Narrow Results

In this paper we show that US prices can be specified in terms of a time series model that contains roots simultaneously at zero and the cyclical frequencies. Using a general procedure for testing this type of hypothesis, the results show that the secular component in the US prices is nonstationary, with an order of integration ranging between 0.7 and 1.4. However, the cyclical part seems to be stationary, with the order of integration fluctuating around 0. This implies that shocks affecting the long run component will be highly persistent, while those affecting the cyclical part will disappear quickly.

Behavioral economics is the study of economic behavior beyond the traditional simple economic models of constrained maximization with purely economic objectives (consumption/profits). Some policy implications of the findings of behavioral economics, happiness studies and beyond are outlined, with special reference to excessive volatility in business cycles and the optimal level of public spending. Though behavioral economics potentially provides more support for the restriction of gambling, an outright ban need not be optimal. Though legal casinos may increase some crimes, it will decrease crimes associated with illegal gambling. Some restrictions of problem gambling will be needed. Apart from (if not rather than) the attraction of tourists/visitors, the consumer surplus associated with responsible pleasure gambling is likely to be the major benefits of legalizing casinos. The proposed entry fee may be better replaced by a membership system, as the former is unfair to locals and will lead to unhealthy gambling.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was established in 1989. APEC member countries are remarkably different from each other in many respects. The traditional optimum currency area (OCA) theory may not be suitable for application to APEC. This paper stresses business cycles and trade intensity, which are included in OCA theory, and considers whether or not the "currency union" is suitable. The paper develops a procedure for applying OCA theory to APEC and examines these criteria while taking into account the endogeneity of these criteria. The result indicates that adopting the dollar for currency union is much more reasonable than adopting the yen.

This paper investigates exchange rate and monetary policies over the business cycle in Taiwan. We first characterize the business cycle dynamics in Taiwan and identify foreign shocks as the main cause of any fluctuations. We then briefly review the exchange rate system and policy operating in Taiwan since the early 1980s. Finally, we investigate the current recession, and discuss how the Taiwanese government is dealing with the economic slowdown.

This paper sets up a two-agent new Keynesian model to explore the role of financial frictions over the post-war U.S. business cycle. The estimated model via maximum likelihood shows that the share of constrained households which has been substantial since the 1960s has significantly increased during the Great Recession. It also finds that the cost-push shock has been most important in explaining the behavior of the detrended output. The cost-push shock has also played a pivotal role in the fluctuation of inflation during the Great Recession, while the monetary policy shock which has been important in the behavior of inflation before the financial crisis has a negligible role during the Great Recession.

Synchronization of growth rates are an important feature of international business cycles, particularly in relation to regional integration projects such as the single currency in Europe. Synchronization of growth rates clearly enhances the effectiveness of European Central Bank monetary policy, ensuring that policy changes are attuned to the dynamics of growth and business cycles in the majority of member states. In this paper, a dissimilarity metric is constructed by measuring the topological differences between the GDP growth patterns in recurrence plots for individual countries. The results show that synchronization of growth rates were higher among the euro area member states during the second half of the 1980s and from 1997 to roughly 2002. Apart from these two time periods, euro area member states do not appear to be more synchronized than a group of major international countries, suggesting that apart from specific times when European integration initiatives were being implemented, globalization was likely the dominant factor behind international business cycle synchronization.

We determine the distribution of size and growth rates of German business firms in 1987–1997. We find a log-normal size distribution. The distribution of growth rates has fat tails. It can be fitted to an exponential in a narrow central region and is dominated by finite-sample-size effects far in its wings. We study the dependence of the growth rate distribution on firm size: depending on procedures, we find almost no dependence when the center of the distribution is considered or, similar to previous work, a power-law when the wings are weighted more strongly. Correlations in the growth of different firms are essentially random. We determine the annual growth of the entire economy, and successfully correlate it with a standard economic indicator of business cycles in Germany. We emphasize possible problems related to the finite number of firms comprised in our database and its short extension in time.

We develop a simple Keynesian type business cycle model in which heterogeneous agents are either optimistic or pessimistic. If the majority of the agents are optimistic, then consumption expenditures are high and the economy booms, otherwise consumption expenditures are low and the economy is in a recession. Within our model, the sentiment of the agents is affected by their social interactions. For instance, people regularly meet each other and thus their mood may change. Overall, our model suggests that swings in consumer confidence may generate irregular fluctuations in economic activity.

Price differentials, among other factors, persuade many residents of Northern Mexico to shop in the Southwestern United States border region. Employment patterns in the latter region are studied using a set of control variables and two indicators that are likely to influence cross-border shopping patterns. The first is a real exchange rate index, which captures changes in relative prices in the United States and Mexico. The second is real per capita gross state product in Mexican states adjacent to the international boundary. Both of these variables are found to impact retail and restaurant employment in the United States border zone, confirming that cross-border shopping influences labor market conditions in that region. Furthermore, the estimated elasticities vary across retail sub-sectors in ways that are generally consistent with prior research. Overall, the results suggest that economic setbacks in Northern Mexico and real peso depreciations are likely to have adverse consequences for important sectors of border economies in the United States.

This paper shows that the stylized fact of average mutual fund underperformance documented in the literature stems from expansion periods when funds have statistically significant negative risk-adjusted performance and not recession periods when risk-adjusted fund performance is positive. These results imply that traditional unconditional performance measures understate the value added by active mutual fund managers in recessions, when investors' marginal utility of wealth is high. The risk-adjusted performance (or alpha) difference between recession and expansion periods is statistically and economically significant at 3% to 5% per year. Our findings are based on a novel multi-variate conditional regime-switching performance methodology used to carry out one of the most comprehensive examinations of the performance of US domestic equity mutual funds in recessions and expansions from 1962 to 2005. The findings are robust to the choice of the factor model (including bond and liquidity factor extensions), the use of NBER business cycle dates, fund load, turnover, expenses and percentage of equity holdings.

Does policy uncertainty affect productivity? Policy uncertainty creates delays on decision-making as firms await new information about prices, costs, and other market conditions before committing resources. Such delays can have real consequences on firms’ productivity and corporate decisions. We find that economic policy uncertainty has a negative impact on firm-level productivity. We further show that the negative impact is alleviated by firms’ high cash holdings or prior committed irreversible investments. These findings are robust to various specifications.

This paper investigates the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and corporate tax rates in a panel dataset of 126 countries throughout 2003–2018. We use the so-called “World Uncertainty Index” to measure the level of economic policy uncertainty. We utilize various estimation techniques and find a one-way causality from economic policy uncertainty to corporate tax rates. Specifically, a rise in economic policy uncertainty leads to higher corporate tax rates. We also discuss potential implications.

This paper sought to close the gap on the inconsistent findings on the causal relationship between uncertainty and business cycles. We investigate the causal relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and business cycles in six emerging market economies, during the period January 1999 to December 2018. We significantly contribute to the literature by adopting a robust nonlinear causality test and the maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform that transforms the series into multilevel wavelet and scaling coefficients. The empirical findings are thus presented in short-, medium-, and long-term dynamics, which correspond to investors’ different time horizons. We further introduce new variables which significantly alter our understanding of the inconsistent findings between EPU and business cycles. We record a handful of evidence to prove that EPU is both a cause and effect of business cycle fluctuations, except for India that records a one-way causality from business cycles to EPU. These findings are significant because they provide investors and policymakers with information on the causal relationship between EPU and business cycles over time and across frequencies, which can be used to improve policy formulations and investment strategies across time horizons. Furthermore, the findings aid in explaining the inconsistent findings in the literature.

This paper investigates the endogeneity hypothesis of optimal currency area (OCA) criterion, that is, business cycles synchronisation, in a panel of Southern African Development Community (SADC) member countries, for the period 1994–2016. Using a Generalised Method of Moments (GMM), the study finds that, amongst other factors, trade induces business cycles comovement. This finding lends support to the endogeneity hypothesis of OCA theory.

This study quantifies animal spirits by constructing an index using information from major sectors of the economy. The key drivers of the animal spirits are the monetary/fiscal policies and the stage of the business cycle and therefore the effect of these drivers on animal spirits is also estimated. Furthermore, the effect of changes in the animal spirits index is generated to examine which sector is affected the most by animal spirits. In other words, we test whether animal spirits produce asymmetric effects on the economy.

Our work suggests a policy change (and a shock/recession) produces dual effects on the economy which are (a) direct effects and (b) indirect effects, which is brought about by animal spirits. Therefore, it is crucial for policymakers to estimate the direct and indirect effects of policy changes as well as shocks/recessions on the economy to gauge the accumulative effect, rendering them more to design effective policies.

This paper investigates the synchronization of the intra-East Asian business cycles based on regional bilateral trade statistics. By evaluating three macroeconomic fundamentals: real GDP, industrial production, and unemployment, it is found that tighter intra-East Asian trade may most likely lead to more idiosyncratic business cycles and hence lower correlations of economic activity. When using regional trade as an international openness criterion in the theory of Optimum Currency Area, the finding suggests that for the immediate future, the creation of an East Asian monetary/currency union may not be feasible.

We determine the distribution of size and growth rates of German business firms in 1987–1997. We find a log-normal size distribution. The distribution of growth rates has fat tails. It can be fitted to an exponential in a narrow central region and is dominated by finite-sample-size effects far in its wings. We study the dependence of the growth rate distribution on firm size: depending on procedures, we find almost no dependence when the center of the distribution is considered or, similar to previous work, a power-law when the wings are weighted more strongly. Correlations in the growth of different firms are essentially random. We determine the annual growth of the entire economy, and successfully correlate it with a standard economic indicator of business cycles in Germany. We emphasize possible problems related to the finite number of firms comprised in our database and its short extension in time.

Forecasting on the basis of the daily flow of monthly or more frequent statistical reports on the economy can enhance the predictive accuracy of quarterly structural models. The high degree of serial correlation in economic data can be used advantageously in quarterly forecasting for a horizon as long as 6 months — perhaps somewhat longer. The model used for high-frequency (weekly) forecasting of the U.S. economy has a national accounting structure and tries to follow the choice of indicators that are used in preparing early estimates of national income and product accounts (NIPA). Estimates are separately generated for the income side and the product side of NIPA. At the level of GDP and closely related aggregates a third prediction is also generated from estimates of the principal components of major monthly indicators. A simple average of three estimates of GDP, together with detail on NIPA components and scores of monthly indicators has been produced every weekend, summarizing the business week's flow of information. This procedure is followed not only for producing a steady stream of high-frequency forecasts but also for providing adjustment factors that can be used for model recalibration, without judgemental input. The tracking of the U.S. economy is illustrated for the period starting before the invasion of Kuwait until the end of the Gulf War.

We evaluate the impact of real business cycle shocks on corruption and economic policy in a model of entry regulation in a representative democracy. We find that corruption is pro-cyclical and regulation policy is counter-cyclical. Corrupt politicians engage in excessive stabilization of aggregate fluctuations and behave as if they were Keynesian. We also find that business cycle shocks can induce political instability with politicians losing office in recessions.

Section “Introduction and Historical Background” of this chapter briefly reviews the literature on medical spending, which suggests that health expenditures began small but steadily increased throughout history (from 1% to 4% of GDP), then began to increase rapidly among wealthier developed countries after 1950. Section “Measurement: Temporal, Spatial and Administrative Units of Observation” examines temporal and spatial dimensions of measurement, which suggest that the evolution of global health expenditures may be best observed by tracking health expenditures as a share of GDP over decades. Nominal and real per capita amounts are subject to distortions created by lags and currency valuation. Months and years are too short a span, while persons, households and provinces are too small. Section “Lags, Business Cycles, and Growth Trends” covers growth in the components of health expenditures (population, income, inflation, excess due to technology and other factors). A model of national health expenditure decisions over time is presented and used to explain empirical findings of varying distributed lag responses to macroeconomic growth and development. Section “Forecasting National and Global Health Expenditure Trends” considers the methods and accuracy of national health expenditure forecasting. Section “Aging, Health Expenditures and Fiscal Burdens” addresses some problems of variable identification, with specific applications to population aging and the aggregate fiscal burden of care for the elderly. Section “Global Health Spending Patterns 1850–1955 and 1960–2075” discusses the sustainability of current trends and the boundaries between long-term care, retirement and medical expenditures. It concludes by proposing that rising longevity and medical costs are best viewed as aspects of a process of economic and human development transforming the 20th and 21st centuries, rather than as isolated phenomena. The six sections each conclude with a discussion of policy implications, even the most technical sections regarding measurement, aggregation and lags, where the policy implications may not be immediately apparent. While nominal policies are publicly stated, it is often these “technical details” regarding boundary definition, timing and measurement that show how policy actually operates, that shape public opinion, and that drive future financial decisions.