Rules versus Discretion

Under a discretionary regime the monetary authority makes no commitments about future money and prices. Then, if surprise inflation conveys economic benefits and if people form expectations rationally, it turns out that the equilibrium involves high and variable monetary growth and inflation. Moreover, since the high rate of inflation is anticipated there are no benefits from inflation surprises. The implementation of an enforced rule can lower the mean rate of inflation while delivering the same average amount of inflation surprises, namely zero. Using these results as a background, the paper discusses alternative monetary rules, including quantity versus price rules and a prescription for stablilizing nominal GNP. This discussion touches on the distinction between positive and normative economics, which leads to a pessimistic appraisal of the role for economists' policy advice.

Economic Growth in East Asia Before and After the Financial Crisis

In 1997-98, five east Asian countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand -- experienced sharp currency and banking crises. The contraction of real GDP was severe in relation to the previous history and in comparison with five east Asian countries that were less affected by the financial crisis. Recoveries in the five crisis countries in 1999-2000 were strong in most cases, but it is unclear whether the pre-crisis growth paths will be reattained. Indications for permanently depressed prospects come from the sharp reductions in investment ratios, which have recovered only slightly, and the lowered stock-market prices. A panel analysis for a broad group of economies shows that a combined currency and banking crisis typically reduces economic growth over a five-year period by 2% per year, compared with 3% per year for the 1997-98 crisis in east Asia. The broader analysis found no evidence that financial crises had effects on growth that persisted beyond a five-year period.

A Capital Market In an Equilibrium Business Cycle Model

Previous equilibrium "business cycle" models are extended by the incorporation of an economy-wide capital market. One aspect of this ex-tension is that the relative price that appears in commodity supply and demand functions becomes an anticipated real rate of return on earning assets, rather than a ratio of actual to expected prices. From the stand-point of expectation formation, the key aspect of the extended model is that observation of the economy-wide nominal interest rate conveys current global information to individuals. With respect to the effect of money supply shocks on output, the model yields results that are similar to those generated in simpler models. Anew result concerns the behavior of the anticipated real rate of return on earning assets. Because this variable is the pertinent relative price for commodity supply and demand decisions, it turns out to be unambiguous that positive money surprises raise the anticipated real rate of return. In fact, this response provides the essential channel in this equilibrium model by which a money shock can raise the supply of commodities and thereby increase output. However, it is possible through a sort of "liquidity" effect that positive money surprises can depress the economy-wide nominal interest rate.

New Classicals and Keynesians, or the Good Guys and the Bad Guys

Old- style Keynesian models relied on sticky prices or wages to explain unemployment and to argue for demand-side macroeconomic policies. This approach relied increasingly on a Phillips-curve view of the world, and therefore lost considerable prestige with the events of the 1970s. The new classical macroeconomics began at about that time, and focused initially on the apparent real effects of monetary disturbances. Despite initial successes, this analysis ultimately was unsatisfactory as an explanation for an important role of money in business fluctuations. Nevertheless, the approach achieved important methodological advances, such as rational expectations and new methods of policy evaluation. Subsequent research by new classicals has deemphasized monetary shocks, and focused instead on real business cycle models and theories of endogenous economic growth. These areas appear promising at this time. Another development is the so-called new Keynesian economics, which includes long-term contracts, menu costs, efficiency wages and insider-outsider theories, and macroeconomic models with imperfect competition. Although some of these ideas may prove helpful as elements in real business cycle models, my main conclusion is that the new Keynesian economics has not been successful in rehabilitating the Keynesian approach.

Intertemporal Substitution and the Business Cycle

This paper summarizes the theoretical role of intertemporal substitution variables in the "new classical macroeconomics." An important implication is that positive monetary shocks tend to raise expected real returns that are calculated from the usual partial information set, but tend to lower realized real returns. After reviewing previous empirical findings in the area, the study reports new results on the behavior of returns on the New York Stock Exchange and on Treasury Bills. The analysis isolates realized real rate of return effects that are significantly positive for a temporary government purchases variable and significantly negative for monetary movements. However, the results do not support the theoretical distinction between money shocks and anticipated changes in money. Since the study focuses on realized real returns, which can be measured in a straightforward manner, there is no evidence on the hypothesis that expected real returns, which are calculated on the basis of incomplete in-formation, rise with monetary disturbances. Because this proposition is sensitive to the specification of information sets, It may be infeasible to test it directly.

The Stock Market and Investment

Changes in real stock-market prices have a lot of explanatory value of the growth rate of U.S. aggregate business investment, especially for long samples that begin in 1891 or 1921. Moreover, for the period since 1921 where data on a q-type variable are available, the stock market dramatically outperforms q. The change in real stock prices also retains its predictive value in the presence of a cash-flow variable, such as after-tax corporate profits. Basically similar results apply to Canadian investment, except that the U.S. stock market turns out to have move predictive power than the Canadian market. I discuss some possible explanations for this puzzling finding, but none of the explanations seem all that convincing.

Reputation in a Model of Monetary Policy with Incomplete Information

Previous models of rules versus discretion are extended to include uncertainty about the policymaker's "type." When people observe low inflation, they raise the possibility that the policymaker is committed to low inflation (type 1). This enhancement of reputation gives the uncommitted policymaker (type 2) an incentive to masquerade as the committed type. In the equilibrium the policymaker of type 1 delivers surprisingly low inflation -- with corresponding costs to the economy -- over an extended interval. The type 2 person mimics this outcome for awhile, but shift seventually to high inflation. This high inflation is surprising initially, but subsequently becomes anticipated.

Measuring the Fed's Revenue from Money Creation

The national accounts include the Fed's payments to the Treasury as a component of corporate taxes. These payments constituted 22% of reported corporate profits taxes in 1981. This paper discusses alternative concepts of inflationary finance. Measures for these concepts are reported for the post-World War I1 period