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7191. Hazards in Implementing a Monetary Conditions Index

Author:
Neil R. Ericsson, Kari H. Eika, and Ragnar Nymoen
Publication Date:
10-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Some recent studies have suggested constructing a Monetary Conditions Index (or MCI) to serve as an indicator of monetary policy stance. The central banks of Canada, Sweden, and Norway all construct an MCI and (to varying degrees) use it in conducting monetary policy. Empirically, an MCI is calculated as the weighted sum of changes in a short-term interest rate and the exchange rate relative to values in a baseline year. The weights aim to reflect these variables' effects on longer-term focuses of policy — economic activity and inflation. This paper derives analytical and empirical properties of MCIs in an attempt to ascertain their usefulness in monetary policy.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

7192. Regime Switching in the Dynamic Relationship between the Federal Funds Rate and Innovations in Nonborrowed Reserves

Author:
Chan Huh
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper examines the dynamic relationship between changes in the finds rate and nonborrowed reserves within a reduced form framework that allows the relationship to have WO distinct patterns over time. A regime switching model a la Hamilton (1989) is estimated. On average, CPI inflation has been significantly higher in the regime and volatile changes in funds rate. Innovations in money growth are characterized by large associated with a strong anticipated inflation effect in this high inflation regime, and a moderate liquidity effect in the low inflation regime. Furthermore, an identical money innovation generates a much bigger increase in the interest rate during a transition period from the low to high inflation regime than during a steady high inflation period. This accords well with economic intuition since the transition period is when the anticipated inflation effect initially gets incorporated into the interest rate. The converse also holds. That is, the liquidity effect becomes stronger when the economy leaves a high inflation regime period and enters a low inflation regime period.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance

7193. Broad Money Demand and Financial Liberalization in Greece

Author:
Neil R. Ericsson and Sunil Sharma
Publication Date:
07-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper develops a constant, data-coherent, error correction model for broad money demand (M3) in Greece. This model contributes to a better understanding of the effects of monetary policy in Greece, and of the portfolio consequences of financial innovation in general. The broad monetary aggregate M3 was targeted until recently, and current monetary policy still uses such aggregates as guidelines, yet analysis of this aggregate has been dormant for over a decade.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

7194. Intellectual Property, Trade, and Economic Development: A Road Map for the FTAA Negotiations

Author:
Carlos A. Primo Braga and Robert M. Sherwood
Publication Date:
09-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Intellectual property (IP) protection is becoming increasingly crucial in the context of new international commitments, the competition for private investments, and global “technology racing.” This paper examines the common base for a Western Hemisphere IP arrangement and notes the most prominent existing regional integration accords that include IP commitments. It assesses the recent Trade Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Law, and International Trade and Finance

7195. Strategic Global Repositioning and Future Economic Development in Jamaica

Author:
Richard L. Bernal
Publication Date:
04-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Strategic global repositioning is a process of r epositioning a country in the global economy by implementing a strategic plan. Such plans are designed to consolidate and improve existing production lines while reorienting the economy toward new types of economic activities. In most developing countries, this involves structural transformation (not adjustment) to achieve economic diversification, including export diversification. The need for strategic global repositioning derives from trends in the global economy that portend limited opportunities for industrialization in developing countries.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy

7196. The Revival of the Nation-State?

Author:
Susanne Lutz
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The debate on economic 'globalization' suggests that the blurring of territorial boundaries shifts the power relations between nation-states and domestic market constituencies in favour of the latter. States have lost autonomy since policies are increasingly formulated in supranational or global arenas. Market actors may use their wider choice of geographic location in order to lobby for low regulated market environments. The paper seeks to differentiate this common view considerably. It argues that economic internationalization weakens the capacity of domestic market actors to engage in self-binding agreements that formerly had solved regulatory problems. Networks of interstate collaboration in turn lack the ability to monitor and enforce negotiated agreements. Both developments impose new duties of market supervision on the nation-state. Empirical reference is drawn from the stock exchange sector that went through a process of transformation which has led to an enhanced role of the nation-state in the model of sectoral governance.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Government, and International Trade and Finance

7197. A New Discipline: Development Ethics

Author:
Denis Goulet
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
'Development' has long been equated with modernization and Westernization and studied as a straightforward economic issue. The discipline of economics has been the main source of policy prescription for development decisionmakers. This view is now widely criticized as ethnocentric and as economically reductionist. Change is occurring: economics itself is reintegrating ethics into its conceptualization, methodology, and analysis; a new paradigm of development is in gestation; and a new discipline, development ethics, has come into being. Development ethics centers its study of development on the value questions posed: What is the relation between having goods and being good in the pursuit of the good life; what are the foundations of a just society; and what stance should societies adopt toward nature? The new discipline emerges from two sources, which are now converging: from engagement in development action to the formulation of ethical theory, and from a critique of mainstream ethical theory to the crafting of normative strategies to guide development practice. Development ethics has a dual mission: to render the economy more human and to keep hope alive in the face of the seeming impossibility of achieving human development for all.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Ethics, Economic Growth, and Modernization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7198. Nicaraguan Property Disputes

Publication Date:
04-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
With the first peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in Nicaraguan history in 1990, Nicaraguans ended a decade-long civil war and began a process of reconciliation. Within the space of a year, the army was shrunk from 96,000 to less than 15,000 troops, the Nicaraguan Resistance was demobilized, and new forms of dialogue between previously hostile groups emerged. Nevertheless, economic recovery remained elusive in the face of hyperinflation, high expectations and competing demands among organized groups, and a lack of confidence among investors and producers. Disputes over property have played a significant role in Nicaragua's recent political and economic experience, and are a fundamental factor in its future economic recovery and political reconciliation.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, International Law, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

7199. Numbering British Contention, 1758-1834

Author:
Thomas Chronopoulos
Publication Date:
12-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
In the period between 1758 and 1834 repertoires of contention in Britain changed from parochial, particular, and bifurcated to cosmopolitan, modular, and autonomous. In other words, eighteenth century actions "that included a good deal of ceremonial, street theater, deployment of strong visual symbols, and destruction of symbolically charged objects" through the course of time lost their relative predominance and instead "demonstrations, strikes, rallies, public meetings, and similar forms of public interaction came to prevail during the nineteenth century." These new routines for the eighteenth century contentious events are the ones that ordinary people in the United States and Western Europe still to this date principally employ to make claims. This conclusion merges from a systematic study of more than 8,000 contentious gatherings, in Southern England (1758-1820) and Great Britain as a whole (1828-1834).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and England

7200. World-Wide Conventional Arms Trade (1994-2000): A Forecast and Analysis

Publication Date:
12-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
The end of the Cold War has had a major impact on global trade in conventional armaments, just as it has on most facets of national security and defense. The nature of global demand for arms has shifted from the context of rivalry between superpowers and their associated client states to providing for national defense within the context of regional security needs. While these changes have led to a decline in total global demand for arms, countries continue to seek to acquire substantial amounts of increasingly sophisticated weapons. Ironically, in many respects, the post-Cold War world is more unstable than the Cold War era, and is characterized by increased violence, by increased proliferation of military technology, and by the potential for these trends to continue. In this context, while the nature of the political-military issues that the U.S. and friendly nations now confront has changed, arms exports will continue to be a means of advancing U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, NATO, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States