Global Macro Model Research Articles

Tech wars: Distributional consequences of global tech rivalry

AbstractInternational competition over sophisticated tech is a modern feature of great power rivalry. Yet the automation delivered by this tech is a key source of rising inequality. While policy motivations stem primarily from great power political and defense competition, the automation has consequences for wider economic performance. We examine global economic consequences, using a six‐region global macro model with multiple households, under Rawlsian, Benthamite, capital friendly, or GDP maximizing policy criteria. Tech drives are shown to deliver higher capital returns and more growth, and therefore to represent dominant strategies under all but a Rawlsian criterion, despite their exacerbation of inequality and low‐skilled poverty. We then consider Gini‐reducing fiscal interventions. These are shown to have few international spill‐over effects and to be domestically attractive only under the Rawlsian criterion.

The Cooling Rate and Residual Stresses in an AISI 310 Laser Weld: A Meso-Scale Approach

A three-dimensional coupled temperature-displacement finite element model was developed to generate values of temperature distribution, cooling rate, and residual stresses at the meso-scale level in a thick sheet AISI 310 laser welding test sample. High cooling rates (cooling time from liquid-to-solid temperatures) ranging from 960 °C/s to 2400 °C/s were observed when the calculations were made at the meso-scale level. These high cooling rates that arise during the formation of the weld pool originate the highest observed residual stresses that evolve throughout the weld during the entire heating and cooling cycles. An ABAQUS CAE meso model with dimensions of 10 × 5 × 1 mm (element size 100 µ) constructed from a global macro model of 40 × 10 × 75 mm (element size 1 mm) via the submodeling technique is presented in the present paper. In both analyses, macro and meso, the C3D8T thermally coupled brick, trilinear displacement and temperature elements were used. To mesh the entire plate with elements of regular size 100 × 100 × 100 µ, a total of 30 million elements are necessary. With the present approach, 1 macro mesh of 30 thousand elements (1 × 1 × 1 mm) and a meso mesh of 50 thousand elements (100 × 100 × 100 µ) were enough to simulate the weld problem at the meso-scale level.

Financial Integration and the Global Effects of China's Growth Surge

China’s financial openness, as measured by cross border flows and asset ownership, peaked during its 2000s growth surge, as did downward pressure on global interest rates and price levels. This was despite China’s restriction of financial inflows to approved FDI and tight controls on private outflows. We analyze the global effects of the growth surge and their dependence on these financial policies by employing a global macro model with national portfolio rebalancing, in which flexibility in asset differentiation is used to index financial integration. The results suggest that, globally, the growth surge raised asset prices, reduced yields and bolstered deflationary pressures, while improving aggregate economic welfare. It is shown that, without capital controls, most surge effects on China would have been moderated substantially while the global impacts would have been larger.

US–China rivalry: The macro policy choices

AbstractStylised representations of recent US and Chinese tax reforms, tariffs against imports and alternative Chinese monetary targeting are examined using a calibrated global macro model that embodies both trade and financial interdependencies. For both countries, unilateral capital tax relief and bilateral tariffs are shown to be ‘beggar thy neighbor’ policies. As large economies, both enjoy ‘optimal tariffs’, even bilaterally, though net outcomes are shown to depend on the allocation of revenues. Bilateral tariffs are most advantageous for the US if the additional revenue finances indirect tax relief. Once US bilateral tariffs are imposed, China is a net loser irrespective of its policy response, though a currency float is shown to cushion the effects on its GDP in the short run. Equilibria in normal form non‐cooperative tariff games have the US imposing tariffs while China liberalises.

The US-China Trade Dispute: A Macro Perspective

The recent rise of populism and authoritarian politics has seen a turn from multilateralism and toward international disputes like that between the US and China. This paper uses a calibrated global macro model to assess the potential economic consequences of this conflict under explicit assumptions about monetary and fiscal policy. US unilateral protection emerges as “beggar thy neighbor” policy, the more so if new tariff revenue affords capital tax relief. China’s proportional losses are comparatively large and little mitigated by retaliation, which nonetheless constrains US net gains. Avoiding leakage by protecting against all sources causes substantial losses in third regions trading with China and the US.

Automation, Taxes and Transfers with International Rivalry

Continued automation and declines in low-skill shares of GDP have been widespread globally and linked to inequality. We examine the long-term, global consequences of policies that foster automation or address the distributional consequences of it, using a six-region global macro model. Results depend on whether welfare criteria are Rawlsian, emphasizing the performance of low-skill households, Benthamite, which aggregate pecuniary measures, capital-owner friendly, or simply based on real GDP. Even where automation delivers only bias against the low skilled, we find that the fostering it is a dominant strategy under all but the Rawlsian criterion. We then consider a post automation scenario in which worker displacement is significant, examining inequality constraining but balance-preserving fiscal interventions, such as tax-financed “earned income tax credits”. These generate only small international spillover effects and are for the most part not preferred under all criteria except the Rawlsian one.

China and Global Macroeconomic Interdependence

AbstractChina is transitioning towards more inward‐focussed growth, causing adverse changes in the product and financial terms of trade in the advanced economies. At the same time, international financial markets tussle between tightening forces associated with the US recovery on the one hand and unconventional monetary expansion in Europe and Japan on the other. The way these shocks interact is examined in this paper using a global macromodel with national portfolio rebalancing and asset differentiation and a representation of unconventional monetary policy. Results are found to be sensitive to the contributions of productivity and capital accumulation to China's growth. When these are offered in realistic combination, the effects are deflationary in the United States and China, militating against contractionary US monetary policy. Monetary responses in the United States and China then combine with price targeting regimes in the EU and Japan to expand liquidity globally, amplifying impacts on financial markets and the global distribution of real investment.

Slower Growth and Vulnerability to Recession: Updating China's Global Impact

AbstractChina's comparatively rapid consumption growth since 2010 and its increasing economic similarity with advanced economies, imply that consumer and business confidence are now central to performance, changing its global impacts and rendering recession more likely. The international effects of its new growth pattern are quantified using a global macro model with national portfolio rebalancing. The transition to consumption‐led growth is shown to foster employment abroad while a major Chinese recession is shown to be damaging to the advanced economies and particularly to the US, the more so if China's policy response is expansionary and includes floating the RMB.

International effects of China's rise and transition: Neoclassical and Keynesian perspectives

Opinion over the global implications of China's rise is divided between critics and proponents. Critics see it as having developed at the expense of both investment and employment in the US, Europe and Japan. Proponents emphasise improvements in the terms of trade and reductions to the cost of financing that stem from China's supply of light manufactures, its demand for Western capital and luxury goods and its high saving. The criticism implies Keynesian assumptions while proponents take a neoclassical perspective. In this paper, both are embodied in a global macro-model that emphasises bilateral linkages via trade and investment, with monetary spill-overs represented by globally integrated bond markets. Net gains are suggested for the US and Europe from China's successful export-oriented growth, though there are partially offsetting Keynesian effects. China's recent slower, more consumption focussed, growth appears also to be beneficial in those regions and in Japan notwithstanding terms of trade losses.

Financial Integration and China's Global Impact

Product and financial market integration determine the global implications of China’s recent growth surge and its on-going transition from export led growth. These alter China’s structural imbalance (its excess product supply and excess saving), which in turn shifts the international terms of trade, changing asset yields causing deflationary and then inflationary pressures abroad. The effects are here quantified using a global macro model with national portfolio rebalancing, in which asset differentiation is used to index financial integration. The growth surge is found to have conferred on the advanced economies gains in their terms of trade, incompletely offset by structural unemployment. By contrast, the global effects of the transition are shown to reverse some of these impacts and to be amplified by further financial integration, particularly for the US.

China and Global Macroeconomic Interdependence

China is transitioning toward more inward-focussed growth, causing adverse changes in the product and financial terms of trade in the advanced economies. At the same time, international financial markets tussle between tightening forces associated with the US recovery on the one hand and unconventional monetary expansion in Europe and Japan on the other. The way these shocks interact is examined in this paper using a global macro model with national portfolio rebalancing and asset differentiation and a representation of unconventional monetary policy. Results are found to be sensitive to the contributions of productivity and capital accumulation to China’s growth. When these are offered in realistic combination with the US recovery and the European and Japanese expansion, the combined shocks are deflationary in the US and China, implying that contractionary US monetary policy is not imminent. Monetary responses in the US and China then combine with price targeting regimes in the EU and Japan to expand liquidity globally, amplifying impacts on financial markets and the global distribution of real investment.

International Effects of China's Rise and Transition: Neoclassical and Keynesian Perspectives

Opinion over the global implications of China‘s rise is divided between critics, who see it as having developed at the expense of both investment and employment in the US, Europe and Japan and proponents who emphasise improvements in the terms of trade and reductions to the cost of financing that stem from China‘s supply of light manufactures, its demand for Western capital and luxury goods and its high saving. The criticism implies Keynesian assumptions while proponents take a neoclassical perspective. In this paper, both are embodied in a global macro model that emphasises bilateral linkages via both trade and investment, with monetary spill-overs represented by globally integrated bond markets. Net gains are suggested for the US and Europe from China‘s successful export-oriented growth, though there are partially offsetting Keynesian effects. China‘s recent slower, more consumption focussed, growth appears also to be beneficial in those regions and in Japan notwithstanding terms of trade losses.