Nonsuperneutrality of Money in the Sidrauski Model with Heterogenous Agents

Superneutrality is demonstrated to no longer hold in the Sidrauski model as soon as agents are heterogenous with regard to their productivity. However, quantitative effects of inflation on the capital stock are found to be rather small.

Employment and Welfare Effects of a Two-Tier Unemployment Compensation System

In many OECD countries, e.g. in Germany, France, or the UK, unemploy-ment compensation consists of unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance. Unemployment assistance is provided subsequent to the expiration of entitlement to unemployment insurance and is lower. The effects of this two-tier unemployment compensation system are studied in a general equilibrium job search model with endogenous distributions of in-come, wealth, and employment which is calibrated with regard to the charac-teristics of the German economy. Our results are as follows: i) employment is a decreasing function of both unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance. ii) Savings are (not) a monotone increasing function of unemployment insurance (unemployment assistance payments). iii) Optimal unemployment compensation payments are found to be a decreasing function over time.Unemployment compensation, search unemployment, general equilibrium, overlapping generations

On the Modeling of the Income Distribution Business Cycle Dynamics

Empirically, the income share is procyclical for the low-income groups and acyclical for the top 5%. We find that business cycle models should consider overlapping generations and elastic labor supply in order to replicate this finding.income distribution, business cycle, overlapping generations

Welfare Costs of Inflation in a Dynamic Economy with Search Unemployment and Endogenous Growth

Recent work on money and endogenous growth finds modest welfare costs of inflation. Furthermore, high inflation reduces the growth rate. We present a monetary endogenous growth model with labor market frictions in the form of search unemployment which is calibrated for the US economy. Interestingly, both employment and the growth rate may even increase with the rate of inflation depending on the elasticity of labor supply. Considering the transition dynamics following a change in the monetary policy, the optimal quarterly inflation rate is found to amount to approximately 3.5% in the benchmark case. A reduction of the inflation rate from its optimal value to zero results in a welfare loss equal to 0.3% of total consumption.Welfare costs of inflation, money demand, search unemployment, endogenous growth, transistion dynamics

A Note on the Computation of the Equity Premium and the Market Value of Firm Equity

Turnovsky (1995) derives in a continuous-time model of a decentralized economy that the correct specification of the firm’s objective function is to maximize the initial value of its outstanding securities. The firm value is the discounted flow of real earnings. For the discrete-time version of the model, we show that the correct computation of the firm value needs to be modified. Depending on the specific formula employed, different values of the equity premium result.asset prices, firm value, equity premium

The Cash-In-Advance Constraint in Monetary Growth Models

In most monetary models of economic growth, higher long-run inflation is associated with a decline in the growth rate and employment. We show that this result is sensitive with respect to the specification of the cash-in-advance constraint. We consider three types of endogenous growth models: 1) the AK-model, 2) the Lucas (1990) supply-side model, and 3) the two-sector model of Jones and Manuelli (1995). With the standard cash-in-advance constraint on consumption, higher inflation results in lower growth and employment in all three models, while, in the cash-credit good economy of Dotsey and Ireland (1996), the effect is the exact opposite.inflation, growth, costly credit, search unemployment

Computation of Business Cycle Models: A Comparison of Numerical Methods

We compare the numerical methods that are most widely applied in the computation of the standard business cycle model with flexible labor. The numerical techniques imply economically insignificant differences with regard to business cycle summary statistics except for the volatility of investment. Furthermore, these results are robust with regard to the choice of the functional form of the utility function and the model’s parameterization. In conclusion, the simplest and fastest method, the log-linearization of the model around the steady state, is found to be most convenient and appropriate for the standard business cycle model.log-linearization, projection methods, extended path, value function iteration, parameterized expectations, genetic search

Inflation and Wealth Distribution

The effect of a permanent change of inflation on the distribution of wealth is analyzed in a general equilibrium OLG model that is calibrated with regard to the characteristics of the US economy. Poor agents accumulate savings predominantly in the form of money, while rich agents participate in the stock market and accumulate equity. Surprisingly, an increase of inflation results in a lower stock market participation rate; in addition, the distribution of wealth becomes more unequal, even though the quantitative effect is economically negligible. Furthermore, we show that the welfare costs of anticipated inflation are considerably lower than in Imrohoroglu (1992).inflation, welfare costs, wealth distribution, stock market participation

Cold Progression and its Effects on Income Distribution

We present new empirical evidence for the US economy that inflation reduces the inequality of the earnings distribution. The main mechanism emphasized in this paper is the tax income bracket effect. Governments only adjust the nominal income tax brackets slowly to a rise in prices, typically less often than once every other year in the US post-war history. We also develop a theoretical general equilibrium monetary model with income heterogeneity. In this model, the effect of higher inflation on income distribution is shown to be rather small. However, we find that a longer duration between two successive adjustments of the income tax schedule reduces employment, savings, and output significantly.cold progression, inflation, income distribution, tax income brackets

Population, Pensions, and Endogenous Economic Growth

We study the effect of a declining labor force on the incentives to engage in labor-saving technical change and ask how this effect is influenced by institutional characteristics of the pension scheme. When labor is scarcer it becomes more expensive and innovation investments that increase labor productivity are more profitable. We incorporate this channelin a new dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous economic growth and heterogeneous overlapping generations. We calibrate the model for the US economy. First, we establish that the net effect of a decline in population growth on the growth rate of percapita magnitudes is positive and quantitatively significant. Second, we find that the pension system matters both for the growth performance and for individual welfare. Third, we showthat the assessment of pension reform proposals may be different in an endogenous growth framework as opposed to the standard framework with exogenous growth.growth, demographic transition, capital accumulation, pension reform