We investigate how key monetary policy instruments and financial regulation affect the banking firm. We take the user-cost approach to the construction of prices for financial services and use quarterly data on the U.S. commercial banking sector, over the period from 1992 to 2016, obtained from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. We use the symmetric generalized Barnett variable profit function to derive demands for and supplies of monetary and nonmonetary goods and provide evidence consistent with neoclassical microeconomic theory. We find that the compensated price elasticities of banking technology are small in magnitude. Yet a hypothetical policy experiment shows that even small changes in the holding costs of financial goods can result in significant changes in user costs and the quantities demanded and supplied.

When observably heterogeneous firms engage in R&D and policy can be conditioned on the heterogeneity, what is the optimal policy? This paper starts with a static duopoly model of R&D competition with uncertainty and finds it welfare enhancing to subsidize the larger firms with no subsidies for the smaller firm, extending existing results. This result follows because the policymaker’s goal is to minimize the average cost of production. Our paper demonstrates that these results are not robust to a dynamic setting. The optimal policy depends on the equilibrium type of competition that emerges without intervention—an insight that cannot be found in a static setting. In a dynamic setting, the degree of competition becomes an endogenous variable. Interestingly, although the optimal policy in some cases provides a slightly larger subsidy for the larger firm, it is the smaller firm that benefits most in terms of firm value.

This paper presents a new testing method for the scapegoat model of exchange rates. A number of steps are implemented to determine whether macro-fundamentals are scapegoats for the evolution of exchange rates. Estimation is conducted using a Bayesian Gibbs sampling approach applied to eight countries (five developed and three emerging) versus the USA over the period 2002Q1–2014Q4. The macro-fundamentals that we consider are real GDP growth, the inflation rate, the long-run nominal interest rate, and the current account to GDP ratio. We calculate the posterior probabilities that these macro-fundamentals are scapegoats. For the inflation rate, these probabilities are considerably higher than the imposed prior probabilities of ½ in five out of eight countries (in particular, the Anglo-Saxon economies).

Population aging, along with a secular decline in real interest rates, is an empirical regularity observed in developed countries over the last few decades. Under the premise that population aging will deepen in coming years, some studies predict that real interest rates will continue to be depressed further to a level below zero. In this paper, we address this issue and explore how changes in demographic structures have affected and will affect real interest rates, using an overlapping generations model calibrated to Japan’s economy. We find that the demographic changes over the last 50 years reduced the real interest rate. About 270 out of the 640 basis points decline in real interest rates during this period was due to declining labor inputs and higher saving, which themselves stemmed from the lower fertility rate and increased life expectancy. As for the next 50 years, we find that demographic changes alone will not substantially increase or decrease the real interest rate from the current level. These changes reflect the fact that the size of demographic changes in years ahead will be minimal, but that downward pressure arising from the past demographic changes will continue to bite. As Japan is not unique in terms of this broad picture of changes in demographic landscapes in the last and next 50 years, our results suggest that, sooner or later, a demography-induced decline in real interest rates may be contained in other developed countries as well.

The paper analyzes how actual monetary policy changed following the official adoption of inflation targeting in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland and how it affected the volatilities of important macroeconomic variables in the years thereafter. To disentangle the effects of the policy shift from exogenous changes in the volatilities of these variables, a Markov-switching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model is estimated that allows for regime switches in the policy parameters and the volatilities of shocks hitting the economies. Whereas estimation results reveal periods of high and low volatility for all three economies, the presence of different policy regimes is supported by the underlying data for the Czech Republic and Poland, only. In both economies, monetary policy switched from weak and unsystematic to strong and systematic responses to inflation dynamics. Simulation results suggest that the policy shifts of both central banks successfully reduced inflation volatility in the following years. The observed reduction in output volatility, on the other hand, is attributed more to a reduction in the size of external shocks.

We propose a simple short-run Post-Keynesian model in which the key aspects of shadow banking, namely securitization and the production of structured finance instruments, are explicitly formalized. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to broaden purely real-side Post-Keynesian models and their traditional focus on shareholder-value orientation, the financialization of non-financial firms, and the profit-led vs. wage-led dichotomy. We rather put emphasis on the role of financial institutions and rentier-friendly environment in determining the predominance of specific growth and distribution regimes. First, we illustrate the macroeconomic rationale of shadow banking practices. We show how, before the 2007–08 crisis, securitization and shadow banking allowed for an increase in profitability for the whole financial sector, while apparently keeping leverage under control. Second, we define a variety of shadow-banking-led regimes in terms of economic activity, productive capital accumulation, and income distribution.

This paper studies how model uncertainty influences economic fluctuation when trend inflation is high. We introduce Hansen and Sargent’s [(2008) Robustness, Princeton University Press] robust control techniques into a New Keynesian model with non-zero trend inflation. We reveal the following three points. First, we find that robust monetary policy responds more aggressively. This aggressiveness increases with trend inflation. Second, as the trend inflation rises, the response of macroeconomic variables is larger under robust policy. Third, stronger robustness tends to lead to indeterminate equilibrium as trend inflation increases. Consequently, the economy might be volatile when trend inflation is high due to robustness from the view of both variance and determinacy. We interpret the results as indicating that the model uncertainty might be the one of the factors causing large macroeconomic fluctuations when trend inflation is high.

Monthly disaggregated US data from 1978 to 2016 reveal that exposure to news on inflation and monetary policy helps to explain inflation expectations. This remains true when controlling for household personal characteristics, perceptions of government policy effectiveness, expectations of future interest and unemployment rates, and sentiment. We find an asymmetric impact of news on inflation and monetary policy after 1983, with news on rising inflation and easier monetary policy having a stronger effect in comparison to news on lowering inflation and tightening monetary policy. Our results indicate the impact on inflation expectations of monetary policy news manifested through consumer sentiment during the lower bound period.

Anticipating a bailout in the event of a crisis distorts financial intermediaries’ incentives in multiple dimensions. Bailout payments can, for example, lead intermediaries to issue too much short-term debt while simultaneously underinvesting in liquid assets. To correct these distortions, policymakers may choose to regulate the composition of both the assets and liabilities of intermediaries. I examine these regulations in a version of the Diamond and Dybvig [(1983). Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity. Journal of Political Economy, 91(3), 401–419] model with limited commitment. I demonstrate that, contrary to common wisdom, introducing a minimum liquidity requirement can increase intermediaries’ susceptibility to a run by their investors.

We analyze the optimal debt reduction problem in an uncertainty context. The social planner has a finite horizon and seeks to minimize the social costs associated with debt repayment by taking into account not only the short-run costs of the policy, but also the long-run costs associated with the outstanding level of debt. We characterize the optimal policy and the dynamics of the debt-to-GDP ratio, showing that it will decrease over time if economic policy is effective enough. We characterize how the evolution of the debt-to-GDP ratio depends on the main parameters and we present a simple calibration based on Greek data to illustrate the implications of our analysis in real-world setups.

Table 4 of this article was incorrectly published with subheadings in Table 4 missing. The publisher regrets this error and the correct version of Table 4 is presented here.Table 4.

Present-value multipliers for different specifications of fiscal policy in the new Keynesian model with rational expectations and with adaptive learning

	Rational expectations				Adaptive learning
	Impact	1 year	4 years	6 years	Impact	1 year	4 years	6 years
Strategy 1: Lump-sum financing (baseline model)
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta Y} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	0.51	0.50	0.46	0.43	1.01	1.00	0.99	0.97
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta C} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	−0.29	−0.30	−0.34	−0.37	0.09	0.09	0.07	0.06
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta I} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	−0.20	−0.20	−0.20	−0.20	−0.08	−0.08	−0.09	−0.09
Strategy 2: Capital tax financing
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta Y} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	0.32	0.29	0.12	0.02	0.43	0.38	0.20	0.08
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta C} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	−0.23	−0.26	−0.40	−0.48	−0.08	−0.12	−0.27	−0.37
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta I} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	−0.68	−0.69	−0.70	−0.71	−0.80	−0.80	−0.81	−0.82
Strategy 3: Labor tax financing
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta Y} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	−0.64	−0.68	−0.85	−0.95	0.48	0.47	0.43	0.40
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta C} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	−1.07	−1.10	−1.24	−1.33	−0.37	−0.38	−0.41	−0.43
$\frac{{PV\left( {\Delta I} \right)}}{{PV\left( {\Delta G} \right)}}\$	−0.71	−0.71	−0.73	−0.74	−0.17	−0.18	−0.18	−0.18

The paper compares the effects of market-based (M-B) and command-and-control (C&C) climate policies on the direction of technical change and the prevention of environmental disasters. Drawing on a model of endogenous growth and directed technical change, we show that M-B policies (carbon taxes and subsidies toward clean sectors) suffer from path dependence and exhibit bounded window of opportunities: delays in their implementation make them ineffective both in redirecting technical change, (i.e. triggering a transition toward clean energy) and in avoiding environmental catastrophes. On the contrary, we find that C&C interventions are favored by path dependence and guarantee policy effectiveness irrespectively of the timing of their introduction. As the hypothesis of path dependence in technological change has received vast empirical support and it is a key feature of many models of growth, we argue that C&C policies should be seen as a valuable and non-equivalent alternative to M-B interventions.

We examine how a subsidy policy for encouraging more individuals to pursue higher education affects economic growth in an overlapping generations model of R&D-based growth, including both product development and process innovation. We show that such a policy may have a negative effect on the long-run economic growth rate. When the market structure adjusts partially in the short run, the effect of an education subsidy on economic growth is ambiguous and depends on the values of the parameters. However, when the market structure adjusts fully in the long run, the education subsidy expands the number of firms but reduces economic growth. These unfavorable predictions of an education subsidy on economic growth are partly consistent with the empirical findings that mass higher education does not necessarily lead to higher economic growth.

This paper aims at investigating the interplay between inequality, innovation dynamics, and investment behaviors in shaping the long-run patterns of growth of a closed economy. By extending the analysis proposed in Caiani et al. [(2018) Journal of Evolutionary Economics], we explore the effects of alternative wage regimes under different investment and technological change scenarios. Experimental results seem to de-emphasize the role of technological progress as a possible source of greater inequality. Overall, simulation results are consistent with the predominance of a wage-led growth regime in most of the scenarios analyzed: A faster growth of low- and middle-level workers’ wages, relative to managers’, generally exert beneficial effects on the economy and allows to counteract the labor-saving effects of technological progress. Furthermore, a distribution more favorable to workers does not compromise firms’ profitability, but rather strengthen it by creating a more favorable macroeconomic environment, which encourages further innovations, stimulates investment, and sustains economic growth.

Occurrences of an old phenomenon, the expropriation of foreign-owned property, peaked in the 1970s when virtually every significant oil-producing developing country nationalized its oil. Nationalization was again on the rise in the 2000s. Using novel data, this paper quantitatively evaluates the effects of nationalization. First, the paper finds significant productivity losses associated with nationalization in a sample of oil-producing countries. Venezuela in particular experienced a striking decline in productivity. Second, the paper presents a new channel through which nationalization affects productivity: a long-term pre-announcement can shift the composition of the workforce with a huge decline in highly skilled foreign workers and result in higher extraction and lower exploration. Guided by a quantitative dynamic partial equilibrium framework disciplined by features of the Venezuelan data, this paper then evaluates the effects of nationalization. A comparison of the simulated and time series data shows that the model can explain about 80% of the productivity pattern over 1961–1980 in the Venezuelan oil industry. Counterfactual experiments suggest that the shift in the composition of the workforce is important in accounting for the productivity pattern. Furthermore, if nationalization had been sudden, long-run losses would have been lower.