Economic Record最新文献

This study re-evaluates the macroeconomic impact of monetary policy shocks in the United States using the proxy-SVAR approach of Gertler and Karadi (American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2015, 7, 44–76). Despite increased credit costs and the presence of the credit channel, our analysis reveals modest effects on economic activity post-mid-1980s. This robust finding holds across various inference methods and sample considerations. A counterfactual analysis within the framework of Bernanke, Gertler, and Gilchrist (1999, Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier) suggests that a stronger response to inflation in monetary policy execution may explain the subdued impact of shocks, offering valuable insights for policy refinement and understanding the dynamics of economic activity.

This study uses stated preference experiments to examine labour market preferences of 309 workers retrenched by the Australian automotive industry for non-pecuniary job attributes denoting job quality and meaningfulness. We find that autonomy and employer reputation for good work policies and practices are the two most important non-pecuniary job attributes, with compensating wage differentials of roughly $5 per hour for greater autonomy and better employer reputation. Job security and skill utilisation are also important, but less so, with compensating wage differentials between $1 and $3 per hour for greater security and fewer training requirements. Workers' strongest preference is not for a particular type of work, but rather for a particular type of employer, suggesting that labour market policy might pay more attention to regulating the quality of workplaces.

We present a simple model to characterise central bank forward guidance, large-scale asset purchases and yield curve control. Endogenous yield curve reactions to policy shocks are a key determinant of monetary conditions and can support or offset policy intentions. Alternative monetary policy tools allow the central bank to signal central bank private information to investors when the policy rate is at the effective lower bound, shaping yield curve reactions. Commitments to these tools offer policy certainty but can become time-inconsistent if the economy recovers sooner than expected. If commitments become time-inconsistent, endogenous yield curve tightening can offset excess stimulus. The strength of this offset, and the optimality of monetary conditions, improves with the precision of investor inferences of central bank private information.

Despite a conventional wisdom that female board members positively impact firm performance, a thorough examination of the research to date reveals no consensus that female board members have either a positive or negative effect on firm financial performance. We build the largest dataset of Australian board appointments assembled to date. We use our data to demonstrate how difficult it is to replicate existing research, with one example from Australia and one from the USA. Using event studies and regression analyses, we demonstrate that there is little evidence that female board representation affects firm financial performance.

This paper examines the effect of the 2008 financial crisis on Taiwan's fertility by exploiting a natural experiment in which public-sector workers are unaffected due to job security. The financial crisis reduces the number of children by increasing the first-birth interval, which leads to a lower probability of first birth. Women aged 33–38 experienced the largest decline in the probability of first birth, increasing the risks of permanent childlessness. Low-income households and those with less-educated spouses have a greater increase in the first-birth interval. The number of children and the probability of first birth remain significantly lower 9 years after 2008.