István Kónya

Optimal Immigration and Cultural Assimilation

This article develops a model that examines the role of cultural conflict in immigration and immigration policy. Cultural differences lead to frictions between natives and immigrants unless the latter make a costly investment to assimilate. This article’s key contribution is the joint analysis of the assimilation and migration decisions, which highlights the inefficiency of some commonly advocated policy tools to achieve the first best. U.S. data provide preliminary support for the model’s implications.

International Consumption Patterns among High-Income Countries: Evidence from the OECD Data

The paper analyzes product-level consumption patterns among countries in the OECD in the period from 1985 to 1999. Estimation results find robust evidence of strong convergence in cross-country consumption patterns. The paper also finds a relationship between openness and the cross-country consumption pattern.

Interest Premium, Sudden Stop, and Adjustment in a Small Open Economy

This article studies the adjustment process of a small open economy to a sudden worsening of external conditions. The sudden stop is modeled by the use of a highly nonlinear specification that captures credit constraints in a convenient way. The advantage of this approach is that the effects of the shock become highly conditional on the external debt position of the economy. A two-sector model with money-in-the-utility is adopted, thereby making it possible to study sectoral asymmetries in the adjustment process, and also the role of currency mismatch. The model is calibrated to the behavior of the Hungarian economy in the 2000s, and its crisis experience in 2008–11 in particular. Four counterfactuals are calculated: two with different exchange rate policies (a more flexible float and a perfect peg), and both of these policy regimes with smaller initial indebtedness. Overall, the model is able to fit the movements of key aggregate and sectoral macroeconomic variables after the crisis by producing a large and protracted deleveraging process. It also offers a meaningful quantification of the policy tradeoff between facilitating the real adjustment by letting the currency depreciate and protecting consumption expenditures by limiting the adverse effect of exchange rate movements on household balance sheets.

Növekedés és pénzügyi környezet

A tanulmanyban a magyar gazdasag 1995-2015 kozotti novekedesi palyajanak kulső meghatarozoit vizsgaljuk. Fő kerdesunk az, hogy mely sokkok magyarazzak elsősorban a GDP es fő osszetevőinek volatilitasat a vizsgalt időszakban. Az elemzeshez a neoklasszikus novekedesi modell sztochasztikus valtozatat hasznaljuk, amelyben elsősorban a technologiai, novekedesi, illetve a kamat pre mium sokkok hozzajarulasat elemezzuk. Az empirikus sokkok dekom po zi cioja hoz bayesi becslest vegzunk, magyar novekedesi idősorokat hasznalva. Eredmenyeink azt mutatjak, hogy a magyar GDP-novekedes valtozasait elsősorban perzisztens technologiai sokkok magyaraztak, mig a novekedes osszeteteleben a kulső kamat premium sokkok is jelentős szerepet jatszottak. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kod: E13, O11, O41, O47.

A magyar növekedésről - egy régimódi megközelítés

A novekedeselmelet a kozgazdasagtan legregibb es leginkabb kozponti kerdeseit vizsgalja. Mi magyarazza a vilaggazdasag hosszu stagnalasa utani robbanasszerű novekedest? Miert sikerult a mai fejlett orszagoknak tartos, kiegyensulyozott novekedest elerniuk? Milyen okokra vezethető vissza a vilag tobbi orszaganak relativ leszakadasa? Melyek a sikeres felzarkozas receptjei? Nyilvanvalo, hogy a dilemmaknak a megvalaszolasa alapvető fontossagu mind a vilaggazdasag, mind Magyarorszag szamara. A feltett kerdesek teljes megvalaszolasa termeszetesen lehetetlen, de a szerző – aki a Magyar Kozgazdasagtudomanyi Egyesulet hivatalba lepő elnokekent a magyar gazdasag elmult husz evenek novekedeseről tartott előadast az egyesulet eves konferenciajan – korabbi es folyamatban levő kutatasai alapjan igyekszik reszlegesen valaszolni.* Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kod: O47, E01, E25, J21.

How does labour market structure affect the response of economies to shocks

The recent crisis in the Eurozone has led to much discussion about the structure of labour markets in different Eurozone economies. In particular, there has been much talk of the need for structural labour market reform in the Eurozone periphery. But, there are many aspects of labour market structure – eg, wage flexibility, flexibility in hiring and firing, benefits, etc – and it is not clear a priori which aspects really matter. In this paper, we analyse how cross-country differences in labour market characteristics – in particular, wage and employment rigidities – shape the response of different countries to a variety of macroeconomic shocks. To address this question, we use a calibrated small open economy model in which we set the parameters governing the structural characteristics of the labour market based on three European countries: Estonia, Finland and Spain. We found that, given our labour market calibrations, we would expect output and unemployment to be much more adversely affected by the shocks associated with the financial crisis in countries with high unemployment benefit replacement ratios and high job turnover rates.

Munkapiaci áramlások Magyarországon és Európában

A szakirodalomban bevett gyakorlat allomanyi adatokbol munkapiaci aramlasokat szamolni. Ahhoz, hogy az igy kapott aramlasi ratakat a standard munkapiaci keresesi modellben hasznalhassuk, feltetelezni kell, hogy a kozgazdasagi szempontbol relevans mozgasok a foglalkoztatottsag es a munkanelkuliseg kozott zajlanak. Ha azonban a munkapiaci reszvetel es az inaktivitas kozott is jelentősek az aramlasok, es ha ez utobbiakat nem vesszuk figyelembe, akkor a szamitasok nagymertekben torzulnak. A rendelkezesre allo allomanyi adatokbol nem identifikalhato ugyan az osszes aramlas, de reszleges identifikacio lehetseges. A cikkben bemutatunk egy olyan, tudomasunk szerint uj modszert, amelynek segitsegevel az osszevont allomanyokbol azonosithatok a makrookonomiai szempontbol relevans atmeneti valoszinűsegek. Az ismertetett modszer konnyen hasznalhato, az alkalmazas lepeseit reszletesen is leirjuk a felhasznalok szamara. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kod: C82, E24, J63, J64.