This paper studies how the real exchange rate might respond to product innovation (improvements in the quality of goods) as opposed to process innovation (increased efficiency in the production of goods). We develop a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, where quality improvements affect both the demand and the supply side of the economy. We show that the real exchange rate defined in terms of prices per quality unit (quality-adjusted prices) does not always move in the same direction as that defined in terms unit prices (quality-unadjusted prices), illustrating the importance of measuring quality correctly.

The UK terms of trade rose by 15% from 1995 Q3 to 2003 Q1. This article looks at alternative explanations of why this happened, and what they mean for the likelihood that the terms of trade increase will endure.

This volume contains the contributions of a conference dealing with the consequences of the European Monetary Union for the macroeconometric modelling of the Euro area, which took place in Essen in 2000. At the end of the conference the participants were convinced that the discussions including a great variety of theoretical, methodical and factual aspects from the producers' as well as the consumers' perspective will not fail to have a certain impact on the future development of macroeconometric modelling in the Euro area. Once more it became clear, however, that an ideal way to a solution of the problems is still not in sight. The future development will be characterized by a plurality of approaches and models. Thus trends continue which have had a more or less strong, durable or temporary influence on the model landscape since the emergence of the monetarist revolution, the rational expectations or the real business cycle-models. We are still at the beginning of the theoretical and empirical exploration of the macroeconomic development of the Euro area, it is not always clearly perceptible what is transitory and what is permanent, and this openness should facilitate the reception of the experiences and results which have been presented. The idea for this event was developed in the course of the Project LINK. One of the highlights of the conference was the participation of the nobel prize winner Professor Dr. Lawrence Klein - pioneer and Nestor of macroeconometric modelling - who, as his contribution shows, is following up the creation of the European Monetary Union with critical interest.

Differences in economic structures across countries have potentially important implications for the conduct of monetary policy in the Euro Area. One facet of this lies in consumer expenditure behaviour. Our objective is to analyse the policy implications of assuming maximal and minimal differences between European economies using the National Institute's Global Econometric Model. We assess the performance of three possible ECB monetary policy rules under these different scenarios, using measures of the volatility of prices and output. We take as our benchmark a fully heterogeneous Europe, where individual country consumption functions are estimated separately. We estimate a homogeneous model for core European countries, incorporating countries into the core where it is statistically justified to pool them. We also estimate a fully homogeneous Europe where all Euro Zone countries are pooled. We find that the two ‘pillar strategy’ adopted by the ECB dominates other monetary policy frameworks.

We study the prospective operation of the Stability Pact by stochastic simulation. Using a forward-looking multi-country macroeconometric model, National Institute Global Econometric Model (NiGEM), comprising individual blocks for 10 Euroland economies, the Pact’s provisions are formalised in detail, and alternative monetary and fiscal rules are compared. Rules are simple and credible, but a fiscal feedback parameter is made conditional on the stages of the excessive deficit procedure. Under a baseline broadly consistent with Stability Programmes, excessive deficits are overall rare; pecuniary sanctions only happen when “fiscal fatigue” delays corrective action; and monetary policy is found to be of secondary importance to the results.

We examine whether there is a case for coordinating monetary policy reactions across major economies. We undertake stochastic simulations on the National Institute's Global Econometric Model (NiGEM), to evaluate independently set monetary policy where domestic considerations remain the prime objective and we compare outcomes to a regime with a coordinated policy where domestic interest rates react to international conditions. We also demonstrate the asymptotic properties of the stochastic simulations and stress the robustness of our results.

In this paper we investigate whether differences we observe in European labour market transmission mechanisms matter for monetary policy design. We are particularly concerned with the robustness of the choice of rule by the European Central Bank (ECB) but we also comment on the choice of rules in the UK. Three different models of labour markets are constructed, one where the relationships are estimated separately, one where the most statistically acceptable commonalities across countries are imposed and one where common relationships are imposed across all countries. Panel estimation techniques are used to test for commonalities. These models are embedded into the National Institute's Global Econometric Model, NiGEM, and stochastic simulations are run to evaluate different monetary policy rules.

Asymmetric economic structures across Europe may result in common shocks having asymmetric effects. In this paper we investigate whether the differences in the structure and dynamics that we observe in the European economies matter for policy design. In particular it is widely believed that labour market responses are different, with the structure of labour demand and the nature of the bargain over wages differing between countries. In addition the European economies move at different speeds in response to common shocks. In this paper we construct three different models of Europe, one where the labour market relationships are separately estimated and assumed to be different, one where the most statistically acceptable commonalties are imposed and one where common labour market relationships are imposed across all member countries. We use panel estimation techniques to test for the imposition of commonalties among countries. We find that it is possible to divide Europe into sub-groups, but it is not possible to have one model of European labour markets. We use stochastic simulation techniques on these different models of Europe and find that the preferred rule for the ECB is a combined nominal aggregate and inflation-targeting rule. We find that while this rule is dominant in all our models, the more inertia that is introduced into the labour markets, the more a nominal aggregate-targeting rule alone may be preferred. However, we conclude, that differences in the labour market transmission mechanisms across the European countries appear to have little influence on the setting of monetary policy for the ECB, although this depends on the relative importance of the different components in the welfare loss function.

The European Union economies have embarked on a programme of economic transformation that changes their mode of governance. Rules for monetary policy-making have been fundamentally altered for euro area members and all fifteen are variously bound by Treaty or Protocol to fiscal programmes that have significant implications for the flexibility with which they operate stabilisation policy. The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) puts clear limits on the size of deficits that can be run, and has a rather loose system of fines associated with it. In this chapter we focus on the likelihood of member countries breaching this criteria and the extent to which changes in monetary policy affect this outcome. In particular we investigate what effects different types of simple monetary policy rules have on a country’s ability to keep within the SGP criteria. One of the most common criticisms of the SGP is that it may be too binding in that governments will be unable to use fiscal stabilisation policies. This chapter throws light on the scope for fiscal activism in stabilising individual EMU economies.

The policy regime in Europe has put the economy on ‘auto-pilot’. We investigate different designs for the required feedback mechanisms. The uncertainty facing an economy depends on the pattern of shocks it faces, the response of the private sector to those shocks and also the policy reactions of the authorities. Two ‘ideal type’ policy regimes are investigated, and inflation targeting is compared to nominal aggregate targeting. In general it is suggested that targeting a nominal aggregate reduces the variability of the price level, and stabilises the price level more quickly over time. Inflation outcomes are also less variable for the Euro Area, and they are less asymmetric when a nominal aggregate is targeted. The new European fiscal framework requires that countries set deficit targets close to balance. We show that there is plenty of space for automatic stabilisers to work, but the room available depends in part on the monetary policy framework chosen.

The UK's decision on EMU membership depends in part on its effects on the economy. The UK targets inflation, and this involves some 'price level drift', whilst the ECB emphasizes price stability and would plan to reverse the drift in the price level caused by external shocks such as an increase in the oil price. We discuss the foundations of the ECB policy in German Ordoliberalism. The regimes are then compared over the future using a large macro model (NiGEM) which includes descriptions of all the European economies. It is repeatedly subject to historically representative shocks. The effects of these shocks are compared with the UK in and out of EMU.

We wish to analyse the new rules in the European fiscal and monetary environment, and to investigate the effects of fiscal and monetary activism in Europe. The new European Central Bank has to decide on its monetary policy stance and we aim in this paper to contribute to the debate of the best overall policy rule for Euroland.

Taylor and others have argued that model stability requires interest rate policy rules have an inflation feedback parameter greater than one. In this paper we build an encompassing framework to analyse the stability conditions of various policy rules on Taylor's model and in a world where there are nominal rigidities in the short-term evolution of demand. We conclude that with a combined nominal GDP and inflation targeting rule, this stability condition is not necessary. We use stochastic simulations on NiGEM to evaluate different parameterisations of the rules. We discuss the resulting covariance structures and discuss their implications for the ECB.

The Asian crisis has had a marked effect on the world economy over the past fifteen months. Private sector demand has collapsed in the affected economies and reinforced the effects arising from the deflationary forces in the Japanese economy at present. Up until this summer it did not appear likely that the world economy as a whole would slide into a full scale recession, although it was clear that growth had begun to slow in the industrialised economies. There were also important downside risks in our forecasts at that time; in particular the danger that a policy of monetisation in Japan would further weaken the yen and set in motion renewed disruption by enforcing a devaluation of the Chinese yuan against the dollar. It was also clear that profit margins were coming under pressure in the US economy, raising the possibility that future dividends would be somewhat weaker than implied by the exceptionally rapid growth in real equity prices since 1994. Neither a Chinese devaluation nor an equity price collapse were however part of our central forecasts.

A method for investigating one‐dimensional iterative non‐linear mappings for the presence of deterministic chaos is suggested. An approximation to the Lyapunov exponent is calculated for a finite number of iterations of the map using a spreadsheet. The presence of a positive Lyapunov exponent is indicative of a chaotic trajectory.

The model analyzed in this paper is that of the optimal exploitation of a nonrenewable natural resource under the ownership of a monopolist who faces increasing marginal costs of extraction. Optimal depletion levels are derived under the criterion of maximizing discounted future profits. It is shown that the optimal steady state solution may not exhaust the resource totally. The usual sufficiency conditions for optimal control (concavity of the maximized Hamiltonian in the state variable) cannot be satisfied with this model. Hence a relatively new sufficiency condition is utilized.