Massimiliano Pisani

Macroeconomic Effects of Greater Competition in the Service Sector: The Case of Italy

he paper assesses the effects of increasing competition in the service sector in Italy which, based on cross-country comparisons, is the OECD country with the highest markups in non-manufacturing industries. We propose a two-region (Italy and the rest of the euro area) dynamic general equilibrium model allowing for monopolistic competition in the labor, manufacturing and service markets. We then use the model to simulate the macroeconomic and spillover effects of increasing the degree of competition in the Italian services sector. Our results indicate that reducing the service sector markups to the levels of the rest of the euro area increases in the long run Italian GDP by 11 percent and welfare (measured in terms of steady state consumption equivalents) by about 3.5 percent. Half of the GDP increase would be realized in the first three years. The spillover effects to the rest of the euro area are limited.

Risk-Adjusted Forecasts of Oil Prices

This paper documents the existence of a significant forecast error on crude oil futures, particularly evident since the mid-1990s, which is negative on average and displays a non-trivial cyclical component (risk premium). We show that the forecast error on oil futures could have been explained in part by means of real-time US business cycle indicators, such as the degree of utilized capacity in manufacturing. An out-of-the-sample prediction exercise reveals that futures which are adjusted to take into account this time-varying component produce significantly better forecasts than those of the unadjusted futures and random walk, particularly at horizons of more than 6 months.

Global Imbalances: The Role of Emerging Asia

This paper investigates the role played by emerging Asia in the emergence and evolution of the global trade imbalances. Based on simulations in a general equilibrium model of the world economy, we find that a productivity slowdown in the non-tradable sector of these economies in the second half of the 1990s fits regional macroeconomic developments relatively well, but has limited spillover effect to the United States trade balance. In contrast, an increase in the desired level of emerging Asia net foreign assets starting in 2001 not only fits regional developments relatively well, but also has a significant spillover effect to the United States.

Macroeconomic Effects of China’s Fiscal Stimulus

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic impact of Chinas 2009-2010 fiscal stimulus package by simulating a dynamic general equilibrium multi-country model of the world economy, showing that the effects on Chinas economic activity are sizeable: absent fiscal stimulus Chinas GDP would be 2.6 and 0.6 percentage points lower in 2009 and 2010, respectively. The effects are stronger under a US dollar peg because of the imported loose monetary policy stance from the United States. Higher Chinese aggregate demand stimulates higher (gross and net) imports from other regions, in particular from Japan and the rest of the world, and, only to a lesser extent, from the United States and the euro area. However, the overall GDP impact of the Chinese stimulus on the rest of the world is limited. These results warn that a fiscal policydriven increase in Chinas domestic aggregate demand associated with a more flexible exchange rate regime have only a limited potential to contribute to an orderly resolution of global trade and financial imbalances.

Oil supply news in a VAR: Information from financial markets

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects on the U.S. economy of news about oil supply by estimating a VAR. Information contained in daily quotations of oil futures contracts is exploited to estimate the dynamic path of oil prices following a shock. Hence, differently from the VAR literature on oil shocks we do not need to rely on recursive identification. Impulse response functions suggest that oil supply disruptions have stagflationary effects on the U.S. economy. Historical decomposition shows that oil shocks contributed significantly to the US recessions of the last thirty years, but not all exogenous increases in oil prices induced a recession. Finally, the contribution of oil shocks to inflation fluctuations seems to have declined over time.

The Macroeconomics of Fiscal Consolidations in a Monetary Union: The Case of Italy

We simulate the macroeconomic and welfare implications of different fiscal consolidation scenarios in Italy using a medium scale two-areas dynamic general equilibrium currency-union model. Differently from similar models, ours is rich in the terms of fiscal features. We assume distortionary taxes (on labor income, capital income and consumption) and welfare-enhancing public expenditure. We distinguish between public spending on final goods and services, public employment and transfers to households. The scenarios that we consider envisage a decreases in the public debt to GDP ratio of 10 percentage points in 5 years. Based on our simulations we find that: first, fiscal distortions are quantitatively significant; second, a consolidation strategy that reduces expenditure and simultaneously lowers tax rates has a positive effect on long-run GDP of 5% to 7% and on welfare of 4% to 7% of the initial levels, depending on the composition of the adjustment; third, consumption and investment are stable or grow on impact and along the path to the new steady state; finally, spillovers to the rest of the Euro area are expansionary and sizeable both in the long run and along the transition.

Real Exchange Rate Volatility and Disconnect: An Empirical Investigation

A two-country model that incorporates many features proposed in the New Open Economy Macroeconomics literature is developed in order to replicate the volatility of the real exchange rate and its disconnect with macroeconomic variables. The model is estimated using data for the euro area and the U.S. and Bayesian methods. The analysis delivers the following results: (a) international price discrimination, home bias and shocks to the uncovered interest rate parity (UIRP) condition are key features to replicate the variance of the real exchange rate; (b) home bias, shocks to the UIRP condition and to production technologies help replicating the disconnect;(c) distribution services intensive in local nontradeables are an important source of international price discrimination.

Structural reforms and zero lower bound in a monetary union

We assess the short- and medium-term macroeconomic effects of competition-friendly reforms in the service sector when the monetary policy rate is stuck at the zero lower bound (ZLB) in a monetary union. We calibrate a large-scale multi-country multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model to one region within the euro area, the rest of the euro area and the rest of the world. We find first, that unilateral reforms by a single country do not affect the number of periods for which the ZLB holds and have mild medium-term expansionary effects on GDP. Second, reforms simultaneously implemented in the entire euro area can favor an earlier exit from the ZLB if they have sufficiently inflationary effects, which happens when the gradual increase in the supply of goods and services is matched by a sufficiently large increase in investment, associated with higher expected levels of output. Reforms have expansionary effects because of their positive wealth effect, which more than counterbalances the recessionary substitution effect associated with higher real interest rates. If investment cannot immediately react to the reforms, then the latter has a deflationary impact and the duration of the ZLB is not reduced.

Global Imbalances; The Role of Non-Tradabletotal Factor Productivity in Advanced Economies

This paper investigates the role played by total factor productivity (TFP) in the tradable and nontradable sectors of the United States, the euro area, and Japan in the emergence and evolution of todays global trade imbalances. Simulation results based on a dynamic general equilibrium model of the world economy, and using the EU KLEMS database, indicate that TFP developments in these economies can account for a significant fraction of the total deterioration in the U.S. trade balance since 1999, as well as account for some the surpluses in the euro area and Japan. Differences in TFP developments across sectors can also partially explain the evolution of the real effective value of the U.S. dollar during this period.

Euro Area and Global Oil Shocks: An Empirical Model-Based Analysis

We assess the impact of oil shocks on euro-area macroeconomic variables by estimating a new-Keynesian small open economy model with Bayesian methods. Oil price is determined according to supply and demand conditions in the world oil market. We find that the impact of an increase in the price of oil depends upon the underlying sources of variation: when the driver of higher oil prices is an increase in the rest of the worlds aggregate demand, both euro-area GDP and CPI inflation increase, whereas negative oil supply shocks and positive worldwide oil-specific demand shocks have stagflationary effects on the euro-area economy. Moreover, the increase in oil prices during the 2004-2008 period did not induce stagflationary effects on the euro-area economy because it was associated with positive aggregate demand shocks in the rest of the world. Similarly, a drop in world aggregate demand helps to explain the recent (2008) simultaneous drop in oil prices, euro-area GDP and inflation - particularly its fuel component.