A computable general equilibrium model of Costa Rica is constructed to assess the impacts of food pricing policy on income distribution, resource allocation, and trade. The results of policy experiments support de Janvry's thesis that cheap food policies in Latin America bias agricultural production towards export crops, increase food crop imports, and benefit land and capital owners to the detriment of wage earners. This last effect, however, appears to be slight in the Costa Rican case.
This paper examines empirically the causal impact of monetary and fiscal policy on exchange rates and interest rates in Canada using a six-by-six vector autoregressive (VAR) model with variable lag structure. The results suggest that changes in the base money and budget deficits have no direct causal effects on exchange rates, a finding consistent with the monetary explanation that exchange rates follow a random walk. Also consistent with the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis, the results reveal no direct effect of budget deficits on interest rates, casting doubts on the crowding-out phenomenon for Canada. In contrast, changes in the base money unidirectionally cause changes in interest rates, implying some support for using interest rates as a key intermediate policy target for the Canadian monetary authorities.
This paper develops a general equilibrium model where prices and foreign exchange rates are endogenous and based upon more fundamental determinants. Speculative behavior leading to position taking in claims on foreign risky commodities is explained. It is shown that in a multicurrency environment with less than complete markets and sequential trading opportunities, heterogenous expectations instigate this behavior; speculation occurs only when news (new information) is anticipated to emerge which can lead to a revision in prices and foreign exchange rates. However, it is contended that although foreign exchange risk and price risk do exist in such a market, they are results of the underlying and inescapable quantity risk. Furthermore, in well functioning markets, the risk that emanates from position taking in state contingent claims on foreign commodities and which influences final consumption is quantity risk. The distinction drawn between the three types of risks and the hierarchy established among the three markets with which these risks are associated has implications for international financial management, especially as it pertains to multinational corporations' foreign exchange exposure management.
This is a revised version of a response by the authors at a joint session of the American Economic Association and the North American Economics and Finance Association in Atlanta on December 28, 1989 on the topic “The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement: The Wonnacotts after 20 Years.”
This paper is an attempt to present a summary and perspective on some recent developments in the macroeconomic theories of unemployment. Sections II and III deal respectively with the existing explanations of long term unemployment and the fluctuations in the short term unemployment. Section IV examines how these theories help us in unraveling the United States-Canada unemployment rate divergence puzzle. Some directions for future research are suggested in Section V.
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