KREDIT und KAPITAL - Issue 1/1988


Contents


Articles

Goodhart, Charles A. E.
The Political Economy of Monetary Policy Decisions

Wagner, Helmut
Soll die Bundesbank eine nominelle BSP-Regelpolitik betreiben?

Müller, Anton P.
Internationale Determinanten der Geldpolitik

Sijben, Jac. J.
Financial Innovations, Monetary Policy and Financial Stability

Fuhrmann, Wilfried
Die Theorie rationaler Erwartungen: Das Ende der Konjunkturpolitik?

Knoester, Anthonie
Pigou and Buffer Effects in Monetary Economics

Rolfes, Bernd and Krämer, Christoph
Erfolgsorientierte Steuerung marktbezogener Organisationseinheiten in Kreditinstituten


Reports

Dobrovolny, Georg J.
Zur Aussagekraft der Angaben über den Schuldendienst


Book Reviews

Binmore, Ken und Dasgupta, Parta (Hrsg.)
Economic Organizations as Games
(Werner Güth)

Jander, Sigurd
Der Einfluß der Geldpolitik auf die Kapitalmarktentwicklung
(Adalbert Palm)

Hartwig, Karl-Hans
Monetäre Steuerungsprobleme in sozialistischen Planwirtschaften
(Adam Zwass)

Gowland, David
Money Inflation and Unemployment. The Role of Money in the Economy
(Werner Lachmann)


Summaries

Goodhart, Charles A. E.
„The Political Economy of Monetary Policy Decisions“

Mayer (1987) claims that the Central Bank does not operate discretionary monetary policy efficiently owing to "political pressures, the central bank's self-interest and the Potential for X-inefficiency". While this politico-economic approach can be illuminating, Mayer does not specify in sufficient detail the nature of such political pressures. One cause of such pressures may be a desire of the majority, of poorer workers, to redistribute wealth away from the rich rentier. While my personal experience leads me to dismiss the „self-interest“ and „X-inefficiency“ theories, I would put more weight than Mayer on time-inconsistency problems.

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Wagner, Helmut
„Should West Germany's Bundesbank Pursue - A GNP Regulating Policy?“

This paper discusses a proposal that has attracted great attention, internationally, in recent years. It suggests that the nominal Gross National Product (GNP) or its growth rate should be targeted and stabilized by means of adjusting money supply. The introductory is followed in Part II by a comparison of the nominal GNP rule with the Friedman rule within the framework of a simple stochastic macroeconomic equilibrium model of a closed economy with rational expectations. It turns out that a nominal GNP rule is superior to a Friedman rule when the elasticity of the demand for goods is in excess of one in relation to real money supply. Part III discusses how much this result changes in the event of any alteration of the structure of the model. This paper sets out on the basis of more recent studies to what extent results are modified by considerations pertaining to inflationary expectations, longer-term shocks, varied information assumptions as well as delayed effects of internal monetary policy in particular. Part IV presents and analyzes arguments and counterarguments according to which the adoption of a nominal GNP rule reduces the risk of stagflation by allegedly favouring cooperative approaches. Part V examines whether the stabilization of expectations a regulating policy is hoped to bring about is compatible with the inclusion, favoured by most protagonists of a nominal GNP rule, of discretionary deviations in the event of unforeseen contingencies. Such an inclusion is often rejected today with reference to the theory of the "dynamic inconsistency" of policy. The centre-piece of this theory is described in Part V, whilst Part VI develops the concept of a trade-off between credibility and flexibility. Part VII gives a summary.

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Müller, Anton P.
„International Monetary Policy Determinants“

It is shown on the basis of a Fleming-Mundell model extended by the international interest rate level what adjustment problems arise in the wake of the monetary and fiscal policies of a national economy dominant in terms of exchange rate policy. With a policy mix of expansionary fiscal and restrictive monetary policies any increase in the international interest rate level invariable means that economies with a demandelastic export structure as a result of restrictive monetary policies are able to compensate the growth-dampening effects that emanate from the rise of the interest rate level by increasing their net exports, whereas no such adjustment policy exists for economies with inelastic export structures; expansionary monetary policies in these countries would even aggravate the existing imbalances. The application of this model to US economic policies in the 1980s helps to provide a consistent explanation of economic developments throughout the world during that period and leads to the recommendation to shift in the coming years the emphasis in the use of economic policy tools from monetary to fiscal and regulatory policies, respectively.

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Sijben, Jac. J.
“Financial Innovations, Monetary Policy and Financial Stability”

This paper reviews the main trends in the broad field of financial innovations, as these came about in the major industrial countries since the mid-seventies. First of all attention is given to the characteristics and activities of the financial intermediaries on financial markets and to the shifting frontiers between the different kinds of financial institutions. Subsequently the causes and driving forces of financial innovations are analyzed (deregulation of financial markets, monetary uncertainties, internationalisation of financial markets, information-technology etc.). In the next section an outline is given of the phenomena of disintermediation, securitisation and off-balance sheet activities, which refer to the increasing trend in the marketisation of banking and finance. The pace of financial innovations and the associated changes in the working of financial markets have important consequences for the design and the implementation of monetary policy. In this context attention is given to the operational meaning of the traditional money-definition, to the influence of the current wave of innovations on the money-supply process, on the stability of the money-demand function and on the transmission channels of monetary policy. It appears that as a result of the globalisation of financial markets in the recent past the exchange rate has taken on greater importance in the transmission processes of monetary policy impulses, especially in small open economies. Finally, some remarks are Made on the task of central banks, the supervisory authorities, to safeguard the stability and soundness of the whole financial system. In this context there is a growing need for coordination and harmonization of banking supervision in the world.

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Fuhrmann, Wilfried
“Is the Rational Expectations Theory the End of Trade Cycle Policy?”

Contrary to widely announced views of politicians, and despite of the theory of rational expectations (not rational forming of expectations) this survey argues, that fiscal and monetary policies are powerful tools for stabilization-purposes. Of course, those times of a fine-tuning based on a fix-price IS-LM-framework (or other oversimplified models, velocity-concepts, etc.) preached by hydraulic-economists of all paradigms are gone - in economic-theory. But still we need departures away from atemporal (mainly neoclassical or walrasian) models as well as more insights into the structure of existing economic systems beyond Say; systems which are in general open to an uncertain future with regime-changes, structural shocks, etc. Examplified through the development within the "new classical rnacroeconomics" or the "new monetary economies", the message to keynesian mechanics is an old one: "The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of use have been, into every corner of our minds" (J. M. Keynes, 1 9 3 6, Preface, p. xxiii).

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Knoester, Anthonie
„Pigou and Buffer Effects in Monetary Economies“

This paper discusses the two mainstream monetary views on the direct link between money and real Aggregates. The oldest direct link was elaborated by Pigou in 1943 as an alternative to the Keynesian indirect link as formalised in IS-LM models. It is shown how this Pigou effect was elaborated and criticised in the postwar period. It is argued that its most important weakness lies in the implicit assumption of monetary equilibrium. The paper suggests that modern disequilibrium analysis provides a far better theoretical foundation for the direct link between money and real Aggregates. Such link - being called the buffer effect - fits well into the growing body of economic literature dealing with the so-called buffer stock approach to money.

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Rolfes, Bernd and Krämer, Christoph
„Success-Oriented Management of Organizational Units of Credit Institutions Operating Close to the Market“

The market for banking services is currently experiencing substantial structural change. Its negative effects on growth, profitability and the security of banking transactions can ultimately be dealt with successfully through high-quality products only and through the way in which they are offered. In this context, the individual bank employee in his capacity of the customer's account executive increasingly personifies the decisive element in a banking policy that is customer and earnings-oriented at the same time. As a success-oriented management concept for organizational units of credit institutions operating close to the market, it is the aim especially of the profit-Centre management system to improve the staff's willingness to achieve and to coordinate and gear the activities of the staff to the institution's system of objectives through a stronger and more objective incentive system. Bearing in mind organizational requirements, the first step to be taken in the light of modern calculation methods is to develop appropriate performance indicator criteria for the institution's accounting and for its operative units. A profit centre-related contribution costing concept subsequently shows methods to ascertain the profit contributions to be ascribed to anyone unit with a profit-making responsibility. Only the integration of this single-dimensional performance indicator into the entire system of bank controlling instruments ultimately promises the desired effect: the successful management of structural change in the credit industry.

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Reports

Dobrovolny, Georg J.
„The Meaningfulness of Debt Service Data“

It has not been feasible so far to give an unambiguous interpretation of the demands of a number of debtor countries such as Brazil and Peru for a debt service reduction, because there is not any clear data on self-financed debt service. Not only is there no exact definition of the debt service ratio, but also no distinction of planned from actual debt service. In the interest of general international comparability of self-provided debt service data, the author proposes to use the derived cash flow data as reference figure in the calculation of the debt service payments actually made. This would at the same time offer a clue to the above-mentioned demands.

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