Issing, Otmar and Masuch, Klaus
Zur Frage der normativen Interpretation von Leistungsbilanzsalden
Kösters, Wim
Transmission und Koordination nationaler Wirtschaftspolitiken bei weltwirtschaftlicher Verflechtung
Meltzer, Allan H.
Some Lessons of Monetary Management
Läufer, Nikolaus K. A.
Makroökonomik einer neuen Geldangebotshypothese für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Rosenstock, Adolf
Zinsertragssteuern und internationale Zinsdifferenzen
BuÃmann, Johannes
Die Bestimmung der Zinsstruktur am deutschen Kapitalmarkt. Eine empirische Untersuchung für den Zeitraum 1978 bis 1986
Hasche-PreuÃe, Christine
Europäischer Finanzraum â Perspektiven für die Kapitalmärkte, die Finanzindustrien und die Währungspolitik
Gälli, Anton and Alkazaz, Aziz
Der arabische Bankensektor. Entwicklung, organisatorischer Aufbau und Zielsetzung, regionale und internationale Bedeutung
(Joachim von Stockhausen)
Dombret, Andreas R.
Die Verbriefung als innovative Finanzierungstechnik. Strategien der Securitization am Geld- und Kapitalmarkt aus der Sicht internationaler GroÃbanken
(Felix Leis)
Issing, Otmar and Masuch, Klaus
âQuestions Relating to the Normative Interpretation of Current Balance Dataâ
An intertemporal approach to analyzing current balance data initially shows what combinations of fundamental factors, i. e. intertemporal utility and production functions of individual countries, are at the base of current balance surpluses/deficits. According to this approach, surpluses and deficits reflect intertemporal optimization. Under this aspect, the inevitable conclusion is that redressing current account imbalances invariably leads to prosperity losses.
However, any reality-based analysis must take account of adjustment costs and uncertainties as well as of varied distortions on account of taxes, subsidies an regulations; all of them may influence current balances and be at the base of surpluses/ deficits besides fundamental factors.
It would, however, be inappropriate to conclude from the existence of such factors that it would be a matter of political prudence to postulate and pursue the attainment of current balance targets. Prosperity gains can in this way not be made especially when the aim is a general lumpsum reduction of surpluses/deficits without any thorough analysis of the determinants of existing current balance surpluses/deficits.
Moreover, stability policy requirements suggest entirely different optimal current account results depending on whether production and employment fluctuations are caused by supply or by demand conditions. Finally, the implementation of a policy guided by current balance targets would meet with a substantial amount of difficulty, too; from among the possible effects thereof, mention must be made primarily of increasing protectionism and rises in public-sector debts.
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Kösters, Wim
âTransmission and Coordination of National Economic Policies in the Face of Global Economic Integrationâ
At present, great hopes are being placed in improved international coordination of economic policies, which is understood to mean a case-by-case coordination of national policies through international negotiation. The expected result is a gain in prosperity by participating countries. How well-founded such expectations are has been analyzed in a critical appraisal of important recent studies on this complex of problems reflecting the state of the art. The appraisal initially discusses certain results of theoretical and empirical analyses of the direction and dimension of spillovers of national economic policies into foreign government's target variables. Subsequently, theoretical and empirical results of game-theory approaches to prosperity gains from international policy coordination are presented and subjected to a critical evaluation. On balance, the author reaches a rather sceptical conclusion. So far, just small prosperity gains, if any, have been proved to result from international policy coordination; such gains must, moreover, be referred to as strongly risk-prone. Under certain circumstances, they may even turn into losses.
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Meltzer, Allan H.
âSome Lessons of Monetary Managementâ
Many central banks rely on forecasts to make discretionary changes in monetary and fiscal policies, Much recent research suggests that some type of adaptive rule that exploits available data increases efficiency by increasing the predictability of policy actions and the pace of economic activity. The paper takes an empirical approach. Forecast errors from private and public forecasts are presented. A principal finding, for all countries and time periods considered, is that the forecasts errors are so large relative to mean changes that forecasters are unable to predict, on average, whether the economy will be in a boom or a recession in the next year or quarter. The paper also compares the size of unanticipated changes in six countries under fixed and fluctuating exchange rates. The principal finding is that, contrary to common assertions, several countries have had less variability of prices and output during the fluctuating exchange rate regime. Based on these findings, an adaptive rule is suggested to reduce variability in prices, exchange rates, and economic activity.
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Läufer, Nikolaus K. A.
âMacroeconomic Aspects of a New Money Supply Hypothesis for the Federal Republic of Germanyâ
This paper derives macroeconomic money and credit supply hypotheses relevant in terms of monetary policy from such microeconomic conditions underlying the money supply theory of the Federal Republic of Germany as take into account the greatest possible variety of institutional details of the Federal Republic's monetary system of which the assumptions customarily made in the theory of money supply have not even taken note so far. The details analyzed include, among others, refinancing quotas (central bank limits on rediscount credit and Lombard loans), money market regulations, differences in the terms attaching to rediscount credit on the one hand and to Lombard loans on the other, penalty interest for non-compliance with the minimum reserve requirements. At the macroeconomic level, decisive consequences for the monetary scalar variable and the selection of the monetary policy indicators result especially from the effectiveness of the policy of quota variation, including in those cases in which refinancing quotas have not been fully exhausted prior to their having been varied. On balance, the ordinary money base and all its derivatives (such as the adjusted and the expanded money base including the theories built on it) ought to be rejected and substituted for the Potential money base and its derivatives. Reference is made to empirical confirmation published in a different context.
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Rosenstock, Adolf
âInterest Yield Taxation and International Interest Rate Differentialsâ
Globalized financial flows have led to an evolving worldwide capital market. Traditional domestic markets are thus losing the character of autonomous markets. The analysis discusses what qualitative effects emanate from taxes on interest income and from the deductibility for tax purposes of interest paid on national interest rate levels and rates of exchange when capital market are completely liberalized and open. The effects of different country-specific tax bases and tax rates, taxation according to the nominal value principle and possibilities of tax avoidance are subjected to a close review.
The concepts presented lead to the conclusion that countries with relatively high rates of inflation will - when applying the principle of nominal value taxation - record in the long term a lower level of real interest rates alter tax than countries with an average low of money value erosion. This cannot even be prevented by taxation systems that are internationally fully harmonized. Whilst it is possible to avoid this distorting effect by taxing real interest income only, a further interest rate-distorting influence is much more difficult to contain. For, it is demonstrated how possibilities of a tax avoidance lead to a bias in the taxation system as regards the interest rate level, total savings and the volume of investments.
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BuÃmann, Johannes
âDetermination of the Interest Rate Regime on the German Capital Market - An Empirical Study for the Period 1978/1986â
The time to maturity of an interest rate regime at a given moment represents the sum total of the internal interest rates of individual deterministic payments in future. Since it is not possible to calculate the interest rate regime from observable market data directly, but must be estimated from such data with the help of appropriate statistical methods, the yield structure is - in practice - used in its place since it is more easily ascertainable. Both are congruent, theoretically, in the case of flat interest rate curves only.
The interest rate regime on the German capital market was determined for the period under review of 1978 to 1986. Various methods were employed to estimate the interest rate regime at mid-month from the market prices of all outstanding loans floated by the Federal Government, the Federal Railways and the German PTT. A graph shows the deviations from the estimated results at several estimating dates. For each of them and for each method employed, the standard deviation of the estimated loan price was ascertained. The results show that the interest rate regimes ascertained on the basis of Shea as well as of Chambers / Carleton / Waldman are superior to the yield structure estimates of the Deutsche Bundesbank.
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Hasche-PreuÃe, Christine
âFinancing in Europe - Capital Market, Financial Industry and Monetary Policy Perspectives -â
The single European market for financial services is to have been completed by
December 31, 1992, as part of the programme for building the internal market. The decisions to liberalize capital movements and to harmonize credit, insurance and stock exchange supervisory regulations and a uniform EG-wide regime for taxing returns on capital are to complement each other in the creation of the single European financial market. As a result, decision-making will increasingly be lifted from the national to the EC level. However, the scope for discretion, which Member States contained in directives will be responsible for imperfect markets also in future. Continuing differences in tax legislation will lead to additional advantages/ disadvantages of specific locations.
Reduced administrative barriers will make Europeâs financial markets grow together in the long run which means a rapprochement of competitive conditions. The geographic distribution of the European trade in securities in the past shows very clearly that restrictions on capital movements tend to isolate markets from one another rather strongly. For this reason, the elimination of restrictions on capital movements is an essential prerequisite in cross-border supply and demand of financial services. A genuinely complete and irrevocable liberalization of capital movements and a single European financial market will bring substantial pressure to bear toward integration and represent a monetary policy vehicle toward an economic and monetary union. For this reason, there will be mounting pressure for monetary policy coordinaÂtion also in future.
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