Documents McAdam, Peter 7 results

"We explore the relationship between financial reforms and income inequality using a panel of 29 countries over 1975-2005. We extend panel unit root tests to allow for the presence of some financial-reform covariates and further suggest an associated but novel, semi-parametric approach. Results demonstrate that although both gross and net Gini indices follow a unit root process, this picture can change when financial reform indices are accounted for. In particular, whilst gross Gini coefficients are generally not stabilized by financial reforms, net measures are (more likely to be). Thus financial reforms enacted in the presence of a strong safety net would seem preferable."

"This paper examines the effects of changes in Euro Area interest rates using macroeconomic models. It examines the results of a harmonised monetary policy simulation at the Euro Area level using the National Institute of Economic and Social Research's Global Economic Model (NiGEM) and the European Central Bank's Area Wide Model (AWM). Comparison is also drawn with the aggregate results from Euro Area National Central Bank models as reported in van Els et al.(2001). Overall, the results across the different models are broadly consistent with what might be regarded as the stylised facts of the monetary transmission mechanism. That is to say that, following a policy tightening, there is an initial fall in output consisting of a more pronounced investment response and a less pronounced consumption response. This output fall is accompanied by protracted price dynamics."

"In this paper, we seek to re-establish the link between the constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function and neoclassical Solow growth theory. We do so in three dimensions. First, we review the increasing importance of the CES technology in modern dynamic macroeconomics, in expanding not only theory but also in addressing important policy questions. Second, we aue that the importance of the CES function in growth theory is intimately linked to ‘normalization'. Finally, we examine the data congruence between CES functions and recent growth patterns in the USA and the euro-area economies, where we apply a supply-side system incorporating a CES function with factor-augmenting and time-varying technical progress. "

"We compare real-time density forecasts for the euro area using three DSGE models. The benchmark is the Smets-Wouters model and its forecasts of real GDP growth and inflation are compared with those from two extensions. The first adds financial frictions and expands the observables to include a measure of the external finance premium. The second allows for the extensive labor-market margin and adds the unemployment rate to the observables. The main question we address is if these extensions improve the density forecasts of real GDP and inflation and their joint forecasts up to an eight-quarter horizon. We find that adding financial frictions leads to a deterioration in the forecasts, with the exception of longer-term inflation forecasts and the period around the Great Recession. The labor market extension improves the medium to longer-term real GDP growth and shorter to medium-term inflation forecasts weakly compared with the benchmark model."

"Labor's share of income has attracted interest in recent years reflecting its apparent decline. These falls, witnessed across many countries, are usually deemed undesirable. Any such assertion, however, begs the question of what is the socially optimal labor share. We address this question using a micro-founded endogenous growth model calibrated on US data. We find that in our central calibration the socially optimal labor share is 17% (11 pp) above the decentralized equilibrium, calibrated to match the average observed in history. We also study the dependence of both long-run growth equilibria on model parameters and relate our results to Piketty's “laws of Capitalism”. Finally, we demonstrate that cyclical movements in factor income shares are socially optimal and that the decentralized equilibrium typically does not generate excess volatility."

"This paper establishes some stylized facts of the long run relationship between growth and labor shares using historical data for the United States (1898-2010), the United Kingdom (1856-2010), and France (1896-2010). Performing individual country time-frequency analysis, we demonstrate the existence of long-term cycles in labor share of thirty to fifty years explaining a major part of the variance in the data. Further, the impact of labor share on growth changes sign with the frequency considered from negative at high frequencies to positive at low frequencies. Finally, the positive coefficient associated with the labor share at low frequencies increases over time."

"We study the interaction between monetary and fiscal policies in a Ramsey-Sidrauski model augmented with environmental capital. Equilibrium solutions are studied through the “Green Golden Rule”. Despite the non-separability of money in utility and intertemporally non-separable preferences, money is environmentally neutral. Policy impacts the environment via the marginal rate of transformation rather than the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and environment. Fiscal policies, lump sum and distortionary, under a balanced budget, are also environmentally non-neutral. Only under a non-balanced budget, when deficits are monetized, is money environmentally non-neutral. In alternative approaches (Cash-in-Advance, Transactions Costs), money is environmentally non-neutral."