Annika Alexius

Monetary Policy and Swedish Unemployment Fluctuations

A widely spread belief among economists is that monetary policy has relatively short-lived effects on real variables such as unemployment. Previous studies indicate that monetary policy affects the output gap only at business cycle frequencies, but the effects on unemployment may well be more persistent in countries with highly regulated labor markets. We study the Swedish experience of unemployment and monetary policy. Using a structural VAR we find that around 30 percent of the fluctuations in unemployment are caused by shocks to monetary policy. The effects are also quite persistent. In the preferred model, almost 30 percent of the maximum effect of a shock still remains after ten years.

MEASURES OF TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS CYCLE

We analyze the technology shocks identified by two different structural VAR models and compare them with classical and refined Solow residuals. The measures of technology are reasonably highly correlated. Alternative identifying restrictions in the VARs, however, have different theoretical as well as empirical consequences for the technology shocks. King et al.s (1991) model and the classical Solow residual capture a mixture of technology and labor supply shocks, whereas the technology shocks from Gals model and the refined Solow residuals are robust to the latter phenomenon. Moreover, we find that the two robust measures of technology are negatively correlated with hours worked.

Sources of Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations in the Nordic Countries

In an attempt to move beyond the purchasing power parity hypothesis, this paper addresses two issues. The first concerns the causes of movements in real exchange rates. In contrast to the typical result, supply shocks are found to dominate the long-run variance decompositions for each of the four Nordic countries under study. This suggests that productivity developments are the most important determinant of long-run movements in real exchange rates. A second topic is the relative importance of stationary and non-stationary components of real exchange rates. Also in contrast to previous findings, transitory shocks are more important than permanent shocks for three of the four countries. Copyright 2001 by The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

Real Exchange Rates and Fundamentals: Evidence from 15 OECD Countries

In an extended Balassa–Samuelson model, long-run real exchange rates are determined by relative productivity and terms of trade. We present evidence of systematic long-run relationships between these fundamental variables and real exchange rates in a data set covering 15 OECD countries from 1960 to 1996. High relative productivity is associated with real exchange rate appreciations in most cases. There is less support for the hypothesis that the terms of trade affect equilibrium real exchange rates.

Exchange rates and long-term bonds

Tentative evidence suggests that the empiricalfailure of uncovered interest parity (UIP) is confined to short-term interest rates. Tests of UIP for long-term interest rates are however hampered by various data problems. By focusing on short investments in long-term bonds, these data problems can be avoided. We study the relationship between the US dollar - Deutsch Mark exchange rate and German and American bond rates. The hypothesis that expected returns to investments in bonds denominated in the two currencies are equal cannot be rejected. This result is not simply due to low power as the beta-coefficients are close to unity. For the corresponding short-term interest rates, the typical finding of a large and significantly negative beta-coefficient is confirmed.

Pricing-to-market in Swedish Exports

Fluctuations in prices of Swedish exports to five countries are investigated in this paper. The authors test whether there are systematic differences between prices to different markets and whether relative export prices are affected by macroeconomic conditions in destination countries. The test results indicate that deviations from no pricing-to-market and neutrality of money are quite common and persistent. Over a sample of fifteen years, long-run monetary neutrality is rejected in almost half of the cases. In most cases, the degree of pricing-to-market is also affected by aggregate demand in export markets. Copyright 1999 by The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

Inflation rules with consistent escape clauses

Simple inflation targets may be supplemented with an escape clause to be evoked in case the economy is hit by a major supply shock. In this paper, consistent solutions to the Flood and Isard (1990) escape clause model are derived in the spirit of Lohmann (1990), She showed that Flood and Isards assumption of symmetric boundary values of shocks, outside of which the zero inflation rule should be broken, is inconsistent if the output or employment target differs from the natural rate. This is quantitatively important since the optimal boundary values in the consistent model are highly asymmetric. The effects of unemployment persistence on the optimal escape clause are also investigated in a two period version of the model. In the second period, monetary policy should respond more often to supply shocks if unemployment is persistent. The first period effect may be of either sign.

A Latent Factor Model of European Exchange Rate Risk Premia

The floating of a number of European currencies in 1992-93 created a new body of data on foreign exchange risk premia, or deviations from uncovered interest rate parity (UIP). In this paper, excess returns to investments in SEK, NOK, FIM, GBP, ITL and ESP against the DEM are investigated. First, univariate GARCH-M models are estimated for each currency and UIP is tested. UIP fares as badly on this data set as in most other studies. Then a latent factor GARCH model that takes common effects in the different currency markets into account is applied. The risk premia are modelled as functions of time varying factor variances. A Kalman filter is used to identify the unobservable risk factors. A one-factor model that allows for idiosyncratic risk seem to fit the data quite well. However, the puzzling finding is made that the factor risk does not appear to be priced. Copyright @ 1999 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. All rights reserved.