Macroeconomic Effects of Inflation Targeting Policy in New Zealand

In this paper we analyze macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting policy in New Zealand using Markov switching model with one time permanent break. Our results show that the inflation targeting policy has significantly changed the inflation dynamics in the New Zealand economy. The Markov switching model clearly detects a structural break date that is very close to the actual date of the policy change. The volatility in the inflation rate shows a considerable reduction after the structural break date. Our results also show that the inflation targeting policy led to a structural change in real GDP growth rate. The policy change significantly reduced the volatility of real GDP growth rate after the break date. We find that there is a lag of about one year and six months between the monetary policy change and its actual effect on output growth.

Tradable Pollution Permits and the Regulatory Game

This paper analyzes polluters\u27 incentives to move from a traditional command and control (CAC) environmental regulatory regime to a tradable permits (TPP) regime. Existing work in environmental economics does not model how firms contest and bargain over actual regulatory implementation in CAC regimes, and therefore fail to compare TPP regimes with any CAC regime that is actually observed. This paper models CAC environmental regulation as a bargaining game over pollution entitlements. Using a reduced form model of the regulatory contest, it shows that CAC regulatory bargaining likely generates a regulatory status quo under which firms with the highest compliance costs bargain for the smallest pollution reductions, or even no reduction at all. As for a tradable permits regime, it is shown that all firms are better off under such a regime than they would be under an idealized CAC regime that set and enforced a uniform pollution standard, but permit sellers (low compliance cost firms) may actually be better off under a TPP regime with relaxed aggregate pollution levels. Most importantly, because high cost firms (or facilities) are the most weakly regulated in the equilibrium under negotiated or bargained CAC regimes, they may be net losers in a proposed move to a TPP regime. When equilibrium costs under a TPP regime are compared with equilibrium costs under a status quo CAC regime, several otherwise paradoxical aspects of firm attitudes toward TPP type reforms can be explained. In particular, the otherwise paradoxical pattern of allowances awarded under Phase II of the 1990 Clean Air Act\u27s acid rain program, a pattern tending to favor (in Phase II) cleaner, newer generating units, is explained by the fact that under the status quo regime, a kind of bargained CAC, it was the newer cleaner units that were regulated, and which therefore had higher marginal control costs than did the largely unregulated older, plants. As a normative matter, the analysis here implies that the proper baseline for evaluating TPP regimes such as those contained in the Bush Administration\u27s recent Clear Skies initiative is not idealized, but nonexistent CAC regulatory outcomes, but rather the outcomes that have resulted from the bargaining game set up by CAC laws and regulations

Forecasting of foreign exchange rate by normal mixture models

Develops a method of forecasting foreign exchange rate by normal mixture model (NMM). Initially establishes a set of exchange rate models and switches from one model to another probabilistically, depending on supply shocks or government policy changes. By assuming that the population distribution of foreign exchange rate is a mixture of normal distributions, these models can then be estimated simultaneously. Uses the estimated parameters of the model to forecast foreign exchange rate, and then four foreign exchange rate models are used to estimate the NMM. The out-of-sample forecasting results obtained show that we can decrease the mean squared error (MSE) of forecast error dramatically by using the NMM, compared with the MSE of the best forecast of each separate model.Currencies, Exchange rates, Models, Selection

Exchange rate regimes and international output co-movement

Utlizing Johansen's (1988) multivariate cointegration testing procedure, we find a cointegrating vector between the outputs of five major industrialized nations for the fixed exchange rate period. However, this relationship breaks down for the flexible exchange rate era. We argue that the breakdown of monetary policy coordination caused by the abandonment of the fixed exchange rates explains the weakening of the international character of business cycles.