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Journal Article
Prices, profit margins, and exchange rates
Working Paper
Prospects for sustained improvement in U.S. external balance: structural change versus policy change
This paper assesses prospects for sustained improvement in the U.S. external balance drawing on both model-based macro analysis and examination of disaggregated data. Most model projections of the future path of U.S. external balance show the recent improvement petering out by the end 1989 or so. Key structural factors leading to the expected future worsening of U. S. external balance are two asymmetries--the "income asymmetry" and the "pass-through asymmetry". That is, asymmetries in the pricing behavior of U.S. exporters and foreign suppliers and asymmetries in the elasticities of U.S. ...
Journal Article
U.S. international transaction in 1984
Working Paper
Political and economic consequences of alternative privatization strategies
The different approaches to large-scale privatization in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic imply somewhat different patterns of corporate governance--that is, ownership, monitoring, and control of firms. Corporate governance affects economic incentives within the firm, and therefore economic performance of the firm. Similarly, patterns of ownership implied by the programs affect the distribution of gains from reform. Privatizing the large enterprises will importantly influence resource allocation, employment, and output. Consequently, the patterns of corporate governance embodied in the ...
Working Paper
Industry restructuring and export performance: evidence on the transition in Hungary
Robust and numerous small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are a hallmark of the market economy and development of these firms is an integral part of the structural transformation of the economies of East-Central Europe (ECE). Data for Hungary on changes in the size distribution of firms and their importance for output and employment indicates that industry restructuring is taking place. One measure of the success of restructuring is export performance. That is, increased exports by those industries undergoing restructuring suggests that the process is creating firms that are successfully ...
Working Paper
Globalization and productivity in the United States and Germany
This paper investigates the impact of globalization on productivity growth and the procyclicality of productivity growth in manufacturing industries in the United States and Germany. For U.S. industries, the analysis suggests that changes in international demand affect productivity growth differently from changes in exposure to international competition. An increase in foreign demand for U.S. exports raises trend productivity growth, but to a lesser degree than does a similar demand shock from domestic buyers. On the other hand, whereas an increase in U.S. imports reduces trend productivity ...
Working Paper
Trade policy for the multiple product declining industry
Increasing returns to scale and scope in production technology combined with product substitutability in demand yields an environment where free trade may not maximize domestic country welfare. If not, there is an optimal tax on imports that depends on the cross-elasticity of demand between the products in the spectrum and on the degree of economies of scale and scope in technology. However, even if protection may be warranted in the short run, the long run solution is consistent with the theory of comparative advantage.
Working Paper
A framework for analyzing the process of financial innovation
The following note presents a framework for analyzing financial management techniques and financial product innovation. The framework attempts to illustrate how characteristics of the economic system and its participants motivate financing needs and encourage innovations in financing techniques. New sets of financial contracts are the joint product of (1) changes in technology and in the international macro environment of asset prices; (2) the interplay of individual market participant's existing financial exposures; and (3) the presence of fruitful cross-market arbitrage opportunities based ...
Discussion Paper
Reviving mortgage securitization: lessons from the Brady Plan and duration analysis
We review the period of the Latin American debt crisis in order to draw policy analogies from that experience for current U.S. credit securitization markets. During the earlier episode the Brady Plan used a zero-coupon U.S. Treasury security to provide a credit enhancement for the troubled assets. This revitalized the market for Latin American debt by: (1) ameliorating the dual solvency problem that affected both creditors and debtors, and (2) revealing asset prices as dominated by risk fundamentals rather than by short-run factors. The cost of the Brady plan was quite small relative to its ...
Journal Article
This is Bangalore calling: hang up or speed dial? what technology-enabled international trade in services means for the U.S. economy and workforce
The U.S. service sector is in the midst of a transformation similar to the one undergone by the manufacturing sector. Some jobs are moving to other countries, some are disappearing, some are being born. But the service-sector transformation is likely to be different. Technological advances and globalization are making it possible, but these factors reinforce each other in such a way that the gains to the U.S. economy are likely to be greater than with manufacturing, and the transition costs more widespread. Thus, superior and better coordinated domestic and international policies are needed ...