Journal of Macroeconomics最新文献

We provide theoretical underpinnings to the traditional IS curve by using the concept of basic and non-basic goods and services in the consumption basket. An extended version of this IS curve incorporates the effects of functional income distribution by appealing to rule-of-thumb behavior. An empirical analysis for both emerging and advanced economies shows that this IS curve does not suffer from the "IS puzzle," a weakness that affects its new Keynesian counterpart, when a measure of the nominal interest rate is used. The interest rate negatively and significantly affects output. Secondly, the second-order term typically specified in the output dynamics does not arise from structural consumption behavior. Thirdly, although we find significant rule-of-thumb behavior in that the labor share is statistically significant, optimal behavior dominates economies. Lastly, basics make up an overwhelming component of the consumption basket, which explains the sluggish response of output to shocks. The implication is that there is a need to extend the basic two-equation model into a 3-equation system by adding the dynamics of the labor share.

We study the pass-through of policy rate hikes and cuts to household and corporate lending and deposit interest rates in South Africa over the period January 2009 to December 2020. We show that rate hikes are typically passed through to mortgage interest rates completely while rate cuts are not. This asymmetry is more prevalent for household than corporate mortgages. Pass-through to household and corporate call deposit interest rates is typically complete, but cheque account interest rates are highly sticky and experience weak pass-through. Our results indicate that banks’ pass-through decisions often impose greater costs on households than firms, and may blunt the stimulatory effect of rate cuts by weakening their impact on debt servicing costs and the remuneration of deposit balances.

Search intensity, as well as the aggregate economic condition, is a crucial factor that determines unemployed workers’ success in job searches. Their search intensity is predicted to be procyclical in standard search and matching models. However, many empirical studies show that search intensity is countercyclical. This study examines the job search behavior of unemployed workers over business cycles using a search and matching model that incorporates wage rigidity and a generalized matching function. Unlike previous studies, the proposed model can generate both procyclical and countercyclical search intensities by introducing wage rigidity. This study calibrates the model to the U.S. economy and provides various impulse response analyses. The numerical exercises show that the model successfully and simultaneously reproduces countercyclical search efforts and sizable labor market fluctuations.

We study the nature of changes in the relationship between the labor market and output by using a broader set of labor market variables and a flexible time-varying-parameter vector autoregression model with stochastic volatility (TVP-SV). Overall, the TVP-SV model fits the labor market data well and has good predictive performance. We find heterogeneity both in the timing and the type of changes in the relationship between labor market variables and output. We find evidence that the relationship between output and employment growth, hours, vacancies, and wages has changed over time, with employment, wages, and vacancies being less responsive over time. In contrast, the responses of hours and part-time employment to output have become stronger over time, indicating a shift towards utilization of the intensive margin and towards utilizing more flexible labor inputs.

This paper studies the local determinacy requirements and the effects of a money-financed fiscal stimulus under fiscal stress in a canonical New Keynesian model. We consider three alternative monetary policies and find that the money-financed policy adopted in Galí (2020) to keep zero-debt-increase (ZDI) leads to an unsustainable debt path, while introducing a debt growth target restores stability. A debt-targeting rule (DT) generates smaller instantaneous multipliers and larger cumulative multipliers with respect to the ZDI, whereas a mixed-targeting rule (MT) that takes both debt and inflation into consideration exaggerates the trade-off between short-run and long-run multipliers. Deficit financing decomposition shows that, relative to seigniorage, inflation and changes in the stochastic discount factor play more important roles. Moreover, welfare analysis implies that a sluggish money financing scheme causes extra welfare loss. Finally, we quantify the effects of money-financed fiscal measures in a COVID recession.

Entrepreneurship, growth and total factor productivity are larger when asset prices are high and decline during financial crises. We explain these facts using a growth model with financial bubbles in which individuals have heterogeneous wages and returns on productive investment. Heterogeneity separates individuals between savers and entrepreneurs. Savers buy financial assets, which are deposits or a financial bubble. Entrepreneurs incur in a start-up cost and borrow to invest in productive capital. The bubble provides liquidities to credit-constrained entrepreneurs. These liquidities increase investment, growth and entrepreneurship. Finally, the bubble may increase productivity when the return of each entrepreneur’s investment is positively correlated with her previous income.

This paper develops a model to incorporate the impact of financial inclusion to study the implications of issuing a CBDC. In a “two-tier” model where banks distribute CBDC, CBDCs have the potential to increase the supply of deposits by incentivizing the unbanked to open bank accounts (offsetting potential flows from deposits to CBDCs), boosting overall lending. This is more likely when CBDC is valuable as a means of payment, provides anonymity in payments, and/or offers remuneration, especially in developing countries where the size and relative wealth of the previously unbanked population is large. CBDC can be optimal for household welfare even when overall lending decreases as households benefit from the value of using CBDC for payments and as an alternative “safe” savings vehicle.

This paper studies whether the advent of financial globalisation has contributed to increasing wealth inequality in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. I find that (i) positive changes in the benchmark measure of financial globalisation are associated with a positive change in the top 1% and 10% wealth shares and a negative change in the wealth share of the bottom 50% of the distribution. This is equivalent to an average gain of $1 trillion for the top 10% and $1.6 trillion for the top 1%, over the period of interest. (ii) Portfolio equities and financial derivatives appear to be the driving components behind the increase in wealth shares. (iii) The implied change in wealth shares is driven by the accumulation of new financial wealth (flow) rather than the valuation of existing one. (iv) The dynamic is strengthened when a banking crisis hits the economy, possibly because people at the top of the distribution can recover their lost wealth faster than people at the bottom. The main finding is robust to an expanded country sample, albeit reducing the historical context beyond the scope of this paper.

The starting point for this article is a review of the book A Practical Guide to Macroeconomics by Jeremy Rudd. The book argues that macroeconomics, as practiced in academia and filtered through to policy institutions, has provided a highly imperfect guide for how policy works and should work in practice. This review assesses the arguments outlined in the book, discusses some issues absent from the book, and addresses more general themes that arise in the interface between academic and policy macro.

We investigate whether fiscal rules impact private domestic investment. Using data spanning 100 advanced and developing countries over the period 1990–2019 and applying the entropy balancing method, we reveal that implementing fiscal rules significantly improves private-sector investment. This finding is robust to a wide set of economic and econometric tests. Moreover, we perform a range of heterogeneity tests and find that the effect of fiscal rules only applies in developing countries and is amplified in good times and in countries with a strong fiscal stance. However, the benefits of fiscal rules are mitigated in resource-rich countries and during economic crises. Finally, we explore the underlying mechanisms and show that fiscal discipline, a composition effect fostering public investment, and macroeconomic stability are three driving forces that produce the stimulative effect of fiscal rules.