KREDIT und KAPITAL - Issue 3/1992


Contents


Articles

Wagner, Helmut
Seignorage und Inflationsdynamik. Einige grundlegende Zusammenhänge

Conrad, Klaus
Allokations- und Wohlfahrtseffekte der Besteuerung: Die Vorschläge zur Reform der Unternehmensbesteuerung

Sterken, Elmer
The Financial Transactions Motive in the Dutch Money Demand Function

Neus, Werner und Nippel, Peter
Investitionsvolumen und Risikoallokation. Einige Anmerkungen

Karras, Georgios
Nominal Effects of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Greece


Reports

Wiebke, Harald
Internationale Aktivitäten zur Harmonisierung bankaufsichtlicher Eigenkapitalvorschriften: Eine Zwischenbilanz (Teil I: Eigenkapitalfunktionen und Eigenkapitalbegriff)


Book Reviews

Welfens, J. J. Paul
European Monetary Integration. From German Dominance to an EC Central Bank? (Werner Lachmann)

Fuchs, Hans Gerd und Klose, Alfred und Kramer, Rolf (Hrsg.)
Güter und Ungüter. Eine Freundesgabe für Gerhard Merk zum 60. Geburtstag (Stefanie Hamacher)


Summaries

Wagner, Helmut
"Seigniorage and the Dynamism of Inflation Certain Basic Interrelationships"

The starting point of this analysis in the conclusion known from the theory of inflation financing that an incentive invariably exists to seigniorage-based financing of public expenditures in those countries where the government has the note-issuing monopoly. This incentive is all the stronger the greater the difficulty of realizing alternative financing options and the stronger the political pressure for public expenditure increases. These conditions causing such incentive to be strong exist in most developing countries, especially where the distribution climate is characterized by conflict as is largely the case in Latin America. On the other hand, seigniorage-based financing of public expenditures is all the easier the stronger the note-issuing bank's dependence on the country's government.

Seigniorage-based financing of public expenditures may now be assumed to be the cause of the dynamism of inflation and even hyperinflation under certain conditions studied in this paper in some detail. Even though seigniorage-based financing of public expenditures is not necessarily any indispensable condition for the dynamism of inflation (ec. section III. 1 for details), it poses an incessant danger of rising inflation in an economy. Hyperinflation may be unleashed by seigniorage-based financing of public expenditures even where the steady-state seigniorage shows a Laffer-curve characteristic and where transactors have rational expectations. This supposition may well be justified as microeconomically founded rational political behaviour, as indicated in section III. 3. One would simply have to assume that the political authority has an information lead as regards its own inflationary intentions, that the learning process of private transactors is slow insofar as changes in inflationary intentions over time are concerned and that the time preference rate of the political authority is high. The same section also shows that there may be multiple inflation equilibria and that an economy, even if it is spared the fate of hyperinflation, may nonetheless end up with a higher rate of inflation than absolutely necessary. This is the case especially where economic policy does not provide any adequate nominal anchor (as a protective device so to speak).

The dynamic system (in)stability and the kind of expectations formed are major distinctive criteria in the theoretical model analysis figuring in section III. With reference to those two distinctive criteria, section IV discusses the basis of the necessary and adequate economic policy precautions against such seigniorage-based financing of the dynamism of inflation. It is especially emphasized in this context that in certain situations a socalled "orthodox" stabilization strategy may be sufficient, whilst in other situations - such as system instability and/or the formation of rational expectations - a socalled "heterodox" strategy would rather be preferable or necessary, respectively.

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Conrad, Klaus
"The Excess Burden of Taxation: The Proposals for a Reform of Company Taxation"

Since by international comparison, tax rates on capital income are rather high in Germany, a reform of company taxation would be welcome, given its present uneven incidence on individual enterprises and the pursuit of greater harmonisation of tax systems across EC countries. The purpose of this intertemporal general equilibrium model of the German economy is to analyze the impact of present German tax reform proposals on the efficiency of capital allocation and on Potential welfare gains. The methodology for measuring the difference in excess burden under alternative tax systems is based on the intertemporal general equilibrium approach employed by Jorgenson and Yun (1986) to analyze U. S. tax reform proposals.

Given expenditure and budget deficit, the government should choose taxes so as to maximize social welfare. Hence, tax cut proposals to reduce the excess burden require distorting tax increases to meet the given revenue requirements. Our objective is to measure the net social gain or cost of a compensating tax system which is supposed to be less distorting. Proposals for a tax reform include a recent proposal of the tax reform committee, tax cuts in taxes on capital income, and a reduction of the business (trade) taxes on profits and capital.

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Sterken, Elmer
"The Financial Transactions Motive in the Dutch Money Demand Function"

In this article empirical evidence on the Dutch money demand function is shown. The importance of wealth effects on money demand both in the short- and long run is stressed. The long run money demand equations have been tested on their equilibrium properties. Corresponding short run equations have been modelled in Error Correction Models. It is shown that the macro money demand function needs a disaggregation into assets and sectoral demand functions in order to understand the recent increase in Dutch money demand.

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Neus, Werner and Nippel, Peter
"Observations on Investment Volume and Risk Allocation"

Contrary to the 1991 findings of Neus I Nippel, there is no influence bearing on investment decisions in situations of asymmetrical distribution of information before contracts are concluded between entrepreneurs and investors seeking to obtain capital participations.

Where the mere weighing of risk-sharing considerations against investment motivations suggests to an entrepreneur that it is recommendable for him to deviate from the optimum risk allocation, distortions in the allocation of capital cannot be ruled out. Increased asymmetry in the distribution of information (prior to contract conclusion) with the possibility of overcoming it by signalling will not result in any further distortion in the allocation of capital, although it will in fact lead to reduced quasireturns because of wider deviations from the optimal risk allocation. The reason at the base of this conclusion is that an entrepreneur who is not more than indifferent towards the implementation of his investment project does not assume any signalling costs in any state of signalling balance.

Both the correction of the mistake and the more broadly-based approach thus show that the central conclusion f or the importance of risk allocation for investment activity is rather robust.

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Karras, Georgios
"Nominal Effects of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Greece"

This paper investigates the effects of fiscal and monetary policies on the price level and the exchange rate in Greece. Expansionary monetary policies are found to be significantly responsible for inflation and the depreciation of the drachma. Budget deficits have milder inflationary effects and, in the short-run, appreciate the currency. Fiscal expansions are also followed by increases in the money growth, a finding that shows a conflict between monetary and fiscal policies and argues in favor of more independence for the central bank.

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Reports

Wiebke, Harald
"International Activities to Harmonize Banking Supervision Regulations Concerning Bank Capital: An Interim-State Report - Part 1: Functions and Definition of Equity Capital"

The single European market, which is to be in place from 1 January 1993, forces the German legislative bodies to become active also in the field of banking supervision. By that time, several EC Directives and EG Council Regulations - among them the ones that deal with the adequacy of equity capital of credit institutions and with limiting the risk of banking losses - must have been east into national law. Harmonizing national banking supervision regulations worldwide is a task attended to by the Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for International Settlements in Basle; its requirements in the aforementioned regulatory fields are largely identical with the EC's perceptions and will enter into effect on 1 January 1993 as well.

Banking supervision laws must be internationally harmonized for reasons of competition. In terms of economic and system policy, factors responsible for market failure that might adversely affect the functioning ability of the banking to capital losses of bank creditors suggest the need for regulating the banking sector. When shaping the basics of the structure of banking supervision, the supervisory authorities decided in favour of allocating equity resources to typical banking risks. Proceeding from a limited catalogue of typical exposures, a specific fraction of the bank's equity resources must be assumed to underly each of the risky lending and other business transactions; the size of this fraction depends on the type and severity of exposure in anyone case. The two-tier definition of equital capital by the Basle Committee (distinguishing between core and complementary capital) does not in all respects meet the qualitative requirements that must theoretically be fulfilled when looking at the functions of equity capital.

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