作者：EVANS, G; REICHLIN, L
作者单位：Columbia University; University of Edinburgh
摘要：The Beveridge-Nelson (BN) technique provides a forecast-based method of decomposing a variable, such as output, into trend and cycle when the variable is integrated of order one, I(1). This paper considers the multivariate generalization of the BN decomposition when the information set includes other I(1) and/or stationary variables. We show how the relative importance of the cyclical component depends on the size of the information set, and is necessarily higher with multivariate BN decomposi...
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作者：HARDOUVELIS, GA
摘要：According to the expectations hypothesis, when the spread between long and short rates widens, next quarter's long rate should rise. In the United States, however, long rates decline instead of rising. This anomaly is also present in Canada, the UK, Germany, and Japan (four of the additional six G7 countries). Nevertheless, in contrast to the US, where long rates appear to overreact to expected future developments, the anomalous short-run movement of long rates in these other G7 countries is c...
