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RBC Methodology and the Development of Aggregate Economic Theory
This essay reviews the development of neoclassical growth theory, a unified theory of aggregate economic phenomena that was first used to study business cycles and aggregate labor supply. Subsequently, the theory has been used to understand asset pricing, growth miracles and disasters, monetary economics, capital accounts, aggregate public finance, economic development, and foreign direct investment. {{p}} The focus of this essay is on real business cycle (RBC) methodology. Those who employ the discipline behind the methodology to address various quantitative questions come up with ...
Working Paper
The 1990s in Japan: a lost decade
Journal Article
Evaluating the welfare effects of alternative monetary arrangements
The welfare effects of alternative monetary arrangements are computed for an economy calibrated to U.S. data. In the model world, people vary their holdings of liquid assets in order to smooth their consumption. In such worlds, we find that the feature of an arrangement that matters is the equilibrium after-tax real return on savings. We also find that relative to a tax on labor income, seigniorage is a poor source of revenue.
Report
Technical appendix for quid pro quo: Technology capital transfers for market access in China
Despite the recent rapid development and greater openness of China?s economy, FDI flows between China and technologically advanced countries are relatively small in both directions. We assess global capital flows in light of China?s quid pro quo policy of exchanging market access for transfers of technology capital?accumulated know-how such as research and development (R&D) that can be used in multiple production locations. We first provide empirical evidence of this policy and then incorporate it into a multicountry dynamic general equilibrium model. This extension leads to a significantly ...
Journal Article
Is the stock market overvalued?
The value of U.S. corporate equity in the first half of 2000 was close to 1.8 times U.S. gross national product (GNP). Some stock market analysts have argued that the market is overvalued at this level. We use a growth model with an explicit corporate sector and find that the market is correctly valued. In theory, the market value of equity plus debt liabilities should equal the value of productive assets plus debt assets. Since the net value of debt is currently low, the market value of equity should be approximately equal to the market value of productive assets. We find that the market ...
Journal Article
Response to a skeptic
Report
Money in the Production Function
Businesses hold large quantities of cash reserves, which have average returns well below their investments in tangible capital. Businesses do this because these monetary assets provide services. One implication is that money services is a factor of production in capital theoretic valuation equilibrium models. Our aggregate production function is consistent with both the classical demand for money function relationship and with extended periods of near zero short-term nominal interest rates. In our model economy, there is a 100 percent reserve requirement on all demand deposits. Demand ...
Working Paper
Equilibrium with Mutual Organizations in Adverse Selection Economies
An equilibrium concept in the Debreu (1954) theory-of-value tradition is developed for a class of adverse selection economies and applied to the Spence signaling and Rothschild-Stiglitz (1976) adverse selection environments. The equilibrium exists and is optimal. Further, all equilibria have the same individual type utility vector. The economies are large with a finite number of types that maximize expected utility on an underlying commodity space. An implication of the analysis is that the invisible hand works for this class of adverse selection economies.
Journal Article
Some observations on the Great Depression
The Great Depression in the United States was largely the result of changes in economic institutions that lowered the normal or steady-state market hours per person over 16. The difference in steady-state hours in 1929 and 1939 is over 20 percent. This is a large number, but differences of this size currently exist across the rich industrial countries. The somewhat depressed Japanese economy of the 1990s could very well be the result of workweek length constraints that were adopted in the early 1990s. These constraints lowered steady-state market hours. The failure of the Japanese people to ...