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Considering three monetary policy rules, together with two endogenous macroprudential policies that are credit constraints (loan to value, LTV) for households and counter-cyclical capital (capital requirement ratio, CRR) for bankers, this paper establishes a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. Based on the welfare analysis of different combinations of macroprudential rules and monetary policy rules, this paper identifies the optimal policy combinations and analyzes the coordination effects between macroprudential policies and monetary policies. The results show that no matter what kind of monetary policy rules is implemented, the introduction of macroprudential rules has improved the level of total social welfare. In the optimal “two pillars” framework of monetary policies and macroprudential rules, the main objective of monetary policy is to stabilize price inflation, and the macroprudential policy to be implemented is the CRR macroprudential policy. This combination can effectively promote the stability of the real estate market, financial market, and macroeconomy, while maximizing the improvement of total social welfare.

This paper develops a set of three models to study the optimal tax-subsidy regime in an economy characterised by two deviations from the perfect competition model — negative externality from pollution by the “dirty” industry, and increasing returns in the “clean” industry. Its main conclusions are: (1) the optimal single pollution tax is higher than the Pigouvian level; (2) a combination of pollution tax and quantity subsidy increases consumer welfare at a lower level of pollution tax; (3) the optimal pollution tax can be further lowered and consumer welfare further increased if the quantity subsidy is supplemented by a lump-sum subsidy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how the monetary policymaker should conduct the monetary policy in a small open economy with labor market frictions. The welfare loss function shows that the monetary policymaker faces a stabilization trade-off between the PPI ination and the unemployment rate gap. We find that the welfare gains from implementing the optimal monetary policy are small relative to the optimized simple rule. In addition, when conducting the optimized simple rule, the monetary policymaker should attach a greater weight to the unemployment rate gap when the economy is more open. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With globalization, exports as a leading means for firms to operate inter- nationally can not only help firms expand their market and gain economies of scale, but also provide opportunity to gain international experience and technological know-how. Using data of Chinese industrial firms and customs data from 2001 to 2007, this study empirically tests the impact of export trade on innovation. The results show that firms' participation in exports can sig- nificantly increase the likelihood of product innovation. Moreover, this study further verifies the impact mechanism and finds that the magnitude of the export learning effect is less than that of the market size effect. This study provides new ideas for China's trade transformation and upgrading, and has policy significance for guiding international operations of firms, maintaining a free international trading system, and stimulating firm exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a simple model to investigate the effectiveness of foreign aid. It shows that foreign aid is most effective if it is given to a market economy with relatively high transaction efficiency. If transaction efficiency in a market economy is low due to, for instance, bad institutions or policies, then foreign aid will either be largely dissipated as transaction costs or can even lead to retrogression of market activities. In either case, it will be more effective to give foreign aid to poor primitive economies with no developed markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a model to study the effects of foreign aid on the creation and distribution of wealth in the recipient country. It considers three types of foreign aid: permanent grants to all individuals, temporary grants to uneducated workers, and foreign aid in the form of low interest rate loans to individuals who invest in education. The model shows that the economy may have two long-run equilibria, a rich equilibrium and a poor one. All types of foreign aid can increase the proportion of individuals investing in education, which means more people converging to the rich equilibrium and higher average wealth in the economy. In addition, if permanent or temporary grants are sufficient large, it is possible that the whole economy may converge to the rich equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops two models to study the impact of trade in intermediate goods on wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor in a developed country and a developing country. The first model assumes symmetric production technologies in the intermediate good. It predicts that trade in the intermediate good will increase wage inequality in the developed country, but decrease wage inequality in the developing country. The second model assumes asymmetric technologies in the intermediate good. It predicts that trade in the intermediate good can lead to an increase in wage inequality in both the developed country and the developing country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a note about Cheng et al.'s paper, in which we consider a dual structure of division of labour and trade that is missed in the model of Cheng et al. Though the inclusion of the dual structure will not change the main results in the paper by Cheng et al., it explores an interesting way to use a general equilibrium model to describe a dual structure with underemployment in a transitional period of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a Neo-Heckscher–Ohlin (HO) model of trade that combines comparative endowment advantage, comparative technological advantage, international capital mobility and trade costs. Using an inframarginal approach, we produce a partition of the exogenous parameter space in a host of parameter value subsets that demarcate the various equilibrium patterns of production and trade. The results are startling! They suggest that production within the diversification cone – a key assumption of the Heckscher–Ohlin theory that is required for its core propositions (such as factor price equalisation) to hold – may only prevail on the razor's edge, or under exceptional circumstances. In addition, our findings nominate a mechanism by which improvements in transaction efficiency facilitate international trade thereby stimulating cross-country division of labour. Contrary to other generalisations of the Heckscher–Ohlin (such as the various derivatives of the Kemp–Jones model of trade), our model does not assume a purely Ricardian character: comparative endowment advantage may determine the pattern of trade even in the presence of opposing technological differences, as long as total factor productivity coefficients adjusted for transaction efficiency and factor intensity do not confer unambiguous comparative (technological) advantage. Still, ‘intensity-efficiency’-adjusted comparative technological advantage supersedes factor endowments in determining the flow of trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the inframarginal analysis, which is a combination of marginal and total cost-benefit analysis, to investigate the relationship between division of labor, the extent of the market, productivity and inequality of income distribution. The model with transaction costs and exogenous and endogenous comparative advantages shows that as trading efficiency is improved the general equilibrium discontinuously jumps from autarky to partial division of labor with a dual structure, then to the complete division of labor where dual structure disappears. In this process different groups of individuals with different trading efficiency become involved in a certain level of division of labor at different stages of development. As the leading group becomes involved in a higher level of division of labor leaving others behind, a dual structure emerges and inequality increases. As latecomers catch up dual structure disappears and inequality declines. When the leader goes to an even higher level of specialization, dual structure occurs and inequality increases again. Inequality decreases again as the latecomers catch up. Hence, the equilibrium degree of inequality fluctuates in this development process. The relationship between inequality and productivity is neither monotonically positive nor monotonically negative. It might not be an inverted U-curve. The key driving force of economic development and trade is improvement in trading efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]