Real Balance Effect Research Articles

The Transmission Mechanisms and Impacts of Oil Price Fluctuations: Evidence from DSGE Model

This paper constructs an open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with oil to investigate the transmission mechanism and impact effects of oil price fluctuations driven by different factors on China’s macroeconomy using quarterly data from 1996 to 2019. The results show that the international crude oil supply-driven oil price decline promotes positive output growth in the short run through the positive cost effect of the supply channel, and the production regulation cost will dampen the incentive to invest in the new energy sector in the long run. Domestic economic development demand-driven oil price increases act on the demand channel, driving output and oil prices to fluctuate in the same direction, generating a negative real balance effect on the economy through the interest rate channel. The oil-specific demand driven by foreign nominal interest rate shocks is transmitted through the exchange rate channel, triggering imported inflation, lower aggregate demand, and lower output. Different sources of oil price fluctuations have different transmission mechanisms and thus differential effects. For this reason, based on the root causes of oil price fluctuations, policy recommendations to deal with international oil price fluctuations in the new situation are proposed at the supply level, demand level, and international level.

The MCPF under the pandemic

AbstractThis study examines the marginal cost of public funds (MCPF) to assess the optimality of preventive governmental expenditure based on the optimal nonlinear income taxation with preventive behaviors by both individuals and the government. We show that the optimal condition with respect to preventive government expenditure consists of two parts. One part reflects how the trade‐off between preventive expenditure and consumption should deviate from the laissez faire for high‐skilled and low‐skilled individuals, which is interpreted as the Pigou effect. The other part measures how mimickers benefit from preventive government expenditure, which is called the genetic effect. Whether the MCPF is greater than 1 or not depends on the relative magnitude of the Pigou effect and the genetic effect. Moreover, we examine the MCPF if the government cannot commit to a certain policy and if the types of individuals are completely separated and show that the Pigou effect should be modified.

Involuntary Unemployment Under Ongoing Nominal Wage Rate Decline in Overlapping Generations Model

Abstract We analyze involuntary unemployment based on consumers’ utility maximization and firms’ profit maximization behavior with ongoing nominal wage rate decline. We consider a three-periods overlapping generations (OLG) model with a childhood period as well as younger and older periods under monopolistic competition with increasing, decreasing or constant returns to scale technology. When there exists involuntary unemploymnet, the nominal wage rate may decline. We examine the existenbce of involuntary unemployment in that model with ongoing mominal wage rate decline (or deflation). Even if the nominal wage rate declines, we have a steady state with involuntary unemployment and constant output and employment. We need budget deficit or budget surplus to maintain the steady state depending on whether real balance effect is positive or negative. Also we examine the possibility to achieve full-employment by fiscal policy.

Involuntary Unemployment Due to Instability of the Economy and Fiscal Policy for Full-Employment

The existence of involuntary unemployment, proposed by J. M. Keynes, is a very important issue in modern economic theory. Using a three-generation overlapping generations (OLG) model, we show that the existence of involuntary unemployment can be attributed to economic instability. Economic instability is the instability of the difference equation for equilibrium prices around the full employment equilibrium, which means that the presence of involuntary unemployment will further reduce employment when the nominal wage rate declines. This instability is due to the negative real balance effect that occurs when consumers' net savings (the difference between savings and pensions) are smaller than their liabilities, which are calculated by multiplying childhood consumption by the marginal propensity to consume. The paper also presents arguments for fiscal spending and tax cuts by seigniorage, rather than public debt, as a fiscal policy to achieve full employment. This paper presents the theoretical and mathematical foundations of Functional Finance Theory (Lerner (1943), (1944)) and MMT (Modern Monetary Theory, Mitchell, Wray and Watts (2019), Kelton (2020)). It may be an attempt to present the theoretical and mathematical foundations of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory, Mitchell, Wray and Watts (2019), Kelton (2020)).

The liquidity-augmented model of macroeconomic aggregates: A New Monetarist DSGE approach

We propose a new model of the macroeconomy which is simple and tractable, yet explicit about the foundations of liquidity. Monetary policy is implemented via swaps of money for liquid bonds in a secondary asset market. Prices are flexible, yet policy has real effects because money, bonds, and capital are imperfect substitutes, both in the short run and in the long run. The model unifies two classical channels through which the price of liquidity affects the economy (Friedman's real balance effect vs Mundell's and Tobin's asset substitution effect), and it shines light on important macroeconomic questions: the causal link between interest rates and inflation, the effects of money demand shocks, and the existence and persistence of a liquidity trap where interest rates are zero but inflation is positive.

Negative Real Balance Effects in the Presence of Involuntary Unemployment

We examine positive or negative real balance effect (or so-called Pigou effect) by falls in the nominal wage rate and the prices of the goods in situations where there is involuntary unemployment using a three-generations overlapping generations model with childhood period and pay-as-you go pension system for the older generation consumers. We will show that if the net savings of the younger generation consumers are larger than their debts due to consumption in their childhood period, there exists positive real balance effect and the employment increases by a fall in the nominal wage rate; on the other hand, if the net savings of the younger generation consumers are smaller than their debts, there exists negative real balance effect and the employment decreases by a fall in the nominal wage rate.

Free banking, the real-balance effect, and Walras’ Law

The author of this article draws special attention to two particular claims of the free bankers concerning the supposed working characteristics of a fractional-reserve free banking system which may strike the reader as questionable. The first of these relates to the alleged absence of a real-balance effect under free banking. The second relates to the free bankers’ reference to Walras’ Law as providing a rationale for the free banking system’s «offsetting» actions when confronted with changes in the public’s demand to hold bank liabilities. This rationale is defective since it is based on an erroneous interpretation of Walras’ Law. The author’s conclusion does not imply that it is not at all possible, from a rational viewpoint, to make a plausible case for this variant of free banking, only that the argument should be freed from certain questionable tenets.
 Key words: Free banking, monetary systems, real-balance effects, Walras’ Law.
 JEL Classification: E0; E32; E42; E5; E51; E52.
 Resumen: El autor de esta nota llama la atención sobre dos alegaciones particulares relativas a las supuestas características operativas de una banca libre con reserva fraccionaria que podrían resultar cuestionables al lector. La primera se refiere a la supuesta ausencia de efectos de saldo real en la banca libre. El segundo guarda relación con la referencia de los teóricos de la banca libre con reserva fraccionaria a la Ley de Walras que constituiría la base lógica de las acciones «de compensación» de la banca libre al enfrentarse a cambios en la demanda de medios fiduciarios por parte del público. Esta base lógica es defectuosa puesto que parte de una interpretación errónea de la Ley de Walras. La conclusión del autor no implica que no sea posible en absoluto, desde un punto de vista racional, elaborar una argumentación plausible para esta variante de la banca libre, sino que la argumentación debe estar libre de determinados argumentos cuestionables.
 Palabras clave: Banca libre, sistemas monetarios, efectos de saldo real, Ley de Walras.
 Clasificación JEL: E0; E32; E42; E5; E51; E52.

Inflation? It’s Import Prices and the Labor Share!

Recognizing that inflation of the value of output and its costs of production must be equal, we focus on a cost-based macroeconomic structuralist approach in contrast to micro-oriented monetarist analysis. For decades the import and profit shares of cost have risen, while the wage share has declined to around 50% with money wage increases lagging the sum of growth rates of prices and productivity. Conflicting claims to income are the underlying source of inflationary pressure. Inflation affects income (labor’s spending power) and wealth. Monetarist theory around 1900 concentrated on the latter (Bryan and the “Cross of Gold)” leading to the standard Laffer curve. It was replaced by the Friedman-Phelps model which has incorrect dynamics (labor payments do not fall during an expansion – they go up). Samuelson and Solow introduced a version of the Phillips curve that violates macroeconomic accounting. Rational expectations replaced Friedman but was immediately falsified by output drops after the Volcker shock treatment around 1980. There followed a complicated transition from rational expectations to inflation targeting, anchored by economists’ misunderstanding of the physical meaning of ergodicity and ontological blindness. It did not help that the real balance effect is irrelevant because money makes up a small part of wealth. Rather than issuing veiled threats of disaster if its policy advice is not followed, the Fed now announces inflation targets which it cannot meet. Contemporary structuralist theory suggests that conflicting income claims set the inflation rate. Firms can mark up costs but workers have latent bargaining power over the labor share that they can exercise. Import costs and policy repercussions complicate the picture, but a simple vector error correction model and visual analysis suggest that money wages would have to grow one percentage point faster than prices plus productivity for several years if the Fed is to meet a three percent inflation target. The results pose a Biden policy trilemma: (i) the only path toward a more egalitarian size distribution of income is through a rising labor share (money wage growth exceeds price plus productivity growth), (ii) which would provoke faster inflation with feedback to rising interest rates, and (iii) the resulting asset price deflation likely facing political resistance from Wall Street and affluent households.

Technical Progress and Involuntary Unemployment Under Deflation With Real Balance Effect

Technical Progress and Involuntary Unemployment Under Deflation With Real Balance Effect

Involuntary Unemployment Under Ongoing Nominal Wage Rate Decline in Overlapping Generations Model

We analyze involuntary unemployment based on consumers’ utility maximization and firms’ profit maximization behavior with ongoing nominal wage rate decline. We consider a three-periods overlapping generations (OLG) model with a childhood period as well as younger and older periods under monopolistic competition with increasing, decreasing or constant returns to scale technology. We examine the existenbce of involuntary unemployment in that model with ongoing mominal wage rate decline (or deflation). Even if the nominal wage rate declines, we have a steady state with involuntary unemployment and constant output and employment. We need budget deficit or budget surplus to maintain the steady state depending on whether real balance effect is positive or negative. Also we examine the possibility to achieve full-employment by fiscal policy

Microeconomic Foundation for Phillips Curve with a Three-Period Overlapping Generations Model and Negative Real Balance Effect

Abstract We show a negative relation between the inflation rate and the unemployment rate, that is, the Phillips curve using a three-period overlapping generations (OLG) model with childhood period and pay-as-you-go pension for older generation under monopolistic competition with negative real balance effect. In a three-period OLG model, there may exist a negative real balance effect because consumers have debts and savings. A fall (or rise) in the nominal wage rate induces a fall (or rise) in the price, then by negative real balance effect, the unemployment rate rises (or falls), and we get a negative relation between the inflation rate and the unemployment rate. This conclusion is based on the premise of utility maximisation of consumers and profit maximisation of firms. Therefore, we present a microeconomic foundation for the Phillips curve. We also examine the effects of fiscal policy financed by seigniorage, which is represented by left-ward shift of the Phillips curve.

Involuntary unemployment in overlapping generations model due to instability of the economy and fiscal policy

The existence of involuntary unemployment advocated by J. M. Keynes is a very important problem of the modern economic theory. Using a three-generations overlapping generations model, we show that the existence of involuntary unemployment is due to the instability of the economy. Instability of the economy is the instability of the difference equation about the equilibrium price around the full-employment equilibrium, which means that a fall in the nominal wage rate caused by the presence of involuntary unemployment further reduces employment. This instability is due to the negative real balance effect that occurs when consumers’ net savings (the difference between savings and pensions) are smaller than their debt multiplied by the marginal propensity to consume from childhood consumption.

History vs. equilibrium one more time: how Keynes’s General Theory foundered on the rocks of comparative statics

Keynes’s message, that full employment was an unlikely outcome for a capitalist economy, did not survive scrutiny in a comparative-statics framework. But this was the fault of the framework, not the message. The main criticisms leveled at the idea of an underemployment equilibrium were that, as the money wage rate fell, the Keynes effect would lead to an expansion of investment demand (Modigliani) and that the real-balance effect would lead to an expansion of consumption demand (Haberler and Pigou). Neither of these criticisms survives when real-time changes in the money wage replace static comparisons of equilibria with different money wages. The lesson is that dynamic adjustment is key to understanding the workings of a capitalist economy.

Time-varying money demand and real balance effects

This paper presents an analysis of the stimulants and consequences of money demand dynamics. By assuming that household's money holdings and consumption preferences are not separable, we demonstrate that the interest-elasticity of demand for money is a function of the household's preference to hold real balances, the extent to which these preferences are not separable in consumption and real balances, and trend inflation. An empirical study of U.S. data revealed that there was a gradual fall in the interest elasticity of money demand of approximately one-third during the 1970s due to high trend inflation. A further decline in the interest-elasticity of the demand for money was observed in the 1980s due to the changing household preferences that emerged in response to financial innovation. These developments led to a reduction in the welfare cost of inflation that subsequently explains the rise in monetary neutrality observed in the data.

Time-Varying Money Demand and Real Balance Effects

This paper presents an analysis of the stimulants and consequences of money demand dynamics. By assuming that households’ money holdings and consumption preferences are not separable, we demonstrate that the interest-elasticity of demand for money is a function of the households’ preference to hold real balances, the extent to which these preferences are not separable in consumption and real balances, and trend inflation. An empirical study of U.S. data revealed that there was a gradual fall in the interest-elasticity of money demand of approximately one-third during the 1970s due to high trend inflation. A further decline in the interest-elasticity of the demand for money was observed in the 1980s due to the changing household preferences that emerged in response to financial innovation. These developments led to a reduction in the welfare cost of inflation that subsequently explains the rise in monetary neutrality observed in the data.

The Arguments for a Permanent Zero Interest Rate.

A zero interest rate regime is one where government issues a form of money which pays no interest, but does not borrow. There are three reasons for that policy. First , most if not all the reasons given for government borrowing are hopeless. Second , adjusting interest rates is a policy which is riddled for anomalies. E.g. in order to be able to cut interest rates, government first has to artificially raise them. But artificial adjustments to the price of anything, including the price of borrowed money does not make economic sense. Third , the market failure which causes recessions is not the failure of interest rates to fall. It’s the failure of wages and prices to fall, which would increase the real value of base money and government debt (if there is any), which in turn would encourage spending. That’s the “Pigou effect”. If government and central bank were simply to create new base money and spend it (and/or cut taxes) in a recession, that would come to much the same as the Pigou effect. That is what might be called a “free market compliant” policy. Interest rate adjustments are not “compliant”. Thus government should not borrow other than for very good reasons, if there are any, and artificial adjustments to interest rates should cease, except perhaps in emergencies. That, for want of a better phrase, can be described as a “permanent zero interest rate” policy. That policy is not far from the UK Labour Party’s new fiscal rule.

Disequilibrium as the origin, originality, and challenges of Clower's microfoundations of monetary theory

Robert W. Clower's article “A Reconsideration of the Microfoundations of Monetary Theory” (1967) deeply influenced the course of modern monetary economics. On the one hand, it questioned Don Patinkin's (1956) project to integrate monetary and Walrasian value theory. On the other hand, it was the fountainhead of the cash-in-advance models à la Robert J. Lucas (1980), one of the most widely used approaches to monetary theory since the 1980s. Despite this influence, Clower's project to integrate monetary and value theory remains an enigma. My paper intends to resolve it. This is a difficult task since Clower never completed the monetary theory outlined in his 1967 article. To overcome this difficulty, I characterise the intellectual context from which Clower's contribution emerged and have recourse to a reconstruction of his project. This reconstruction is based on the analysis of published and unpublished materials, written by Clower before and after the 1967 article. It is argued that Clower sought to elaborate a disequilibrium monetary theory whilst retaining the two pillars of Patinkin's integration, i.e., the introduction of money into utility functions and the real-balance effect. I trace the origins, account for the originality, and discuss the challenges of this project.

Estimation of Aggregate Consumption Function for Nepal: ARDL Bound Testing Approach

The relationship between aggregate consumption and its determinants is one of the oldest statistical regularities of macroeconomics. It is important for macroeconomists, policy makers and for others as well. This study aims to estimate aggregate consumption function for Nepal employing Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) for the period of 1975 to 2015 using real income, real exchange rate, real interest rate and inflation rate as determinants. ARDL based co-integration analysis finds the existence of long run association among the variables. Furthermore, elasticity coefficient of real income is found significantly positive but the coefficients of other variables are negative. There exists inverse relationship between real depreciation of domestic currency and real consumption in the long run, but short run shows positive relation between them. The long run as well as short run dynamics of the model are significantly stable. Hence, income is a robust determinant of aggregate consumption. Real interest rate seems to generate substitution effects on consumption, and inflation rate evokes real balance effect on the aggregate consumption of Nepal further.

The Keynesian Multiplier and the Pigou Effect Under Substitution between Private and Public Consumption

In this paper we present a fixprice model in which public and private consumption show some degree of substitution. We offer formulae for the Keynesian multiplier which depend on the degree of substitution. We also show that there is a Pigou effect and that this effesct might be larger than the effect of the Keynesian multiplier.

Money and generalized exchange: A critical look at Neo-Walrasian theory

The proof of existence of market clearing equilibrium is the cornerstone of Neo-Classical theory. While it is generally portrayed as a barter framework, the proof actually assumes an accepted system of credits and debits; a system of privately issued IOU's, or what is the same thing commitments by private agents to deliver a certain quantity of a given commodity at a given equilibrium price. In other words, the proof presupposes the existence of ‘inside money’. Yet a system of generalized exchange with pure inside money is not compatible with the main principles of Neo-Classical monetary theory including that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, the exogeneity of money and also the neutrality of money. This explains the importance and necessity of introducing ‘outside money’ in general equilibrium. Focussing mainly on Patinkin's ‘invalid dichotomy’ and the real balance effect, and to a lesser extent, on overlapping generation models, I try to show that these attempts have been unsuccessful. In both cases the integration of monetary and value theory amount to collapsing all individuals into a single one. This negates the very economic problem (i.e., multiple exchanges) that gave rise to general equilibrium theory and to the impending requirement to prove the existence of market clearing equilibrium.