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on Dynamic General Equilibrium |
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Issue of 2008‒09‒05
fifteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Enchuan Shao; Pedro Silos |
| Abstract: | We present a model of aggregate fluctuations in which monopolistic firms face sunk costs to enter the production process and labor markets are characterized by search and matching frictions. Entrants post vacancies and are matched to idle workers. Our specification of sunk costs gives rise to a countercyclical net present value of a vacancy; it is always zero in models where entry is free. The model displays a strong degree of amplification and propagation. The time-varying value of a vacancy has implications for the surplus division between firms and workers over business cycle. In the data, we proxy this division using the ratio of corporate profits to output and workers' compensation to output. We document the cyclical behavior of profit's and labor's shares: Profit's share leads the cycle and is procyclical and more volatile than output. Labor's share inversely leads the cycle and is weakly countercyclical and smoother than output. Our model is consistent with the cross-correlations of both shares and the higher volatility of the share of profits. Regarding propagation and amplification, the model matches the persistence of vacancy creation and two-thirds of the observed volatility of market tightness relative to output. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2008-17&r=dge |
| By: | Kai Christoffel; Keith Kuester |
| Abstract: | If the Mortensen and Pissarides model with efficient bargaining is calibrated to replicate the fluctuations of unemployment over the business cycle, it implies a far too strong rise of the unemployment rate when unemployment benefits rise. This paper explores an alternative, right-to-manage bargaining scheme. This also generates the right degree of fluctuations of unemployment but at the same time implies a reasonable elasticity of unemployment with respect to benefits. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:08-15&r=dge |
| By: | Steven Poelhekke |
| Abstract: | Standard models of temporary contracts are either inconclusive, or fail to account for the positive correlation between temporary contracts and the employment rate, and for the high transition rates into permanent employment measured in Europe. This paper shows that a matching model in which .rms use temporary contracts to screen workers for permanent positions can successfully fulfill this task. When the model is calibrated to the Italian economy, it accounts for salient statistics including the worker turnover rate, the transition rates into permanent employment, and the drop in the unemployment rate following the reforms implemented in the late 1990s. When temporary contracts are used as a screening device, they can increase both productivity and welfare. Their quantitative impact crucially hinges on dismissal costs and minimum wages. |
| Keywords: | job-search, temporary contracts, labor market institutions, screening, hiring procedures, turnover rates, wage di¤erentials. |
| JEL: | J31 J41 J63 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2008/27&r=dge |
| By: | Martin Møller Andreasen (School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | This paper shows how a standard DSGE model can be extended to reproduce the dynamics in the 10 year yield curve for the post-war US economy with a similar degree of precision as in reduced form term structure models. At the same time, we are able to reproduce the dynamics of four key macro variables almost perfectly. Our extension of a standard DSGE model is to introduce three non-stationary shocks which allow us to explain interest rates with medium and long maturities without distorting the dynamics of the macroeconomy. |
| Keywords: | Price stickiness, Stochastic and deterministic trends, Term structure model, The Central Difference Kalman Filter, Yield curve |
| JEL: | E10 E32 E43 E44 |
| Date: | 2008–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2008-43&r=dge |
| By: | Cristina Arellano; Ananth Ramanarayanan |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the maturity composition and the term structure of interest rate spreads of government debt in emerging markets. In the data, when interest rate spreads rise, debt maturity shortens and the spread on short-term bonds is higher than on long-term bonds. To account for this pattern, we build a dynamic model of international borrowing with endogenous default and multiple maturities of debt. Short-term debt can deliver higher immediate consumption than long-term debt; large long-term loans are not available because the borrower cannot commit to save in the near future towards repayment in the far future. However, issuing long-term debt can insure against the need to roll-over short-term debt at high interest rate spreads. The trade-off between these two benefits is quantitatively important for understanding the maturity composition in emerging markets. When calibrated to data from Brazil, the model matches the dynamics in the maturity of debt issuances and its comovement with the level of spreads across maturities. |
| Keywords: | Bonds ; Debt ; Default (Finance) |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmsr:410&r=dge |
| By: | Ricardo Lagos; Guillaume Rocheteau |
| Abstract: | We develop a search-theoretic model of financial intermediation and use it to study how trading frictions affect the distribution of asset holdings, asset prices, efficiency, and standard measures of liquidity. A distinctive feature of our theory is that it allows for unrestricted asset holdings, so market participants can accommodate trading frictions by adjusting their asset positions. We show that these individual responses of asset demands constitute a fundamental feature of illiquid markets: they are a key determinant of bid-ask spreads, trade volume, and trading delays - all the dimensions of market liquidity that search-based theories seek to explain. ; This paper is an extension of Ricardo Lagos's work while he was in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. |
| Keywords: | Liquidity (Economics) ; Search theory |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmsr:408&r=dge |
| By: | Ippei Fujiwara; Yasuo Hirose; Mototsugu Shintani |
| Date: | 2008–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levrem:122247000000002352&r=dge |
| By: | Holly, S.; Petrella, I. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the drivers of industry and aggregate fluctuations. We model the dynamics of a panel of highly disaggregated manufacturing sectors. This allows us to consider directly the linkages between sectors typical of any production system, in a framework where the sectors are fully heterogeneous. We establish that these features are fundamental for the propagation of the shocks in the aggregate economy. Aggregate fluctuations can be accounted for by small industry specific shocks. Moreover, a contemporaneous technology shock to all sectors in the economy, i.e. an aggregate technology shock, implies a positive response in both output and hours at the aggregate level. When this intersectoral channel is neglected we find a negative correlation as with much of the literature. This suggests that the standard technology driven Real Business Cycle paradigm is a reasonable approximation of a more complicated model featuring heterogenously interconnected sectors. |
| Keywords: | Sectors, Technology shocks, Business cycles, Long-run restrictions, Cross Sectional Dependence. |
| JEL: | E20 E32 C31 C51 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0827&r=dge |
| By: | Camilo E Tovar |
| Abstract: | Over the past 15 years there has been remarkable progress in the specification and estimation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Central banks in developed and emerging market economies have become increasingly interested in their usefulness for policy analysis and forecasting. This paper reviews some issues and challenges surrounding the use of these models at central banks. It recognises that they offer coherent frameworks for structuring policy discussions. Nonetheless, they are not ready to accomplish all that is being asked of them. First, they still need to incorporate relevant transmission mechanisms or sectors of the economy; second, issues remain on how to empirically validate them; and finally, challenges remain on how to effectively communicate their features and implications to policy makers and to the public. Overall, at their current stage DSGE models have important limitations. How much of a problem this is will depend on their specific use at central banks. |
| Keywords: | DSGE models, central banks, monetary policy, communication and forecasting |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:258&r=dge |
| By: | Zhang, Yan |
| Abstract: | In his paper "Does utility curvature matter for indeterminacy", Kim (2005) analyzed the relationship among the utility function form, curvature and indeterminacy, concluding that the relationship between curvature and indeterminacy is not robust in neoclassical growth model and the indeterminacy may disappear under the utility specification as in Greenwood et.al (1998). The models he discussed are confined within one sector closed economy. Weder (2001), Meng and Velasco (2004) extend the Benhabib and Farmer (1996) and Benhabib and Nishimura (1998)'s closed economy two sector models into open economy, showing that indeterminacy can occur under small external effects, independently of the intertemporal elasticities in consumption. Meng and Velasco (2003) went further, showing the independence between the elasticity of labor supply and indeterminacy in open economy. Under nonseparable utility forms like in King, Plosser and Rebelo (1988, henceforth KPR) or Bennett-Farmer (2000) form, do we still have this property? In other words, is the independence between curvature and indeterminacy in small open economy models robust to the specification of the utility functions? In this note, I tackle this issue under two different versions of nonseparable utility functions commonly used in the literature. The answer is "yes" to KPR form but "no" to Bennett-Farmer form. Endogenous time preference and consumable nontradable goods are two elements to deliver this result. |
| Keywords: | Indeterminacy; Endogenous time preference |
| JEL: | F4 E32 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10045&r=dge |
| By: | Skander J. Van den Heuvel |
| Abstract: | Agents with standard, time-separable preferences do not care about the temporal distribution of risk. This is a strong assumption. For example, it seems plausible that a consumer may find persistent shocks to consumption less desirable than uncorrelated fluctuations. Such a consumer is said to exhibit temporal risk aversion. This paper examines the implications of temporal risk aversion for asset prices. The innovation is to work with expected utility preferences that (i) are not time-separable, (ii) exhibit temporal risk aversion, (iii) separate risk aversion from the intertemporal elasticity of substitution, (iv) separate short-run from long-run risk aversion and (v) yield stationary asset pricing implications in the context of an endowment economy. Closed form solutions are derived for the equity premium and the risk free rate. The equity premium depends only on a parameter indexing long-run risk aversion. The risk-free rate instead depends primarily on a separate parameter indexing the desire to smooth consumption over time and the rate of time preference. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2008-37&r=dge |
| By: | Martin Bodenstein; Christopher J. Erceg; Luca Guerrieri |
| Abstract: | In a stylized DSGE model with an energy sector, the optimal policy response to an adverse energy supply shock implies a rise in core inflation, a larger rise in headline inflation, and a decline in wage inflation. The optimal policy is well-approximated by policies that stabilize the output gap, but also by a wide array of "dual mandate" policies that are not overly aggressive in stabilizing core inflation. Finally, policies that react to a forecast of headline inflation following a temporary energy shock imply markedly different effects than policies that react to a forecast of core, with the former inducing greater volatility in core inflation and the output gap. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgif:941&r=dge |
| By: | Christopher Gust; Sylvain Leduc; Nathan Sheets |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses whether partial exchange rate pass-through to trade prices has important implications for the prospective adjustment of global external imbalances. To address this question, we develop and estimate an open-economy DGE model in which pass-through is incomplete due to the presence of local currency pricing, distribution services, and a variable demand elasticity that leads to fluctuations in optimal markups. We find that the overall magnitude of trade adjustment is similar in a low and high pass-through world with more adjustment in a low pass-world occurring through a larger response of the exchange rate and terms of trade rather than real trade flows. |
| Keywords: | Foreign exchange rates ; Imports - Prices |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2008-16&r=dge |
| By: | George Alessandria; Joseph Kaboski; Virgiliu Midrigan |
| Abstract: | Fixed transaction costs and delivery lags are important costs of international trade. These costs lead firms to import infrequently and hold substantially larger inventories of imported goods than domestic goods. Using multiple sources of data, we document these facts. We then show that a parsimoniously parameterized model economy with importers facing an (S, s)-type inventory management problem successfully accounts for these features of the data. Moreover, the model can account for import and import price dynamics in the aftermath of large devaluations. In particular, desired inventory adjustment in response to a sudden, large increase in the relative price of imported goods creates a short-term trade implosion, an immediate, temporary drop in the value and number of distinct varieties imported, as well as a slow increase in the retail price of imported goods. Our study of 6 current account reversals following large devaluation episodes in the last decade provide strong support for the model’s predictions. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-08-07&r=dge |
| By: | Pfajfar, D.; Santoro, E. |
| Abstract: | In this paper we develop a sticky price DSGE model to study the role of capital market imperfections for monetary policy implementation. Recent empirical and theoretical studies have stressed the e¤ect of .rms.external .nance on their pricing decisions. The so-called cost channel of the transmission mechanism has been explored within New Keynesian frameworks that pose particular emphasis on in.ation dynamics. These models generally disregard the role of external .nance for the dynamics of asset prices. We ask whether monetary policy should respond to deviations of asset prices from their frictionless level and, more importantly, if the answer to this question changes when financial frictions are properly taken into account. We analyze these issues from the vantage of equilibrium determinacy and stability under adaptive learning. We show that usual conditions for equilibrium uniqueness and E-stability are significantly altered when the cost channel matters. Nevertheless, we find that responding to actual or expected asset price misalignments helps at restoring determinacy and stability under learning. These conclusions are further enforced in the presence of a high degree of pass-through from policy to bank lending rates. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy, Capital Market Imperfections, Cost Channel, Asset Price. |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E52 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0825&r=dge |