Capital Accumulation and Annuities in an Adverse Selection Economy

This paper suggests that adverse selection problems in competitive annuity markets can generate quantity constrained equilibria in which some agents whose length of lifetime is uncertain find it advantageous to accumulate capital privately. This occurs despite the higher rates of return on annuities. The welfare properties of these allocations are analyzed. It is shown that the level of capital accumulation is excessive in a Paretian sense. Policies which eliminate this inefficiency are discussed.

Temporal Aggregation and Structural Inference in Macroeconomics

This paper examines the quantitative importance of temporal aggregation bias in distorting parameter estimates and hypothesis tests. Our strategy is to consider two empirical examples in which temporal aggregation bias has the potential to account for results which are widely viewed as being anomalous from the perspective of particular economic models. Our first example investigates the possibility that temporal aggregation bias can lead to spurious Granger causality relationships. The quantitative importance of this possibility is examined in the context of Granger causal relations between the growth rates of money and various measures of aggregate output. Our second example investigates the possibility that temporal aggregation bias can account for the slow speeds of adjustment typically obtained with stock adjustment models. The quantitative importance of this possibility is examined in the context of a particular class of continuous and discrete time equilibriurn models of inventories and sales. The different models are compared on the basis of the behavioral implications of the estimated values of the structural parameters which we obtain and their overall statistical performance. The empirical results from both examples provide support for the view that temporal aggregation bias can be quantitatively important in the sense of Significantly distorting inference.

Estimating Models with Intertemporal Substitution Using Aggregate Time Series Data

In conducting empirical investigations of the permanent income model of consumption and the consumption-based intertemporal asset pricing model, various authors have imposed restrictions on the nature of the substitutability of consumption across goods and over time. In this paper we suggest a method for testing some of these restrictions and present empirical results using this approach. Our empirical analyses focuses on three questions: (i) Can the services from durable and nondurable goods be treated as perfect substitutes? (ii) Are preferences completely separable between durable and nondurable goods? (iii) What is the nature of intertemporal substitutability of nondurable consumption? When consumers' preferences are assumed to be quadratic, there is very little evidence against the hypothesis that the services from durable goods and nondurable goods are perfect substitutes. These results call into question the practice of testing quadratic models of aggregate consumption using data on nondurables and services only. When we consider S branch specifications, we find more evidence against perfect substitutability between service flows, but less evidence against strict separability across durable and nondurable consumption goods. Among other things, these findings suggest that the empirical shortcomings of the intertemporal asset pricing model cannot be attributed to the neglect of durable goods.

Understanding the Forward Premium Puzzle: A Microstructure Approach

High-interest-rate currencies tend to appreciate relative to low-interest-rate currencies. We argue that adverse-selection problems between participants in foreign exchange markets can account for this 'forward premium puzzle.' The key feature of our model is that the adverse selection problem facing market makers is worse when, based on public information, a currency is expected to appreciate.

Some Empirical Evidence on the Production Level and Production Cost Smoothing Models of Inventory Investment

The production smoothing model of inventories has long been the basic paradigm within which empirical research on inventories has been conducted The basic hypothesis embedded In this model IS that inventories of finished goods serve primarily to smooth production levels in the face of fluctuating demand and convex cost functions. However once we allow for shocks to technology and the costs of producing output firms will also use inventories to shift production from periods in which production costs are relatively high to periods in which production costs are relatively low. In this sense inventories can serve to smooth production costs rather production levels. In this paper we examine the empirical plausibility of the production level and production cost smoothing models of inventories. Our basic strategy is to derive and contrast a set of unconditional moment restrictions Implied by these models in a way that minimizes the role of auxiliary assumptions regarding market structure and Industry demand. We find overwhelming evidence against the production level smoothing model and very little evidence against the production cost smoothing mode1 We conclude that the variance of production exceeds the variance of sales in most manufacturing industries because the production cost smoothing role of inventories is quantitatively more important than the production level smoothing role of inventories.

A Time Series Analysis of Representative Agent Models of Consumption andLeisure Choice Under Uncertainty

This paper investigates empirically a model of aggregate consumption and leisure decisions in which goods and leisure provide services over time. The implied time non-separability of preferences introduces an endogenous source of dynamics which affects both the co-movements in aggregate compensation and hours worked and the cross-relations between prices and quantities. These cross-relations are examined empirically using post-war monthly U.S. data on quantities, real wages and the real return on the one-month Treasury bill. We find substantial evidence against the overidentifying restrictions. The test results suggest that the orthogonality conditions associated with the representative consumer's intratemporal Euler equation underlie the failure of the model. Additionally, the estimated values of key parameters differ significantly from the values assumed in several studies of real business models. Several possible reasons for these discrepancies are discussed.

Do Peso Problems Explain the Returns to the Carry Trade?

We study the properties of the carry trade, a currency speculation strategy in which an investor borrows low-interest-rate currencies and lends high-interest-rate currencies. This strategy generates payoffs which are on average large and uncorrelated with traditional risk factors. We argue that these payoffs reflect a peso problem. The underlying peso event features high values of the stochastic discount factor rather than very large negative payoffs.

The Output, Employment, and Interest Rate Effects of Government Consumption

This paper investigates the impact on aggregate variables of changes in government consumption in the context of a stochastic, neoclassical growth model. We show, theoretically, that the impact on output and employment of a persistent change in government consumption exceeds that of a temporary change. We also show that, in principle, there can be an analog to the Keynesian multiplier in the neoclassical growth model. Finally, in an empirically plausible version of the model, we show that the interest rate impact of a persistent government consumption shock exceeds that of a temporary one. Our results provide counter examples to existing claims in the literature.

The output, employment, and interest rate effects of government consumption

This paper investigates the impact of aggregate variables of changes in government consumption in the context of a stochastic, neoclassical growth model. We show, theoretically, that the impact on output and employment of a persistent change in government consumption exceeds that of a temporary change. We also show that, in principle, there can be an analog to the Keynesian multiplier in the neoclassical growth model. Finally, in an empirically plausible version of the model, we show that the interest rate impact of a persistent government consumption shock exceeds that of a temporary one. Our results provide counterexamples to existing claims in the literature.Expenditures, Public ; Employment (Economic theory) ; Interest rates