Long run concepts in New Zealand macroeconometric and CGE models

This paper evaluates how published economy-wide New Zealand models have treated concepts relevant to the long run. These concepts, a number of which have only indirect linkages to the long run, include steady state growth, rational expectations, unit roots and cointegration, domestic and external debt sustainability (including intertemporal fiscal and foreign sector constraints), explicit supply (including physical capital accumulation), the interfacing of macroeconometric and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, and the interfacing of New Zealand and Australian CGE models. It builds on the comprehensive medium term oriented assessment of Wells and Easton (1983, 1986), and focuses primarily on RBNZ Model XII (Brooks and McDermott, 1990, Brooks and Gibbs, 1991), and the CGE models JOANNA, JULIANNE and JOANI (Philpott, 1989)

Long run equilibrium estimation and inference: a non-parametric application

Phillips (1988a) has demonstrated that the long run parameters of a continuous time error correction model (ECM) involving nonstationary variables can be estimated from a corresponding discrete time ECM. He suggests Hannan efficient and band spectral frequency domain procedures for estimation and inference, anticipating they would provide significant advantages over the parametric methods traditionally used for continuous time models. A further advantage of Phillips' proposed methodology is that conventional asymptotic chisquared hypothesis testing can be carried out. This paper provides an early successful application of that methodology, using Australian consumption and income data. The spectral regression estimates are relatively straight forward to compute, with only a few iterations being required. The spectral estimates are not sensitive to alternative initial estimates. The application also highlights the potential importance of non-parametric estimators. Empirically, the long run consumption function estimates obtained are sufficiently realistic for it to be worthwhile exploring conditional short run dynamic relations and other macroeconomic data sets. Our hypothesis testing procedures are consistent across the aggregate and disaggregated data sets used, and between the unit root and cointegration stages of the investigation. A surprising result is that the null of no cointegration between aggregate real consumption and household disposable income cannot be rejected

Key features of New Zealand business cycles

Within a modern business cycle framework, this paper utilises basic statistical techniques to reexamine stylised empirical facts associated with business cycles in New Zealand since the midl 960's. The approach is essentially a bivariate one, and uses Hodrick-Prescott methodology for trend computations. Point estimates and GMM standard errors are presented for the amplitude of each variable's deviations from trend, degree of contemporaneous cyclicality and phase shift. Many relationships change markedly over time and, at least with this methodology, it is not easy to establish many "regularities" with confidence. "Real variable regularity" in a broad sense is confirmed, but a number of our other stylised empirical facts and uncertainties are not consistent with outcomes usually associated with prominent theoretical business cycle models. In particular, domestic price fluctuations in New Zealand have been basically countercyclical, and the real net exports share of GDP does not seem to have moved countercyclically over the past decade. No systematic cyclical tendency has been discovered for fluctuations in government purchases, and the scale of changes affecting the monetary sector over the past decade continues to present difficulties for establishing "financial regularities"

Trans-Tasman CGE Modelling: Some illustrative results from the J oani model

A two country multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium model for New 2.ealand and Australia is developed and applied to explore issues concerning the effects of the CER-induced tariff reductions and related topics. A comparison with a similar short-run exercise conducted in 1988 records minimal gains from a 1990 starting position as data shows little remaining protection to be removed. The removal of all protection arrangements with respect to imports from outside the CER region results in over 1 % extra GDP in the short run. However, this figure is doubled in both countries in the longer run as further gains from the re-allocation of capital resources amongst the sectors within each country are experienced. In interpreting the model results the critical nature of the assumptions incorporated within the model closure is discussed. Alternative assumptions addressing questions of inter-country capital mobility as well as exchange rate determination are examined

Dating New Zealand Business Cycles

Dating the turning points and durations of business cycles has long been associated with NBER type reference cycle indexes. More recently, such work has become additionally important for evaluating modern theoretical business cycle models and for analysing the time varying characteristics of cycles. This paper applies the relatively simple and transparent Bry and Boschan business cycle dating procedure to four New Zealand real gdp series; compares the resulting turning points with those previously identified using NBER type cycle identification techniques, and with those obtained from three relatively mechanistic "deviations from trend" methods; provides some empirical benchmark turning point and cycle duration characteristics; and as a prelude to further theoretical and empirical work, compares these with results obtained from a number of potentially relevant AR and 1(1) statistical processes

An Australian Fuel Substitution

Over the past ten years, the revenue collected by Australia's Commonwealth government from excises and royalties on liquid fuels has increased substantially. These revenues have risen from around six per cent of total taxation in 1975-76 to nearly 12.5 per cent in 1985-86, and from 43.6 per cent of total excise revenue to 76 per cent over the same period (Figure 1). The proportion of liquid fuels excise and royalties raised from each of crude oil and petroleum products has also varied considerably, and changed particularly dramatically during 1986-87 (Figure 2). These changes have been induced variously by movements in volumes produced and demanded and by policy decisions affecting import parity prices and tax rates. For example, it is clear from Figure 3 that the dramatic fall in crude oil revenue can be associated with falls in all three of the import parity price, the crude oil levy rate, and the production of indigenous crude. But in Figure 4, the corresponding substantial increase in products revenue is most closely aligned with an increased excise rate. A major general purpose of this paper is therefore to identify the principal aggregate and structural impacts which result from a substantial switch to petroleum products excise revenue from crude oil levy revenue. Industrial ·sector interfuel substitution effects are explicitly allowed for, under conditions of no net change in nominal or real liquid fuel tax receipts. Specific account is also taken of two important strands of the Australian government's pre-1988 oil regulatory framework, namely the import parity pricing (IPP) and domestic allocation systems for crude oil

Experiments on the twisted vortex state in superfluid 3He-B

We have performed measurements and numerical simulations on a bundle of vortex lines which is expanding along a rotating column of initially vortex-free 3He-B. Expanding vortices form a propagating front: Within the front the superfluid is involved in rotation and behind the front the twisted vortex state forms, which eventually relaxes to the equilibrium vortex state. We have measured the magnitude of the twist and its relaxation rate as function of temperature above 0.3Tc. We also demonstrate that the integrity of the propagating vortex front results from axial superfluid flow, induced by the twist.Comment: prepared for proceedings of the QFS2007 symposium in Kaza

Improved tests of extra-dimensional physics and thermal quantum field theory from new Casimir force measurements

We report new constraints on extra-dimensional models and other physics beyond the Standard Model based on measurements of the Casimir force between two dissimilar metals for separations in the range 0.2--1.2 $\mu$m. The Casimir force between an Au-coated sphere and a Cu-coated plate of a microelectromechanical torsional oscillator was measured statically with an absolute error of 0.3 pN. In addition, the Casimir pressure between two parallel plates was determined dynamically with an absolute error of $\approx 0.6$ mPa. Within the limits of experimental and theoretical errors, the results are in agreement with a theory that takes into account the finite conductivity and roughness of the two metals. The level of agreement between experiment and theory was then used to set limits on the predictions of extra-dimensional physics and thermal quantum field theory. It is shown that two theoretical approaches to the thermal Casimir force which predict effects linear in temperture are ruled out by these experiments. Finally, constraints on Yukawa corrections to Newton's law of gravity are strengthened by more than an order of magnitude in the range 56 nm to 330 nm.Comment: Revtex 4, 35 pages, 14 figures in .gif format, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02