We propose a simple incomplete-markets small-open-economy model that is amenable to analytical dissection of its policy-relevant mechanisms. In contrast to its complete-markets limit, the equilibrium real exchange rate is irreducible from the incomplete-markets equilibrium. Market incompleteness exacerbates the domestic-inflation and output-gap monetary-policy trade-off in two ways: its steepness and its resulting endogenous cost-push to the trade-off. The latter depends on an equilibrium combination of structural shocks and on agents' beliefs of future events. Thus, in comparison to its complete-markets and closed-economy limits, standard Taylor-type rules are less capable of inducing determinate rational expectations equilibrium in our environment. Despite the larger policy trade-off under incomplete markets, simple policies that also respond to exchange-rate growth are able to manage expectations that drive the endogenous cost-push term. However, policies that respond directly to expectations may turn out to exacerbate the cost-push trade-off further, and thus, to be more likely to fuel self-fulfilling multiple or unstable equilibria.

Challenges raised by aging (increasing longevity) have prompted policy debates featuring policy proposals justified by reference to some notion of intergenerational equity. However, very different policies ranging from presavings to indexation of retirement ages have been justified in this way. We develop an overlapping-generations model in continuous time that encompasses different generations with different mortality rates and thus longevity. Allowing for trend increases in both longevity and productivity, we address the normative issue of intergenerational equity under a utilitarian criterion when future generations are better off in terms of both material and nonmaterial well-being. Increases in productivity and longevity are shown to have very different implications for intergenerational distribution. Further, the socially optimal retirement age, dependency ratio, and intergenerational burden sharing in the case of a trend increase in longevity are shown to depend on how individuals' utility for time/leisure is affected by age and longevity.

The present paper studies the interaction between short-run business cycle fluctuations and economic growth at the empirical level. We identify a measure of potential output with that rate of growth consistent with a constant unemployment rate, and we estimate the effects of GDP growth rates on the latter in 13 Latin American and 18 OECD countries during the period 1981–2011. The results of both parametric (OLS/IV and a panel estimator that allows for parameter heterogeneity and cross-section dependence) and nonparametric (a penalized regression spline estimator) econometric techniques show that the measure of potential output experiences positive (negative) changes in periods of high (low) growth in the majority of countries. However, in contrast to the sample of OECD countries, we find that less than half of the sample of Latin American countries experience statistically significant changes in this measure of potential output in periods of low growth.

Recent empirical work on globalization and inflation analyzes multicountry data sets in panel and/or cross-section frameworks and reaches inconclusive results. This paper highlights their shortcomings and reexamines the issue utilizing heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that allow for cross-section heterogeneity and dependence. It finds that in a sample of developing countries globalization of both trade and finance, on the average, exerts a significant and positive effect on inflation, whereas in a sample of developed countries there is, on the average, no significant impact of openness. Neither type of openness disciplines inflationary policy. Despite this, there are large variations in the effect across countries, due possibly to differences in the quality of political institutions, central bank independence, the exchange-rate regimes, financial development, and/or legal traditions.

The literature on international business cycles has employed dynamic factor models (DFMs) to disentangle global from group-specific and national factors in countries’ macroeconomic aggregates. Therefore, the countries have simply been classified ex ante as belonging to the same region or the same level of development. This paper estimates a DFM for a sample of 106 countries and three variables (output, consumption, investment) over the period 1960–2014, in which the countries are classified according to the outcome of a cluster analysis. By comparing the results with those obtained by the previous grouping approaches, we show substantial deviations in the importance of global and group-specific factors. Remarkably, when the groups are defined properly, the “global business cycle” accounts for only a very small fraction of macroeconomic fluctuations, most evidently in the industrialized world. The group-specific factors, on the other hand, play a much greater role for national business cycles than previously thought—also in the pre-globalization period.

We estimate the relationship between GDP per capita growth and the growth rate of the national saving rate using a panel of 130 countries over the period 1960–2017. We find that GDP per capita growth increases (decreases) the growth rate of the national saving rate in poor countries (rich countries), and a higher credit-to-GDP ratio decreases the national saving rate as well as the income elasticity of the national saving rate. We develop a model with a credit constraint to explain the growth-saving relationship by the saving behavior of entrepreneurs at both the intensive and extensive margins. We further present supporting evidence for our theoretical findings by utilizing cross-country time series data of the number of new businesses registered and the corporate saving rate.

This research develops a theory about the role of within-country income inequality in the emergence of overtaking in economic performance among countries. The theory captures two opposing effects of inequality on factor accumulation and suggests that the qualitative change in their combined effect is a prime cause of overtaking. Because of the initial dominance of the positive effect of inequality, a less egalitarian economy follows a higher growth path in the short run, with a lower growth path in the long run. It also is shown that divergence or convergence may arise instead of overtaking, depending on the initial levels of development and inequality.

We use Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to augment, via a novel multimove sampling scheme, a vector autoregressive (VAR) system with a latent business-cycle index that is negative during recessions and positive during expansions. We then sample counterfactual values of the macroeconomic variables in the case where the latent business-cycle index is held constant. These counterfactual values represent posterior beliefs about how the economy would have evolved absent business-cycle fluctuations. One advantage is that a VAR framework provides model-consistent counterfactual values in the same way that VARs provide model-consistent forecasts, so data series are not filtered in isolation from each other. We apply these methods to estimate the business-cycle components of industrial production, consumer price inflation, the federal funds rate, and the spread between long-term and short-term interest rates. These decompositions provide an explicitly counterfactual approach to isolating the effects of the business cycle and to deriving empirical business-cycle facts.

We devise an endogenous growth model in which agents’ utility depends not only on current consumption but also on the pleasure of anticipated future consumption. We consider the case in which agents derive satisfaction from their own anticipatory feelings—inward-looking or internal anticipation—and the case in which agents derive utility from anticipation of other people’s future consumption—outward-looking or external anticipation. We characterize the effects of introducing a forward-looking consumption reference on the dynamics of the economy. Whereas the inward-looking economy features transitional dynamics, the outward-looking economy does not. The distortions caused by the externality in the economy with external habits can be corrected by subsidizing income at a time-varying rate or by means of a tax on consumption at a decreasing rate. We contrast the equilibrium dynamics of our specification to the more standard specification of the habit formation consumption reference point. Numerical simulations supplement the theoretical analysis.

The paper reexamines the long-run Phillips curve in a New Keynesian model with job turnover and trend productivity growth. We show that an increase in money growth has substantial positive effects on steady state output, consumption, and employment in the presence of (i) observed job turnover rates and, if consumption smoothing is sufficiently strong, (ii) observed productive growth rates. Furthermore, we show that the optimal inflation rate is slightly under 2% for reasonable calibrations of job turnover and trend growth.

The model is a two-country overlapping generations economy with boundedly rational agents who update their decision rules using a version of the stochastic replicator dynamic. The results show that stationary rational expectations equilibria of this model are unstable under this type of evolutionary adaptation. The paper also derives a two-period-ahead forecast of the values of average fractions of savings placed in each of the two currencies. This forecast is used in decisionmaking of a rational agent who has a full knowledge of the evolutionary economy. The performance of the rational agent is compared to the performance of boundedly rational agents, based on the average utility received over time. Results show that the difference between utilities earned by rational and boundedly rational agents is small. In addition, the average utility of the best-performing boundedly rational agents is higher than the average utility of the rational agents.

This paper integrates seemingly disjoint studies on consumer behavior in micro and macroanalyses via an intertemporal two-stage budgeting procedure with durable goods and liquidity constraints. The model specifies an indirect utility function as a function of nondurable consumption, commodity (nondurables) prices, and durables stock, and derives the demand functions for nondurable goods. A demand function for durable goods is derived in an adjustment cost framework. The consumption growth equation accounts for relative price effects with precautionary saving, durables stock, and liquidity constraints. The stochastic discount factor is approximated by a time-varying linear function of nondurable consumption growth, commodity price growth, durables stock growth, and disposable income growth. The demand functions for six nondurable goods and services are jointly estimated with the Euler equations for bonds, stocks, and durable goods with allowance for liquidity constraints, using US data. Estimation provides new findings for intertemporal consumption and a multifactor consumption-based capital asset pricing model.

This paper clarifies and extends previous work on the equivalence between monetary regimes and fiscal regimes involving social security systems. We show that monetary regimes of the type we study are equivalent to two alternative types of social security regimes. This result has an important implication. Notably, governments can finance a real expenditure by increasing the inflation rate, or finance the expenditure by increasing the tax rate on social security benefits. Such equivalence should help us better understand the role that monetary policy plays in these economies.This research was begun while Russell was visiting Iowa State University. We gratefully acknowledge helpful conversations with Scott Freeman and Peter Rangazas, and comments from participants at the Midwest Macroeconomics Meetings in Atlanta. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Galor and Ryder [Journal of Economic Theory 49 (1989), 360–375] establish conditions for the existence of equilibrium in a Diamond-type overlapping-generations (OLG) model. Although theoretically appealing, these conditions are implicit and not convenient to apply. This paper provides explicit and easily applied conditions for the existence and uniqueness of steady-state equilibrium, with which one only needs to check the first derivatives of the production and utility functions and their interactions, with no need to solve the optimization problem. Our theorems on the existence and uniqueness of steady-state equilibrium can be applied to a larger class of OLG models that do not require second-order differentiability of the production and utility functions. We present examples to show how to check the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium.

This paper develops a general equilibrium model with a banking system and a reserves market and shows that (i) the macroeconomic stabilizing properties of the nominal interest rate rules change quite substantially when we move from a model without a banking system to one with a banking system and a reserves market; (ii) the interplay between fiscal and monetary policies, in particular inflation-indexed versus non-indexed bonds, is crucial in determining the macroeconomic stabilizing properties of monetary rules; (iii) active rules and passive rules perform equally in regard to their macroeconomic stabilizing properties; (iv) continuous- and discrete-time specifications deliver the same/different (in)determinacy results for both the labor-only model and the endogenous-capital model under forward-looking/current-looking rules; (v) the inclusion of physical investment narrows the indeterminacy region under forward-looking rules; and (vi) current-looking rules make equilibrium determinacy impossible for both the labor-only economy and the endogenous-capital economy. Economic intuitions are provided.

This paper uses a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model to analyze the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and output dynamics in a multicountry context. The GVAR model enables us to make two important contributions: First, to model international linkages among a large number of countries, which is a key asset given the diversity of countries involved, and second, to model foreign direct investment and output dynamics jointly. The country-specific small-dimensional vector autoregressive submodels are estimated utilizing a Bayesian version of the model coupled with stochastic search variable selection priors to account for model uncertainty. Using a sample of 15 emerging and advanced economies over the period 1998:Q1–2012:Q4, we find that US outbound FDI exerts a positive long-term effect on output. Asian and Latin American economies tend to react faster and also stronger than Western European countries. Forecast error variance decompositions indicate that FDI plays a prominent role in explaining gross domestic product fluctuations, especially in emerging market economies.

Using a two-sector endogenous growth model, the speed of convergence is determined primarily by the gap in rates of return between physical and human capital. In closed economies, for a typical situation of having relatively less physical capital than in a steady state, the return on physical capital will be significantly high, whereas the return on human capital will be relatively low. This gap in rates of return is quite large when the economy is not at its steady state. In open economies, where human capital is nontradable, the gap in rates of return is small, as is the gap between the international interest rate (which is less than the closed economies return on physical capital) and the return on human capital. Convergence in open economies will be relatively slow, and convergence in closed economies will be relatively fast, and therefore there is little gain from financial liberalization.

The seminal cobweb model by Brock and Hommes reveals that fixed-point dynamics may turn into increasingly complex dynamics, as firms switch more quickly between competing expectation rules. While policy makers may be able to manage such rational routes to randomness by imposing a proportional profit tax, the stability-ensuring tax rate may cause a very high tax burden for firms. Using a mix of analytical and numerical tools, we show that a rather small profit-dependent lump-sum tax may even be sufficient to take away the competitive edge of cheap destabilizing expectation rules, thereby contributing to market stability.

If private sector agents update their beliefs with a learning algorithm other than recursive least squares, expectational stability or learnability of rational expectations equilibria (REE) is not guaranteed. Monetary policy under commitment, with a determinate and E-stable REE, may not imply robust learning stability of such equilibria if the RLS speed of convergence is slow. In this paper, we propose a refinement of E-stability conditions that allows us to select equilibria more robust to specification of the learning algorithm within the RLS/SG/GSG class. E-stable equilibria characterized by faster speed of convergence under RLS learning are learnable with SG or generalized SG algorithms as well.

This paper develops an analytically tractable, two-country, two-traded-good dynamic general-equilibrium model of money to examine the long-run and short-run effects of a temporary change in the domestic inflation target on the trade pattern, the terms of trade, the foreign exchange rate, and the capital accumulation of each country and of the world economy. We find that such a temporary monetary innovation can generate permanent effects on the world distribution of capital and the pattern of trade, resulting in nonneutrality in an otherwise money-neutral cash-in-advance setting. This change also leads to very rich transitional dynamics that we fully characterize analytically. In particular, endogenous responses in transition can be monotone or nonmonotone and can exhibit over-shooting. Our analytic findings and quantitative results help explain some noticeable changes in the capital accumulation, output, and bilateral trade of several countries adopting inflation targeting. Since the permanent effects of a temporary change in the domestic inflation target on the pattern of international trade and the performance of the macroeconomy are driven by a new channel through the world distribution of capital, we add new insights to the literature.