Economics Commons^™

Civil War Finance: Lessons For Today, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Imf, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

In November 2008, Pakistan entered into a stand by arrangement with the IMF to support the country’s stabilization program and fill in the external financing gap. Pakistan has successfully drawn down the first two tranches of this loan. Most of the stabilization indicators are showing improvement and if the present efforts to maintain the fiscal discipline, curtail borrowings from the State Bank of Pakistan and build up foreign exchange reserves remain intact it is likely that IMF will be able to complete the forthcoming reviews successfully and the agreement should reach an orderly termination point by June 2010. While the …

Was Money Really Easy Under Greenspan?, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, David R. Henderson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Misaligned Incentives And Mortgage Lending In Asia, Richard Green, Roberto S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Susan Wachter

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides a conceptual basis for the price discovery potential for tradable market instruments and specifically the development of mortgage securitization in Asia and the potential dangers of such markets. Nonetheless we argue for the potential importance of securitization in Asia because of its possible role in increasing transparency of the financial sector of Asian economies. We put forth a model explaining how misaligned incentives can lead to bank generated real estate crashes and macroeconomic instability, with or without securitization under certain circumstances. We examine the banking sector’s performance in Asia compared to securitized real estate returns, to provide …

Analyzing And Forecasting Business Cycles In A Small Open Economy: A Dynamic Factor Model For Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

A dynamic factor model is applied to a large panel dataset of Singapore’s macroeconomic variables and global economic indicators with the initial objective of analyzing business cycles in a small open economy. The empirical results suggest that four common factors are present in the quarterly time series, which can broadly be interpreted as world, regional, electronics and domestic economic cycles. The estimated factor model explains well the observed fluctuations in real economic activity and price inflation, leading us to use it in forecasting Singapore’s business cycles. We find that the forecasts generated by the factors are generally more accurate than …

The Fed’S Binge, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Basic Is Macro Models, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (n.d.). [Handwritten folder label identifying contents as "Basic IS macro models": (1) Hicks; (2) Keynes/PK; (3) NC; (4) Harrod; (5) Marx; folder tab notation: "Macro IS models comparisons"]. Unpublished manuscript note. New School for Social Research.
• Shaikh, A. (2009, December 03). [Handwritten working notes, 3 pages plus one additional formula page, titled "Basic macro models: IS/LM, PK, NC, Harrod, Marx, 12/3/09": comparative static and dynamic analysis of five macroeconomic frameworks across two cases (exogenous vs. endogenous money, fixed saving rate, u ≠ u_N); Model I (Hicks/IS-LM): exogenous money with fixed saving rate, paradox of thrift, …

Can Parallel Exchange Rates Forecast Commodity Prices?, John F. Roberts

Honors Theses

Commodity price uncertainty imposes large costs on society. On the macro level, it results in sudden and unexpected shifts in current account imbalances and real GDP volatility, while on the micro level, it leads to allocation inefficiencies. Accurate price forecasts have the potential to remove some of this uncertainty and allow for a more efficient distribution of resources, and thus, an increase in social welfare. Despite the obvious gains to be had from accurate commodity price forecasts, few models have been able to deliver these results. Chen, Rogoff and Rossi (2008) were the first to find a promising link between …

Cyclicality Of State Budgeting: A Political-Economy Analysis., Ian W. Cummins

Honors Theses

This paper disentangles the effect of political ideology and budget rules on fiscal cyclicality across the U.S. states. Using panel data from 1963 to 2006, liberal states are found to be significantly less procyclical than conservative ones. The impact of balanced budget constraints is contingent on the ideological orientation of the state in which they are imposed. Tight balanced budget rules are not binding on conservative states, but are binding on liberal ones. Where they are binding, budget rules mediate the link between voter preferences and policy outcomes skewing them toward greater procyclicality.

Do Good Things Come Out After Recessions? The Productivity-Business Cycle Interaction, Michael M. Alba, Lawrence B. Dacuycuy

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

For the past two decades, the Philippines has endured a wave of recessions, events that technically represent fluctuations in economic activity. While some of these recessions have been shallow, resulting in minor deviations from where our economy should be, some have been deep and devastating like the ones that occurred during the last years of the Marcos regime.

Central Bank Iceland Postcard, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Þorgeirsson, Þ. (2009, December). Letter to anwar shaikh (Correspondence).

Japan's Recession, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Koo, R. C. (2009). The holy grail of macroeconomics: lessons from japan's great recession. John Wiley & Sons (23-16_Koo ... pp. 2-3).
• Shaikh, A. (c. 2009). Marginal annotations and commentary on 'The holy grail of macroeconomics' (Handwritten note) (23-16_Koo ... pp. 3, 25).

Abr And Walras Law, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (2001, January 29). Ex post stock/flow [Handwritten lecture notes for Lecture 205]. Unpublished manuscript.

• Shaikh, A. (2003, December 15). Structure of Godley’s basic ex ante model [Handwritten notes]. Unpublished manuscript.

• Shaikh, A. (2002, May 3). Stock/flow accounts and restraints [Handwritten notes]. Unpublished manuscript.

• Korliras, P. G., & Thorn, R. S. (1979). Part four: Disequilibrium macroeconomics. In Modern macroeconomics: Major contributions to contemporary thought [Book excerpt]. Publisher unknown.

• Shaikh, A. (n.d.). Add to KK/classical [Handwritten notes]. Unpublished manuscript.

• Shaikh, A. (2009, April 25). Adjustment time and involuntary unemployment [Handwritten notes]. …

Ape 2, Methodology, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (2008, October 22). Ch 3 microfoundations, emergent properties and nonlinear dynamics [Partial chapter draft with outline, printed pages 15-30, and repeated copies of page 21].
• NetLogo simulations microfoundations paper [Simulation instructions for heterogeneous, homogeneous, whimsical, and imitate/innovate agents]. (2009, February 12).
• Shaikh, A. (2008, October 22). Ch 3 microfoundations, emergent properties and nonlinear dynamics [Annotated manuscript fragment covering printed pages 1-12 and 14].

Soros Proposal, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (2009). Paul to Tim about creating a web presence for dept (Unpublished manuscript notes) (23-41_Soro... p. 2).
• Economics Department, New School for Social Research. (2009). Proposal for a center for new economic thinking at the New School for Social Research (Unpublished manuscript) (23-41_Soro... p. 3).
• Shaikh, A. (2009, August 19). Soros initiative v.2.docx: Notes for use in editing (Unpublished manuscript notes) (23-41_Soro... p. 7).
• Foley, D. (2009, September 29). Soros and Institute for New Economic Thinking (Unpublished email) (23-41_Soro... p. 8).
• Shaikh, A. (2009, August 19). Soros initiative v.2: Notes (Unpublished manuscript notes) (23-41_Soro... p. …

Asymptotic Properties Of Equilibrium In Discriminatory And Uniform Price Ipv Multi-Unit Auctions, Brett E. Katzman

Faculty Articles

This paper confronts the tractability problems that accompany IPV auction models with multi-unit bidder demands. Utilizing a first order approach, the asymptotic properties of symmetric equilibria in discriminatory and uniform price auctions are derived. It is shown that as the number of bidders increases, equilibrium bids converge to valuations in both discriminatory auctions and uniform price auctions where the price paid is determined by the lowest winning bid, thus indicating that the limiting case of these auctions correspond to price taking as in neoclassical models of consumer behavior. However, when the uniform price paid is tied to the highest losing …

A Centered Index Of Spatial Concentration: Axiomatic Approach With An Application To Population And Capital Cities, Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do

Research Collection School Of Economics

We construct an axiomatic index of spatial concentration around a center or capital point of interest, a concept with wide applicability from urban economics, economic geography and trade, to political economy and industrial organization. We propose basic axioms (decomposability and monotonicity) and refinement axioms (order preservation, convexity, and local monotonicity) for how the index should respond to changes in the underlying distribution. We obtain a unique class of functions satisfying all these properties, defined over any n-dimensional Euclidian space: the sum of a decreasing, isoelastic function of individual distances to the capital point of interest, with specific boundaries for the …

Central Bank Of Nigeria Annual Report And Statement Of Accounts For The Year Ended 31st December 2008., Central Bank Of Nigeria

CBN Annual Report

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)'s 2008 report evaluates macroeconomic policies and outcomes, focusing on corporate operations and the economy's performance against domestic and external economic and financial developments. The CBN's monetary policy stance and banking and financial measures were deployed to ensure price stability and financial sector soundness. Despite the global economic downturn, the financial system remained relatively stable and overall macroeconomic performance was satisfactory. The formal financial system at end-December 2008 comprised the CBN, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Insurance Commission, the National Pension Commission, and various banks. The banking sector …

Greenspan’S Monetary Policy In Retrospect: Discretion Or Rules?, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, David R. Henderson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Can A Representative Agent Model Represent A Heterogeneous Agent Economy?, Sungbae An, Yongsung Chang, Sun-Bin Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

Accounting for observed fluctuations in aggregate employment, consumption, and real wage using the optimality conditions of a representative household requires preferences that are incompatible with economic priors. In order to reconcile theory with data, we construct a model with heterogeneous agents whose decisions are difficult to aggregate because of incomplete capital markets and the indivisible nature of labor supply. If we were to explain the model-generated aggregate time series using decisions of a stand-in household, such a household must have a nonconcave or unstable utility as is often found with the aggregate US data.

Boom And Gloom, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

The popular discourse on the economy of Pakistan has swung all of a sudden from one extreme to the other. The previous discourse was set in a tone of self-congratulation and loud pronouncements that everything was honky and dory while the discussion these days is marked by a sense of alarm, blame game, doubts about the veracity of the statistics and an accusatory tone. Both these approaches are highly flawed and leave most Pakistanis in a state of daze, confusion and anger. They do not know as to what the real state of the economy is, what the factual position …

Toward A Libertarian Reconstruction Of Neoclassical Welfare Theory, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Faculty Publications

Many libertarians, especially those inclined toward the Austrian school of economics, counter the market-failure justification for government intervention by denying any legitimacy whatsoever to the neoclassical concept of efficiency. But properly interpreted, neoclassical efficiency, rather than providing an open-ended justification for all sorts of government intervention, provides one of the most powerful and comprehensive objections to government coercion in general.

An Empirical Analysis Of Macroeconomic And Political Determinants Of Private Investment In Sub-Saharan Africa, Ralph Cann-Tamakloe

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

The general macroeconomic and political difficulties experienced by many Sub-Saharan African countries in the late 1980s has led to economic and political reforms to improve private investment performance. It has been estimated that Sub-Saharan African countries needed to boost private investment in gross domestic product some 25% in the 1990s to achieve sustainable growth and development (Pfefferman and Madarassy, 1989). However, private investment performance has fallen short of the estimated 25%, and remained stagnant between 12.4% and 14.1% per annum from 1993 to 2002.

The purpose of this study therefore is to examine the influence of macroeconomic factors and democracy, …

Far-Flung Europe: What Is The Economic Impact Of Geography?, John Luke Gallup

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Several Western European countries have integral territory thousands of miles from continental Europe. The economic performance in these "outermost" regions tests the impact of geographical isolation in a high income, institutionally uniform setting quite different from the geographical challenges of poor, agriculturally dependent developing countries. The European regional data used have different starting years by country. This required the derivation of a new non-linear estimation model for cross-regional growth. The outermost regions converge to national income levels of continental Europe at least as fast as other poor continental regions, showing no special impact of geography on economic growth. Looking at …

Why Brazil Has Not Grown: A Comparative Analysis Of Brazilian, Indian, And Chinese Economic Management, Fernando Ferrari-Filho, Anthony Petros Spanakos

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper does not aim to dispute that Brazil would benefit from reforms in any or all of these areas. Rather, the paper offers a skeptical perspective on reform menus and proposes an alternative explanation for the faster growth of Brazil’s peers India and China2. The paper begins by introducing (section 1) the idea of the BRICs countries, to establish the basis for comparisons of most similar cases. It then surveys the results of a generation of Washington Consensus era growth (section 2). Although there is a considerable amount of divergence over what causes growth, it seems that something approaching …

The Consequences Of Information Revealed In Auctions, Brett E. Katzman, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Faculty Articles

This paper considers the ramifications of post-auction competition on bidding behavior under different bid announcement policies. In equilibrium, the auctioneer’s announcement policy has two distinct effects. First, announcement entices players to signal information to their post-auction competitors through their bids. Second, announcement can lead to greater bidder participation in certain instances while limiting participation in others. Specifically, the participation effect works against the signalling effect, thus reducing the impact of signalling found in other papers. Revenue, efficiency, and surplus implications of various announcement policies are examined.

Target Saving In An Overlapping Generations Model, Brishti Guha, Ashok S. Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

We examine a model in which the utility function has been engineered so that it is optimal for consumers to aim for a fixed target level of retirement resources. In this case, consumption displays excess sensitivity to current income as well as perfect old age insurance. In an overlapping generations model, this leads naturally to multiple and unstable equilibria. Under static expectations, it also leads to a well-defined dynamics, including possible historical traps, implosions involving ever-diminishing capital stock and ever-increasing interest rates, and the feasibility of optimal one-time interventions.

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 2, Spring 2008

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

A Current Microeconometric Assessment Of The Racial Wage Gap In The United States, David H. Krisch

Gettysburg Economic Review

Minority groups in the United States promoted affirmative action legislation in the 1960s during the civil rights movement to help ease the inequalities suffered in their economic history. Many labor economists have sought since this time to study the effects of race, gender, and the effect of income – how it has changed and if the gap has closed. Existing literature uses many different econometric models to show how the effects of race, gender, age, occupation, educational attainment, and geographic location on an individual comparative basis. This paper will examine the effects of all of these variables jointly using an …

Notes On Goodwin's Model Of Growth With A Reserve Army Of Labor, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (1988, November 1). Notes on Goodwin’s model of growth with a reserve army of labor [Unpublished typed manuscript].

• Shaikh, A. (1986, October). Goodwin wage-employment cycle model: “Goodwin” in TUTSIM [Unpublished handwritten manuscript].

• Shaikh, A. (2008, April 23). Neoliberalism, globalization & financial capital [Unpublished handwritten manuscript].