Pecuniary & Market Mediated Externalities: Towards a General Theory of the Welfare Economics & Economies with Imperfect Information & Incomplete Mrkts

This paper presents a simple but quite general framework for analyzing the impact of informational externalities. By identifying the traditional pecuniary effect of these externalities which nets out,the paper greatly simplifies the problem of determining when tax interventions can be Pareto improving. In some cases it also leads to simple tests, based on readily observable indicators of the efficacy of a particular tax policy. The framework of the paper is used to analyze adverse selection, signalling, moral hazard, incomplete contingent claim markets and queue rationing equilibria.

Financial Market Imperfections and Business Cycles

This paper develops a simple model of macroeconomic behavior which incorporates the impact of financial market "imperfections," such as those generated by asymmetric information in financial markets. These information asymmetries may lead to breakdowns in markets, like that for equity, in which risks arm shared. In particular, we analyze firm behavior in the presence of equity rationing and imperfect futures markets, in which there are lags in production. Aft a consequence, firms act in a risk-averse manner. We trace out the macroeconomic consequences, and show that they are able to account for many of the widely observed aspects of actual business cycles.

Asymmetric Information and the New Theory of the Firm: Financial Constraints and Risk Behavior

This paper summarizes recent developments in the theory of the firm that have arisen in examining the implications of imperfect information. It shows that a wide range of these models have similar implications for the likely reaction of firms to external environmental and policy changes. Two significant implications are (1) that firms behave as if they are risk averse individuals maximizing a utility function of terminal wealth (profitability) -- even when the risks involved are unsystematic -- and (2), in many circumstances, because this utility function is likely to be characterized by decreasing absolute risk aversion, firms are likely to respond significantly (and positively) to changes in cash flow and profitability. Together these two phenomena are able to account for a wide range of firm behaviors that have been empirically observed (both formally and informally) and that are difficult to explain in terms of the traditional theory of the firm. Furthermore, the responses of such firms to policy interventions are likely to differ significantly from those of neoclassical firms.

Financial Market Imperfections and Productivity Growth

This paper examines the impact of financial market imperfections on long-term productivity growth. It focuses on failures in markets for the sale of equity securities and hence on the failure of markets which help firms diversify the risks of real investment. The paper examines separately situations in which productivity growth is driven by learning-by-doing and where it results from the cumulative impact of explicit investments in technology by firms, In general, a multiplicity of steady-state growth paths exists with different growth rates along each path. The particular path followed by any single economy (and hence the growth rate of that economy) will depend significantly on policy interventions which mitigate effects of financial markets.

Informational Imperfections in the Capital Market and Macro-Economic Fluctuations

This paper describes the role that informational imperfections in capital markets are likely to play in business cycles. It then developes a simple illustrative model of the impact of adverse selection in the equity market and the way in which this may lead to large fluctuations in the effective cost of capital in response to relatively small demand shocks. The model also derives an expression for the cost of equity capital in the presence of adverse selection and provides informational explanations for several widely observed macro-economic phenomena.

Impact of the Changing Tax Environment on Investments and Productivity: Financial Structure and the Corporation Income Tax

This paper explores the consequences of the corporation income tax when firms face financial constraints; that is, they are either credit- or equity-rationed. (These financial constraints can, in turn, be explained as the natural consequences of informational asymmetries that are pervasive in the capital market.) The paper shows that the effect of such taxes may be more related to average tax rates than to the marginal effective tax rates on which recent literature, analyzing the incidence of such taxes in neoclassical firms, has focused. For firms that are equity- (but not credit-) constrained, the reduction in retained earnings reduces their willingness to undertake risky investments, including R-and-D expenditures which enhance productivity in the long run. More generally, the impact of the tax depends on the structure of taxes as much as it does on the level (the provisions for tax deductibility of interest, the tax treatment of capital gains, and so forth), and an analysis requires taking into account the combined effects of the corporation and individual income tax structures. For instance, for firms that are neither equity-nor credit-constrained, the fact that interest payments are tax-deductible implies that there are no marginal distortions with respect to the level of investment. Higher differential taxes on equity may induce some firms to decide not to issue equity. This financial decision will be accompanied by a discrete reduction in the level of investment

Helping Infant Economies Grow: Foundations of Trade Policies for Developing Countries

This article discusses how to help infant economies grow and create the foundations of trade policies for developing countries. The information in this article is supported in a two-sector model that defines the industrial sector as the source of innovation and spillovers based on theory, evidence, history, and policy. The model contains both a traditional and an industrial sector. There are four key features to the model including spillovers from the industrial sector to the craft sector, spillovers that are geographically based, innovations that are concentrated in the industrial sector, and size, which is among the important determinants of the pace of innovation in the industrial sector

Learning and Industrial Policy: Implications for Africa

Over the past thirty years, Africa has suffered from deindustrialization. The quarter century from the early 1980s was a period of declining per capita income and increasing poverty. Structural adjustment policies advocated by the IMF and the World Bank were predicated on the belief that by eliminating “distortions” in the economy, Africa would grow faster—by constructing an economy based on principles of free and unfettered markets, with the government restrained to ensuring macro-stability (which typically just meant price stability), economic performance would be increased and all would benefit. It was recognized, of course, that eliminating trade protection would result in the loss of jobs, some in agriculture, many others in industry. The strongly held belief, however, was that these workers would quickly find jobs in new industries, consistent with the country’s comparative advantage. Moving resources from inefficient protected sectors to more efficient competitive sectors would raise incomes. Little attention was paid to the distribution of income, perhaps because of an implicit belief in trickledown economics—somehow, if the economic pie grew, all would benefit. Things didn't turn out as the advocates of these policies had hoped. Rather than growth there was decline. Job creation didn't always keep pace with job destruction, and so workers moved from low productivity protected sectors to even lower productivity unemployment, open or disguised. When there was growth, the benefits often went disproportionately to those at the top, and didn't trickle down to the rest of the economy. When, in the first decade of the twenty first century growth resumed, it was largely based on the boom in commodity prices. The share of global manufacturing value added in Africa in 2008 was 1.1 percent in 2008, from 1.2 percent in 2000 (UNCTAD 2011). Even countries that achieved macroeconomic stability and evidenced reasonably good governance seemed unable to attract much investment outside of the extractive sector. It is imperative that this course of events be changed, particularly since the extractive sector typically does not give rise to many jobs, and certainly not enough jobs for the burgeoning labor force in many of the countries. (The African labor force is expected to grow --- working age Africans today comprise some 500m people; by 2040, that number will be 1.1bn

Externalities in Economies with Imperfect Information and Incomplete Markets

This paper presents a simple, general framework for analyzing externalities in economies with incomplete markets and imperfect information. By identifying the pecuniary effects of these externalities that net out, the paper simplifies the problem of determining when tax interventions are Pareto improving. The approach indicates that such tax interventions almost always exist and that equilibria in situations of imperfect information are rarely constrained Pareto optima. It can also lead to simple tests, based on readily observable indicators of the efficacy of particular tax policies in situations involving adverse selection, signaling, moral hazard, incomplete contingent claims markets, and queue rationing equilibria