Wavelet variance and correlation analyses of output in G7 countries

In this paper we apply the wavelets methodology to the analysis of the industrial production index of the G-7 countries between 1961:1-2005:5. The analysis is performed using a multi-scaling approach which decomposes the variance of the industrial production index and the covariance between the industrial production indices of two countries on a scale-by-scale basis through a non-orthogonal variant of the classical discrete wavelet transform, i.e. the maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT). Wavelet variance analysis does not provide evidence of an international patterns of moderation in output volatility, as the moderation of output volatility occurred after the early eighties is confirmed only for the Euro-area countries plus Japan. Moreover, wavelet correlation analysis different correlation patterns at the different time-scale components and, that, with some exceptions, the linkages between countries are mostly significant only at the business cycle time scales, with the strongest relationships between the Anglo countries (particularly Canada and US), France and Germany, Japan and the Euro- zone countries, with Italy displaying the closest links with France.time-scale decomposition analysis, wavelets, business cycle fluctuations

Power Law Tails in the Italian Personal Income Distribution

We investigate the shape of the Italian personal income distribution using microdata from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth, made publicly available by the Bank of Italy for the years 1977-2002. We find that the upper tail of the distribution is consistent with a Pareto power-law type distribution, while the rest follows a two-parameter lognormal distribution. The results of our analysis show a shift of the distribution and a change of the indexes specifying it over time. As regards the first issue, we test the hypothesis that the evolution of both gross domestic product and personal income is governed by similar mechanisms, pointing to the existence of correlation between these quantities. The fluctuations of the shape of income distribution are instead quantified by establishing some links with the business cycle phases experienced by the Italian economy over the years covered by our dataset.Personal income; Pareto law; Lognormal distribution; Income growth rate; Business cycle

Business fluctuations in a behavioral switching model: Gridlock effects and credit crunch phenomena in financial networks

In this paper we characterize the evolution over time of a credit network in the most general terms as a system of interacting banks and firms operating in a three-sector economy with goods, credit and interbank market. Credit connections change over time via an evolving fitness measure depending from lenders’ supply of liquidity and borrowers’ demand of credit. Moreover, an endogenous learning mechanism allows agents to switch between a loyal or a shopping-around strategy according to their degree of satisfaction. The crucial question we investigate is how financial bubbles and credit-crunch phenomena emerge from the implemented mechanism

A Big Mac test of price dynamics and dispersion across euro area

Based on the prices of McDonald's Big Mac hamburger in 11 Eurozone countries over the 1986–2009 period, the present article investigates whether the adoption of the euro was accompanied by an increase in inflation and how far it affected developments in price dispersion. Our results indicate that the Eurozone inflation rate after the introduction of the euro is on average significantly higher than prior to the changeover. Additionally, we find no evidence of a further significant reduction in price dispersion since the euro switchover in comparison with the previous period during which progress towards a leveling of existing price differentials had been made.Euro, inflation, price dispersion, Big Mac

Weird Ties? Growth, Cycles and Firm Dynamics in an Agent-Based Model with Financial-Market Imperfections

This paper studies how the interplay between technological shocks and financial variables shapes the properties of macroeconomic dynamics. Most of the existing literature has based the analysis of aggregate macroeconomic regularities on the representative agent hypothesis (RAH). However, recent empirical research on longitudinal micro data sets has revealed a picture of business cycles and growth dynamics that is very far from the homogeneous one postulated in models based on the RAH. In this work, we make a preliminary step in bridging this empirical evidence with theoretical explanations. We propose an agent-based model with heterogeneous firms, which interact in an economy characterized by financial-market imperfections and costly adoption of new technologies. Monte-Carlo simulations show that the model is able jointly to replicate a wide range of stylised facts characterizing both macroeconomic time-series (e.g. output and investment) and firms' microeconomic dynamics (e.g. size, growth, and productivity).Financial Market Imperfections, Business Fluctuations, Economic Growth, Firm Size, Firm Growth, Productivity Growth, Agent-Based Models.

Metastable Features of Economic Networks and Responses to Exogenous Shocks

It has been proved that network structure plays an important role in addressing a collective behaviour. In this paper we consider a network of firms and corporations and study its metastable features in an Ising based model. In our model, we observe that if in a recession the government imposes a demand shock to stimulate the network, metastable features shape its response. Actually we find that there is a minimum bound where demand shocks with a size below it are unable to trigger the market out from recession. We then investigate the impact of network characteristics on this minimum bound. We surprisingly observe that in a Watts-Strogatz network though the minimum bound depends on the average of the degrees, when translated into the economics language, such a bound is independent of the average degrees. This bound is about $0.44 \Delta$GDP, where $\Delta$GDP is the gap of GDP between recession and expansion. We examine our suggestions for the cases of the United States and the European Union in the recent recession, and compare them with the imposed stimulations. While stimulation in the US has been above our threshold, in the EU it has been far below our threshold. Beside providing a minimum bound for a successful stimulation, our study on the metastable features suggests that in the time of crisis there is a "golden time passage" in which the minimum bound for successful stimulation can be much lower. So, our study strongly suggests stimulations to be started within this time passage.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in PloS On

Power Law Scaling in the World Income Distribution

We show that over the period 1960-1997, the range comprised between the 30th and the 85th percentiles of the world income distribution expressed in terms of GDP per capita invariably scales down as a Pareto distribution. Furthermore, the time path of the power law exponent displays a negatively sloped trend. Our findings suggest that the cross-country average growth process appears to be scale invariant but for countries in the tails of the world income distribution, and that the relative volatility of smaller countries' growth processes have increased over time.Growth