Monetary accommodation and unemployment: Why central bank transparency matters.

Recent contributions have shown that in the presence of strategic interactions be- tween non atomistic unions and the central bank, an accommodating monetary policy rule may increase equilibrium unemployment. This note demonstrates that this result can be reversed considering the case where the central bank is not fully transparent concerning its reaction to wage decisions.Monetary regime, Wage setting, Central bank transparency.

Monetary Policy with Uncertain Central Bank Preferences for Robustness.

In this paper,we consider the transparency of monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with misspecification doubts. Model uncertainty allows us to identify a new source of central bank opacity, which refers to a lack of information about central bank’s preference for model robustness. Thus, taking into account this lack of transparency, we study its impacts on macroeconomic variables. We show that greater transparency can reduce the variability of output gap, inflation as well as that of their expected values.

Monetary hyperinflations and money essentiality.

This paper aims at drawing new guidelines for investigation of monetary hyperinflation analysis. We propose a MIUF optimizing model and show that monetary hyperinflation can occur as a perfect foresight competitive equilibrium path only when money is essential in the sense of Scheinkman (1980). This result emerges without any ad-hoc assumption implying the inclusion of friction in the adjustment of some nominal variable. It suggests that monetary hyperinflation analysis under perfect foresight requires abandoning the Cagan money demand and adopting a demand for money respecting money essentiality.monetary hyperinflation, seigniorage, inflation tax, money essentiality.

Robust Control and Monetary Policy Delegation.

This paper adapts in a simple static context the Rogoff's (1985) analysis of monetary policy delegation to a conservative central banker to the robust control framework. In this framework, uncertainty means that policymakers are unsure about their model, in the sense that there is a group of approximate models that they also consider as possibly true, and their objective is to choose a rule that will work under a range of di¤erent model specifications. We find that robustness reveals the emergence of a precautionary behaviour in the case of unstructured model uncertainty, reducing thus government's willingness to delegate monetary policy to a conservative central banker.Robust control, Monetary policy delegation, Central bank conservativeness.

Coalition-proof full efficient implementation

The Vickrey-Clarke-Groves and d'Aspremont-Gerard-Varet mechanisms implement efficient social choice by compensating each agent for the externalities that his report imposes on all other agents. Instead of aggregate compensations, which may lead to profitable coalitional deviations, this paper provides an alternative mechanism, in which each pair of agents directly compensate each other for the pairwise externalities they impose. Under the assumption of independent private values, any agent is guaranteed to receive his ex ante efficient payoff by reporting truthfully, regardless of others' strategies. This absence of ex ante externalities makes the mechanism coalition-proof, and makes all equilibria efficient

Age Dynamics and Economic Growth: Revisiting the Nexus in a Nonparametric Setting.

This paper explores the relationship between the growth rates of per capita income and age- structured population in a non-parametric setting. Analysis in this framework provides us with new insights about the interaction structure: significant non-linear relation between the two and interesting ’direct’ and ’feedback’ effects on growth. Nonlinearity is found to be a major source of growth fluctuations in OECD and non-OECD countries.Age dynamics, Economic growth, Non-parametric panel.

Fiscal Policy in a Monetary Union Under Alternative Labour-Market Structures.

This paper examines the welfare and stabilisation implications of alterna- tive fiscal decision rules in a monetary union with a common monetary policy, such as the European Monetary Union (EMU). We develop a two-country model under monetary union in presnece of asymmetries. Fiscal policies are assumed alternatively non-cooperative (decentralised) and cooperative (centralised) and labour markets are characterised by decentralised and centralised wage setting. The central issue of the paper is the design of the appropriate fiscal policy rule by comparing and evaluating the performance of alternative arrangements to distribute the power over fiscal authorities between the centre of the union and the individual members of the union. The main result of this paper reveals that a decentralized fiscal policy rule, where the member states conduct independent fiscal policies, with centralised wage setting in labour markets of monetary union members is the appropriate institutional design. This institutional arrangement would improve the social welfare and stabilize better than others the idiosyncratic shocks hitting the economies of the monetary union members.Policy-mix, EMU, labor market institutions.

Detection avoidance and deterrence: some paradoxical arithmetics.

This paper extends Malik's (1990) analysis to the case where criminals' avoidance efforts and public expenditures in the detection of criminals are strategic complements in the aggregate technology of control of illegal behaviours. In this set up, we show that whenever criminals' avoidance efforts are more sensitive to the frequency than to the severity of sanctions, it is always socially efficient to set the fine at the maximal possible level. However, several paradoxical consequences occur: there may exist overdeterrence at optimum; more repressive policies lead to less arrestations of offenders while more crimes may be committed; at the same time, the society may be closer to the first best number of crimes.deterrence, avoidance activities, optimal enforcement of law.

Does Model Uncertainty Lead to Less Central Bank Transparency?

This paper discusses the problem of monetary policy transparency in a simple static robust control framework. In this framework, we identify two sources of monetary policy uncertainty. First, we identify the uncertainty about the central bank’s inflation stabilization preferences, which affects the private sector’s inflation expectations and therefore the realized inflation and output. On the other hand, uncertainty means that central bank is unsure about its model, in the sense that there is a group of approximate models that it also considers as possibly true and its objective is to choose a rule that will work under a range of different model specifications. We find that robustness reveals the emergence of a precautionary behaviour of the central bank in the case of unstructured model uncertainty, reducing thus central bank’s willingness to choice a high degree of monetary policy transparency.central bank transparency, min-max policies, model uncertainty, robust control.

Network Formation and Strategic Firm Behaviour to Explore and Exploit.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of technological opportunities and knowledge tacitness on inter-firm network formation, under two different industry regimes. In the first regime environment is stable and the aim of firms is to exploit knowledge. In this case, they attribute more value to repeated interactions with geographically close firms. In the second regime, there is environmental turbulence, which increases the value of access to novel information from distant partners for exploration. The question addressed is, under these regimes how do technological opportunities and knowledge tacitness influence structure of networks? The main contribution of the paper different from previous work is that it explicitly models the effect of history between two firms on networks that form. A simulation model is carried out where firms select partners and learn from them, which further shapes their selection process. The results reveal that in both regimes richer technological opportunities and higher tacitness generates local and global star firms depending on the parameter range.