Designing a Simple Loss Function for Central Banks


Book Description

Yes, it makes a lot of sense. This paper studies how to design simple loss functions for central banks, as parsimonious approximations to social welfare. We show, both analytically and quantitatively, that simple loss functions should feature a high weight on measures of economic activity, sometimes even larger than the weight on inflation. Two main factors drive our result. First, stabilizing economic activity also stabilizes other welfare relevant variables. Second, the estimated model features mitigated inflation distortions due to a low elasticity of substitution between monopolistic goods and a low interest rate sensitivity of demand. The result holds up in the presence of measurement errors, with large shocks that generate a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and resource utilization, and also when ensuring a low probability of hitting the zero lower bound on interest rates.




Toward an Integrated Policy Framework


Book Description

Policymakers often face difficult tradeoffs in pursuing domestic and external stabilization objectives. The paper reflects staff’s work to advance the understanding of the policy options and tradeoffs available to policymakers in a systematic and analytical way. The paper recognizes that the optimal path of the IPF tools depends on structural characteristics and fiscal policies. The operational implications of IPF findings require careful consideration. Developing safeguards to minimize the risk of inappropriate use of IPF policies will be essential. Staff remains guided by the Fund’s Institutional View (IV) on the Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows.







Global Capital Markets


Book Description

Publisher Description




Principles of International Finance and Open Economy Macroeconomics


Book Description

Principles of International Finance and Open Economy Macroeconomics: Theories, Applications, and Policies presents a macroeconomic framework for understanding and analyzing the global economy from the perspectives of emerging economies and developing countries. Unlike most macroeconomic textbooks, which typically emphasize issues about developed countries while downplaying issues related to developing countries, this book emphasizes problems in emerging economies, including those in Latin American countries. It also explains recent developments in international finance that are essential to a thorough understanding of the effects and implications of the recent financial crisis. - Concentrates on developing country perspectives on International Finance and the Economy, including those in Latin American countries - Provides case studies and publicly available data allowing readers to explore theories and their applications - Explains recent developments in international finance that are essential to a thorough understanding of the effects and implications of the recent financial crisis - Proposes a unified mathematical model accessible to those with basic mathematical skills




Handbook of Development Economics


Book Description

What guidance does academic research really provide to economic policy development? The critical and analytical surveys in this volume investigate links between policies and outcomes by surveying work from broad macroeconomic policies to interventions in microfinance. Asserting that there are no universal correspondences between policies and outcomes, contributors demonstrate instead that only an intense familiarity with the development context and the universe of applicable economic models can generate successful policies. Getting cause-and-effect right is essential for policy design and implementation. With the goal of drawing researchers and policy makers closer, this volume highlights our increasing understanding of ways to combine economic theorizing with careful, thoughtful empirical work. - Presents an accurate, self-contained survey of the current state of the field - Summarizes the most recent discussions, and elucidates new developments - Although original material is also included, the main aim is the provision of comprehensive and accessible surveys




Lectures on Macroeconomics


Book Description

The main purpose of Lectures on Macroeconomics is to characterize and explain fluctuations in output, unemployment and movement in prices. Lectures on Macroeconomics provides the first comprehensive description and evaluation of macroeconomic theory in many years. While the authors' perspective is broad, they clearly state their assessment of what is important and what is not as they present the essence of macroeconomic theory today.The main purpose of Lectures on Macroeconomics is to characterize and explain fluctuations in output, unemployment and movement in prices. The most important fact of modern economic history is persistent long term growth, but as the book makes clear, this growth is far from steady. The authors analyze and explore these fluctuations. Topics include consumption and investment; the Overlapping Generations Model; money; multiple equilibria, bubbles, and stability; the role of nominal rigidities; competitive equilibrium business cycles, nominal rigidities and economic fluctuations, goods, labor and credit markets; and monetary and fiscal policy issues. Each of chapters 2 through 9 discusses models appropriate to the topic. Chapter 10 then draws on the previous chapters, asks which models are the workhorses of macroeconomics, and sets the models out in convenient form. A concluding chapter analyzes the goals of economic policy, monetary policy, fiscal policy, and dynamic inconsistency. Written as a text for graduate students with some background in macroeconomics, statistics, and econometrics, Lectures on Macroeconomics also presents topics in a self contained way that makes it a suitable reference for professional economists.




Communities in Action


Book Description

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.




Exchange Rate Dynamics Redux


Book Description

Until now, thinking on open economy macroeconomics has been largely schizophrenic. When it comes to analyzing exchange rate dynamics, an empirically-minded economist abandons modern current account models which, while theoretically coherent, fail to address the awkward reality of sticky nominal prices. In this paper we develop an analytically tractable two-country model that marries a full account of dynamics to a supply framework based on monopolistic competition and sticky prices. It offers simple and intuitive predictions about exchange rates and current accounts that sometimes differ sharply from those of either modern flexible-price intertemporal models, or traditional sticky-price Keynesian models. The model also leads to a novel perspective on the international welfare spillovers of monetary and fiscal policies.