世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

are price decreases. (3) The frequency of price increases covaries strongly with inflation, whereas the frequency of price decreases and the size of price increases and price decreases do not. (4) The frequency of price change is highly seasonal: it is highest in the first quarter and then declines. (5) We find no evidence of upwardsloping hazard functions of price changes for individual products. We show that the first, second, and third facts are consistent with a benchmark menu-cost model, whereas the fourth and fifth facts are not.

/pdf/five-facts-about-prices-a-reevaluation-of-menu-cost-models-35l383bzoq.pdf

Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models

lapse using the highly unequal geographic distribution of wealth losses across the United States. We estimate a large elasticity of consumption with respect to housing net worth of 0.6 to 0.8, which soundly rejects the hypothesis of full consumption risk-sharing. The average marginal propensity to consume (MPC) out of housing wealth is 5–7 cents with substantial heterogeneity across ZIP codes. ZIP codes with poorer and more levered households have a significantly higher MPC out of housing wealth. In line with the MPC result, ZIP codes experiencing larger wealth losses, particularly those with poorer and more levered households, experience a larger reduction in credit limits, refinancing likelihood, and credit scores. Our findings highlight the role of debt and the geographic distribution of wealth shocks in explaining the large and unequal decline in consumption from 2006 to 2009. JEL Codes: E21, E32, E44, E60.

/pdf/household-balance-sheets-consumption-and-the-economic-slump-4xo9n6fpzz.pdf

Household Balance Sheets, Consumption, and the Economic Slump*

Enclosed is a copy of the Board of Governors’ Semiannual Agenda of Regulations for the period August 1, 1980 through February 1, 1981. The Semiannual Agenda provides you with information on those regulatory matters that the Board now has under consideration or anticipates considering over the next six months, and is divided into three parts: (1) regulatory matters that the Board had considered during the previous six months on which final action has been taken; (2) regulatory matters that have been proposed for public comment and that require further Board consideration; and (3) regulatory matters that the Board may consider over the next six months.

Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorkの制定せる財務諸表様式について

In this paper we consider model selection for time series with increasing (or decreasing) seasonal variation, where this variation can be described by (seasonal) unit root models with significant deterministic components or by models with less unit roots but with shifts in seasonal means or trends. As a model selection device we use tests based on the Osborn et al. regression, which we modify to allow for shifts in mean and trend. An application to disposable income in Japan yields that apparent unit roots are not robust to structural shifts induced by the Oil Crisis in the fourth quarter of 1973. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Increasing seasonal variation; unit roots versus shifts in mean and trend

Median starting wages of recent college graduates have not kept pace with median earnings for all workers over the past six years. This type of gap in wage growth also appeared after the 2001 recession and closed only late in the subsequent labor market recovery. However the wage gap in the current recovery is substantially larger and has lasted longer than in the past. The larger gap represents slow growth in starting salaries for graduates, rather than a shift in types of jobs, and reflects continued weakness in the demand for labor overall.

The wage growth gap for recent college grads

In this Economic Letter we evaluate the stimulative effect of redistributing income from rich to poor households in a few distinct steps. We first provide a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation of the potential stimulus from redistributive policies. We then review the two main assumptions behind this policy prescription. We argue that the stimulative impact of such policies is likely to be lower than the simple calculation suggests. Potential stimulative impact of redistribution The starting point for our simple estimate is the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which gives an annual picture of complete consumption patterns for U.S. households. The solid black line in Figure 1 plots the share of income that households consumed in 2013. The survey ranks households by income from low to high and divides them into 10 groups called deciles, with the 1 st decile showing households in the bottom 10% of the income distribution, and the 10 th decile showing households in the top 10%. Spending is then averaged for each decile of the income distribution. The shaded areas below the solid line reflect the share of income spent on different major expenditure categories. The figure suggests that households at the lower end of the income distribution spend more than twice what they make. At the upper end, households spend about two-thirds of what they make. Given this large difference in the propensity to consume between low- and high-income households, we consider the economic impact of levying a $1 tax on the rich and transferring it to the poor. This would reduce the highincome household’s spending by about $0.66 and increase the low-income household’s spending by $2, assuming each group spent additional dollars at their average rates. On net, it would create an increase in spending of more than $1.25. Even if the average for households in the bottom decile is overstated and they simply consume all the income they make, Figure 1 suggests every $1 of redistribution from the top earners to the bottom one-third of the income distribution would boost spending by at least $0.33.

The Stimulative Effect of Redistribution

Using quarterly data for the U.K. from 1993 through 2012, we document that the extent of worker reallocation across occupations or industries (a career change, in the parlance of this paper) is high and procyclical. This holds true after controlling for workers' previous labour market status and for changes in the composition of who gets hired over the business cycle. Our evidence suggests that a large part of this reallocation reflect excess churning in the labour market. We also find that the majority of career changes come with wage increases. During the economic expansion wage increases were typically larger for those who change careers than for those who do not. During the recession this is not true for career changers who were hired from unemployment. Our evidence suggests that understanding career changes over the business cycle is important for explaining labour market flows and the cyclicality of wage growth. & 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The extent and cyclicality of career changes

Do lobbies affect technology diffusion and growth? A number of authors have identified the importance of vested interests as a deterrent to technology diffusion and the relevance that this may have for growth. however, the evidence that exists about this mechanism is just anecdotal. In this paper we build a model of lobbying and technology diffusion where the speed of diffusion of new technologies depends on some dimensions of the political regime and on the whether there is an old technology that may be substituted by the new technology. This differential effect of institutions on the diffusion of technologies with a predecessor constitutes the central element of our identification strategy. To implement this test we use technology diffusion data from Comin and Hobijn [2004]. We find that the relevant institutional variables have a differential effect on the diffusion of technologies with a predecessor technology as predicted by the theory. We show that this result is unlikely to be driven by omitted variables, or reverse causality.

/pdf/lobbying-and-technology-diffusion-489d6r2pnj.pdf

Bart Hobijn

Papers

Increasing seasonal variation; unit roots versus shifts in mean and trend

The wage growth gap for recent college grads

The Stimulative Effect of Redistribution

The extent and cyclicality of career changes

Lobbying and Technology Diffusion