Do Central Banks Respond to Exchange Rate Movements? A Structural Investigation

We estimate a small-scale, structural general equilibrium model of a small open economy using Bayesian methods. Our main focus is the conduct of monetary policy in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K., as measured by nominal interest rate rules. We consider generic Taylor-type rules, where the monetary authority reacts in response to output, inflation, and exchange-rate movements. We perform posterior odds test to investigate the hypothesis whether central banks do respond to exchange rates. The main result of this paper is that the central banks of Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. do not, whereas the Bank of Canada does include the nominal exchange rate in its policy rule. This result is robust for various specification of the policy rule, among them an MCI-based rule. Additionally, we find that, based on variance decomposition of the estimated model, that terms-of-trade movements do not contribute significantly to domestic business cycles.

The (Ir)relevance of Real Wage Rigidity in the New Keynesian Model with Search Frictions

We explore the role of real wage dynamics in a New Keynesian business cycle model with search and matching frictions in the labor market. Both job creation and destruction are endogenous. We show that the model generates counterfactual inflation and labor market dynamics. In particular, it fails to generate a Beveridge curve: vacancies and unemployment are positively correlated. Introducing real wage rigidity leads to a negative correlation, and increases the magnitude of labor market flows to more realistic values. However, inflation dynamics are only weakly affected by real wage rigidity. This is because of the presence of labor market frictions, which generate long-run employment relationships. The measure of real marginal cost that is relevant for inflation dynamics via the Phillips curve contains a dynamic component that does not necessarily move with real wages.

Nonlinear Pricing with Self-Control Preferences

This paper studies optimal nonlinear pricing for a monopolist when consumers' preferences exhibit temptation and self-control as in Gul and Pesendorfer (2001a). Consumers are subject to temptation inside the store but exercise self-control, and those foreseeing large self-control costs do not enter the store. Consumers differ in their preferences under temptation. When all consumers are tempted by more expensive, higher quality choices, the optimal menu is a singleton, which saves consumers from self-control and extracts consumers' commitment surplus. When some consumers are tempted by cheaper, lower quality choices, the optimal menu may contain a continuum of choices.

Monopoly Quality Degradation in Cable Television

Using an empirical framework derived from models of nonlinear pricing, we estimate the degree of quality degradation in cable television markets. We find lower bounds on quality degradation ranging from 11% to 45% of observed service qualities. Furthermore, cable operators in markets with local regulatory oversight tend to offer significantly higher quality products, and engage in less quality degradation. While prices are also higher in markets with local regulatory oversight, we find that consumers experienced greater quality per dollar in these markets compared to consumers in markets without regulatory oversight.

Nonparametric Tests for Common Values in First-Price Auctions

We develop tests for common values at first-price sealed-bid auctions. Our tests are nonparametric, require observation only of the bids submitted at each auction, and are based on the fact that the "winner’s curse" arises only in common values auctions. The tests build on recently developed methods for using observed bids to estimate each bidder’s conditional expectation of the value of winning the auction. Equilibrium behavior implies that in a private values auction these expectations are invariant to the number of opponents each bidder faces, while with common values they are decreasing in the number of opponents. This distinction forms the basis of our tests. We consider both exogenous and endogenous variation in the number of bidders. Monte Carlo experiments show that our tests can perform well in samples of moderate sizes. We apply our tests to two di?erent types of U.S. Forest Service timber auctions. For unit-price ("scaled") sales often argued to fit a private values model, our tests consistently fail to find evidence of common values. For "lumpsum" sales, where a priori arguments for common values appear stronger, our tests yield mixed evidence against the private values hypothesis.

An Inventory of Simple Monetary Policy Rules in a New Keynesian Macroeconomic Model

We derive necessary and suffcient conditions for simple monetary policy rules that guarantee equilibrium determinacy in the New Keynesian monetary model. Our modeling framework is derived from a fully specified optimization model that is still amenable to analytical characterisation. The monetary rules analyzed are variants of the basic Taylor rules ranging from simple inflation targeting (current, forward, backward), to the canonical Taylor rules with and without inertial nominal interest rate patterns. We establish that determinacy obtains for a wide range of policy parameters, especially when the monetary authority targets output and smoothes interest rates. Contrary to other results in the literature we do not find a case for super-inertial interest rate policy

Foundations of Bayesian Theory

This paper states necessary and suffcient conditions for the existence, uniqueness, and updating, according to Bayes’ rule, of subjective probabilities representing individuals’ beliefs. The approach is preference based, and the result is an axiomatic subjective expected utility model of Bayesian decision making under uncertainty with state-dependent preferences. The theory provides foundations for the existence of prior probabilities representing decision makers’ beliefs about the likely realization of events and for the updating of these probabilities according to Bayes’ rule.

Media as Watchdogs: The Role of News Media in Electoral Competition

We present a model in which the media provide voters with information that is tainted by their own preferences, and derive an equilibrium in which media endorsements influence voting behavior. Competition for media endorsement causes political parties to adopt more centrist policies, which benefits all voters. Mass media which are more sensitive to changes in policies and which are less biased lead to greater policy convergence toward the median voter's ideal point. The presence of multiple media outlets also helps promote electoral competition.

The Role of Non-Financial Factors in Exit and Entry in the TANF Program

The dramatic decline in the AFDC-TANF caseload in the 1990s has refocused attention on the process of exit from and entry into welfare, a long-standing topic of interest in the research literature on the U.S. welfare system. This paper focuses on the role of non-financial factors in exit and entry in the post-1996 TANF program. The non-financial factors are work and other requirements, sanctions, and diversion. Using data from a study of welfare and nonwelfare families in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio in the period 1999-2001, both descriptive evidence and evidence from an econometric model suggest that these factors played a large role in exit and entry over the period.

Why Does it Matter that Beliefs and Valuations be Correctly Represented?

This paper contains an analysis of a simple principal-agent problem illustrating possible problems that may arise when the prinicpal ascribes to the agent subjective probabilities and utilities that are implied by the subjective expected utility model but do not represent the agent’s beliefs and valuations. In particular, it is possible that an incentive contract designed by the principal induces the agent to choose an action that is not in the principal’s best interest.

Industrial Structure and Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy

In standard New Keynesian models, the size of the output expansion generated by aggregate demand shocks depends crucially on the elasticity of labor supply which is empirically quite small. In principle, this link can be broken in a multisectoral economy with differing degrees of price stickiness, so that the required increase in labor supply can come from other sectors. This paper reinterprets this line of reasoning in a small open economy with a traded and a non-traded sector. The latter is characterized by monopolistic competition and nominal price stickiness. The main findings of the paper are twofold. It is shown that, in fact, the size of the labor supply elasticity has no significant effect on the output response to a monetary policy shock. Yet, in this open economy framework the puzzle of the output response remains since they occur only for unrealistically high intertemporal substitution elasticities. Furthermore, it is shown that the current account response to an expansionary monetary shock crucially depends on the industrial structure of the money and not, as previously claimed, on consumption preferences alone. For reasonable model specifications the current acount moves into deficit.

Moral Sentiments and Social Choice: Fairness Considerations in University Admissions

We examine the implications for social choice of individuals having an intrinsic sense of fairness. Taking the viewpoint that social justice reflects the moral attitudes of the constituent members, we analyze the effect of the intensity of the individual sense of fairness on university admission policies. Assuming that these policies are determined by bargaining over test scores to be used as cut-off points for admission of members of diverse social groups show that, in general, a more intense sense of fairness of the members of a group leads to an admission policy that is more compatible with their idea of fairness. Consequently, a society whose members have a common notion tends to implement fairer admission policies when the intensity of the sense of fairness of individual memebrs increase. This is even if the policies are ultimately determined by the bargaining power of the different groups.

Monetary Policy for Inattentive Economies

This paper is a contribution to the analysis of optimal monetary policy. It begins with a critical assessment of the existing literature, arguing that most work is based on implausible models of inflation-output dynamics. It then suggests that this problem may be solved with some recent behavioral models, which assume that price setters are slow to incorporate macroeconomic information into the prices they set. A specific such model is developed and used to derive optimal policy. In response to shocks to productivity and aggregate demand, optimal policy is price level targeting. Base drift in the price level, which is implicit in the inflation targeting regimes currently used in many central banks, is not desirable in this model. When shocks to desired markups are added, optimal policy is flexible targeting of the price level. That is, the central bank should allow the price level to deviate from its target for a while in response to these supply shocks, but it should eventually return the price level to its target path. Optimal policy can also be described as an elastic price standard: the central bank allows the price level to deviate from its target when output is expected to deviate from its natural rate.

Investment Spending, Equilibrium Indeterminacy, and the Interactions of Monetary and Fiscal Policy

This paper investigates determinacy of equilibrium in a canonical New Keynesian model under different monetary and fiscal policy rules. It is shown that a simple monetary rule that responds aggressively to inflation is a necessary condition for equilibrium determinacy, when fiscal policy is accommodating. If there is a high degree of structural distortions in the economy, then the interesting possibility arises that both aggressive monetary and fiscal policies are required to guarantee existence. When investment adjustment costs are introduced, the monetary and fiscal policy dichotomy is in principle maintained. The determinacy region is, however, highly dependent on the degree of distortion in the economy. The more prices are sticky, and the less competitive firms are, the economy is likely to exhibit indeterminacy even if monetary policy is active.