Good Housekeeping? Reputation, Fixed Exchange Rates, and the 'Original Sin' Problem

This paper examines how the choice of exchange rate regime can signal financial rectitude and, in so doing, influcence a country's ability to borrow internationally in domestic currency. We develop a model in which the constant probability of a 'type change' creates incentives for disciplined policymakers to fix the exchange rate in an effort to separate themselves from more opportunistic types. Because the track record of a policymaker is imperfectly observable, reputational incentives depend on the past behaviour of previous generations and there is hysterisis in the updating behaviour of creditors. 'Original Sin' - the inflationary track record of one's predecessors - can reverberate over time leading creditors to be wary about extending sovereign loans in domestic currency terms. Our findings seem consistent with the pattern of the currency composition of debt in Japan and Russia at the turn of the nineteenth century.International Monetary Arrangement, Foreign Currency Debt, Reputation

Woodford goes to Africa

This paper analyses the effects of inflation shocks, demands shocks, and aid shocks on low-income, quasi-emerging-market economies, and discusses how monetary policy can be used to manage these effects. We make use of a model developed for such economies by Adam et al. (2007). We examine the e¤ects of four things which this model features, which we take to be typical of such economies. These are: the existence of a tradeables/non-tradeables production structure, the fact that international capital movements are - at least initially - confined to the effects of currency substitution by domestic residents, the use of targets for financial assets in the implementation of monetary policy, and the pursuit, in some countries, of a fixed exchange rate. We then modify the model to examine the effect on such economies of three major changes, changes which we take to be part of the transition by such economies towards more fully- fledged emerging-market status: an opening of the capital account so that uncovered- interest-parity comes to hold, a move to floating exchange rates, and the replacement of fixed stocks of financial aggregates by the pursuit of a Taylor rule in the conduct of monetary policy.currency substitution, emerging market macroeconomics, interactions between fiscal and monetary policy, Taylor rule

The role of socio-demographic factors on self-rated happiness: The case of Malaysia

This study examines the role of socio-demographic determinants on individual’s level of happiness. Primary survey data on Penang, Malaysia is used for analysis. Based on the findings, being married and Malay are associated with higher probability of feeling very happy or happy. Nevertheless, individuals who suffer from chronic diseases are more likely to have unhappy or very unhappy feelings. The rest of the factors such as income, education, age, gender, and employment status are found to have insignificant effects on happiness. Several policy implications can be recommended based on the outcomes.Education; Health; Happiness; Income; Malaysia; Well-being

Design of generalized fractional order gradient descent method

This paper focuses on the convergence problem of the emerging fractional order gradient descent method, and proposes three solutions to overcome the problem. In fact, the general fractional gradient method cannot converge to the real extreme point of the target function, which critically hampers the application of this method. Because of the long memory characteristics of fractional derivative, fixed memory principle is a prior choice. Apart from the truncation of memory length, two new methods are developed to reach the convergence. The one is the truncation of the infinite series, and the other is the modification of the constant fractional order. Finally, six illustrative examples are performed to illustrate the effectiveness and practicability of proposed methods.Comment: 8 pages, 16 figure