Using a Bayesian likelihood approach, we estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the US economy using seven macro-economic time series. The model incorporates many types of real and nominal frictions and seven types of structural shocks. We show that this model is able to compete with Bayesian Vector Autoregression models in out-of-sample prediction. We investigate the relative empirical importance of the various frictions. Finally, using the estimated model we address a number of key issues in business cycle analysis: What are the sources of business cycle fluctuations? Can the model explain the cross-correlation between output and inflation? What are the effects of productivity on hours worked? What are the sources of the "Great Moderation"?

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Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach

We study economic growth and inflation at different levels of government and external debt. Our analysis is based on new data on forty-four countries spanning about two hundred years. The dataset incorporates over 3,700 annual observations covering a wide range of political systems, institutions, exchange rate arrangements, and historic circumstances. Our main findings are: First, the relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below a threshold of 90 percent of GDP. Above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by one percent, and average growth falls considerably more. We find that the threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies. Second, emerging markets face lower thresholds for external debt (public and private)--which is usually denominated in a foreign currency. When external debt reaches 60 percent of GDP, annual growth declines by about two percent; for higher levels, growth rates are roughly cut in half. Third, there is no apparent contemporaneous link between inflation and public debt levels for the advanced countries as a group (some countries, such as the United States, have experienced higher inflation when debt/GDP is high.) The story is entirely different for emerging markets, where inflation rises sharply as debt increases.

Growth in a Time of Debt

What are the welfare effects of enhanced dissemination of public information through the media and disclosures by market participants with high public visibility? For instance, is it always desirable to have frequent and timely publications of economic statistics by government agencies and the central bank? We examine the impact of public information in a setting where agents take actions appropriate to the underlying fundamentals, but they also have a coordination motive arising from a strategic complementarity in their actions. When the agents have no private information, greater provision of public information always increases welfare. However, when agents also have access to independent sources of information, the welfare effect of increased public disclosures is ambiguous.

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Social Value of Public Information

Are natural resources a “curse” or a “blessing”? The empirical evidence suggests either outcome is possible. The paper surveys a variety of hypotheses and supporting evidence for why some countries benefit and others lose from the presence of natural resources. These include that a resource bonanza induces appreciation of the real exchange rate, deindustrialization and bad growth prospects, and that these adverse effects are more severe in volatile countries with bad institutions and lack of rule of law, corruption, presidential democracies, and underdeveloped financial systems. Another hypothesis is that a resource boom reinforces rent grabbing and civil conflict especially if institutions are bad, induces corruption especially in non-democratic countries, and keeps in place bad policies. Finally, resource rich developing economies seem unable to successfully convert their depleting exhaustible resources into other productive assets. The survey also offers some welfare-based fiscal rules for harnessing resource windfalls in developed and developing economies.

Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?

There is a global financial cycle in capital flows, asset prices and in credit growth. This cycle co‐moves with the VIX, a measure of uncertainty and risk aversion of the markets. Asset markets in countries with more credit inflows are more sensitive to the global cycle. The global financial cycle is not aligned with countries’ specific macroeconomic conditions. Symp toms can go from benign to large asset price bubbles and excess credit creation, which are among the best predictors of financial crises. A VAR analysis suggests that one of the determinants of the global financial cycle is monetary policy in the centre country , which affects leverage of global banks, capital flows and credit growth in the international financial system. Whenever capital is freely mobile, the global financial cycle constrains national monetary policies regardless of the exchange rate regime. For the past few decades, international macroeconomics has postulated the “trilemma”: with free capital mobility, inde pendent monetary policies are feasible if and only if exchange rates are floating. The global financial cycle transforms the trilemma into a “dilemma” or an “irreconcilable duo”: independent monetary policies are possible if and only if the capital account is managed. So should policy restrict capital mobility? Gains to international capital flows have proved elusive whether in calibrated models or in the data.  Large gross flows disrupt asset markets and financial intermediation, so the costs may be very large. To deal with the global financial cycle and the “dilemma”, we have the following policy options: ( a) targeted capital controls; (b) acting on one of the sources of the financial cyc le itself, the monetary policy of the Fed and other main central banks; (c) acting on the transmission channel cyclically by limiting credit growth and leverage during the upturn of the cycle, using national macroprudential policies; (d) acting on the transmission channel structurally by imposing stricter limit s on leverage for all financial intermediaries. We argue for a convex combination of (a), (c) and (d).

/pdf/dilemma-not-trilemma-the-global-financial-cycle-and-monetary-yk7w7zd08d.pdf

Dilemma not Trilemma: The Global Financial Cycle and Monetary Policy Independence

Although a lot has been written on the link between debt maturity and financial crises, it remains puzzling why the private sector in emerging market economies holds such a large share of short-term debt in the presence of substantial macroeconomic risk. To understand this phenomenon, we propose a simple model in which debt maturity depends on economic uncertainty about investment returns. We show in particular that if lenders are risk averse, higher uncertainty can (i) lower the total debt level a country is able to borrow and (ii) tilt the debt profile towards short-term debt. We take these model implications to the data using a panel of 28 emerging market economies and various indicators for macroeconomic uncertainty. We find substantial empirical support for the model's predictions.

Uncertainty and Debt-Maturity in Emerging Markets

In June 2013, the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany held an expert hearing on the suitability of ECB measures, such as the purchase of government bonds, and their compatibility with existing EU and German legislation. The statements of five invited experts are documented here. The authors comment on the path from the agreement that has laid down the basic rules for the euro area to a crisis-driven approach that seems to have forgotten these rules. The ECB policy holds many risks - above all that of financing public budgets almost without limits - for the stability of monetary and fiscal governance in the euro area. On the other hand, ECB measures can also be interpreted as a necessary means to comply with the ultimate task of the ECB, the defence of price stability. Hence the ECB’s crisis measures do not represent any intention to intervene in fiscal or economic policy measures, and after the crisis the ECB can return to a narrower interpretation of the role of a central bank. It should not be forgotten that the ECB measures bear high risks for the countries in trouble as well as for those countries supporting them.

Bundesverfassungsgericht und Krisenpolitik der EZB - Stellungnahmen der Ökonomen

We analyze the relationship between asset prices and current account positions estimating a Bayesian VAR for a broad set of 42 industrialized and emerging market countries. To derive model-based identifying restrictions, we model asset price shocks as news shocks about future productivity in a two-country DSGE model. Such shocks are found to exert sizeable effects on the current account positions of countries. Moreover, the effects are highly heterogeneous across countries, for instance following a 10 percent shock to domestic equity prices relative to the rest of the world the US trade balance will worsen by 1.0 percentage points, but much less so for most other economies. We find that this heterogeneity appears to be linked to the financial market depth and equity home bias of countries. Moreover, the channels via wealth effects and via the real exchange rate are important for understanding the heterogeneity in the transmission.

Asset Prices, News Shocks and the Current Account

Am 11. und 12. Juni 2013 hat das Bundesverfassungsgericht Experten zur Krisenpolitik der EZB angehort. Dabei ging es um die Frage, ob oder inwieweit die EZB durch das Outright-Monetary- Transactions-Programm (OMT) Kompetenzen beansprucht, die ihr nicht ubertragen worden sind. Wir veroffentlichen hier die Stellungnahmen der Okonomen im Wortlaut.

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While many countries in the European Monetary Union are deep in recession due to a debt and structural crisis, the German economy appears to have excelled compared to many other euro area states. Unemployment has fallen to the lowest level since German reunification, economic output has grown by over eight percent since 2009 and public budgets have been consolidated, generating a surplus in 2012. But this is no cause for euphoria. On the contrary, if we look at Germany's economic development from a more long-term perspective, we can see that this country is lagging behind in many areas compared to most EU member states and most euro countries. Since 1999, the euro countries have on average achieved more economic growth than Germany and this increase in competitiveness can be largely attributed to wage moderation rather than productivity growth. The investment rate has been falling for a long time and is still low by international standards. The calculations in this study indicate that Germany has shown an annual investment gap of three percent on average since 1999. This means that Germany needs to invest in order to reduce the deficit accumulated in recent years and also to ensure growth and prosperity in the long term. At the same time, the savings rate in Germany is one of the highest by international standards. As evidenced by the enormous current account surpluses of up to seven percent in 2012, most of the savings went abroad, however, rather than being invested in Germany. Overall, Germany has thus missed out on significant growth opportunities. Since 1999, German investors lost around 400 billion euros on their foreign assets, which corresponds to approximately 15 percent of GDP. In the period from 2006 to 2012 alone, this figure was 600 billion euros, or 22 percent of GDP. At the same time, Germany shows an average investment gap of around 75 billion euros each year. Calculations by DIW Berlin for the purposes of this study indicate that if the German investment gap had been closed annual German economic growth per capita could have been up to one percentage point higher on average than observed in reality. Germany also has a high degree of specialization in research-intensive industries and knowledge-intensive services. As a prime location with high requirements concerning human capital, conservation of resources, and mobility, the country has a particularly high demand for structural capital investment. Simulations show that closing the investment gap in the medium term could lead to significantly higher economic growth in Germany. Potential growth could be 0.6 percentage points higher in 2017: at 1.6 percent of GDP as opposed to around one percent. In light of more favorable financing conditions and fewer burdens on public finances in the coming years, the financial scope for private and public investment is currently extremely favorable and good use should be made of it now.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/77875/1/750631791.pdf

Marcel Fratzscher

Papers

Uncertainty and Debt-Maturity in Emerging Markets

Bundesverfassungsgericht und Krisenpolitik der EZB - Stellungnahmen der Ökonomen

Asset Prices, News Shocks and the Current Account

Bundesverfassungsgericht und Krisenpolitik der EZB - Stellungnahmen der Ökonomen

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