Home  About us  Contact
 

Quarterly Journal (quarterly + journal)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting66%
Earth and Environmental Science33%

Selected Abstracts

Mediated and direct effects of the North Atlantic Ocean on winter temperatures in northwest Europe

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, Issue 3 2003
Martina M. Junge
Abstract This study has used a multiple regression model to quantify the importance of wintertime mean North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) for explaining (simultaneous) variations in wintertime mean temperatures in northwestern Europe. Although wintertime temperature variations are primarily determined by atmospheric flow patterns, it has been speculated that North Atlantic SSTs might also provide some additional information. To test this hypothesis, we have attempted to explain 1900,93 variations in wintertime mean central England temperature (CET) by using multiple regression with contemporaneous winter mean North Atlantic sea-level pressures (SLPs) and SSTs as explanatory variables. With no SST information, the leading SLP patterns (including the North Atlantic oscillation) explain 63% of the total variance in winter mean CET; however, SSTs alone are capable of explaining only 16% of the variance in winter mean CET. Much of the SST effect is ,indirect' in that it supplies no more significant information than already contained in the mean SLP; e.g. both SLP and SST together can only explain 68% of the variance. However, there is a small (5% variance) direct effect due to SST that is not mediated by mean SLP, which has a spatial pattern resembling the Newfoundland SST pattern identified by Ratcliffe and Murray (1970. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 96: 226,246). In predictive mode, however, using explanatory variables from preceding seasons, SSTs contain more information than SLP factors. On longer time scales, the variance explained by contemporaneous SST increases, but the SLP explanatory variables still provide a better model than the SST variables. Copyright © 2003 Royal Meteorological Society [source]

Population Monotonicity and Egalitarianism for Binary Social Choice Problems

JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 3 2001
Youngsub Chun
We consider the class of binary social choice problems. A society must choose one of two public projects, money being available to perform side payments and each agent having quasi-linear preferences. Moulin (1987, Quarterly Journal of Economics102, 769,783) formulates the problem and characterizes the egalitarian solution on the basis of agreement. This axiom requires that changes in the preferences of some members of the society should affect the agents whose preferences have not changed in the same direction; all gain or all lose. In this paper, we present an alternative characterization of the egalitarian solution on the basis of population monotonicity. This axiom requires that upon the arrival of new agents, all of the original agents should be affected in the same direction; all gain or all lose. [source]

Weak Identification of Forward-looking Models in Monetary Economics,

OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 2004
Sophocles Mavroeidis
Abstract Recently, single-equation estimation by the generalized method of moments (GMM) has become popular in the monetary economics literature, for estimating forward-looking models with rational expectations. We discuss a method for analysing the empirical identification of such models that exploits their dynamic structure and the assumption of rational expectations. This allows us to judge the reliability of the resulting GMM estimation and inference and reveals the potential sources of weak identification. With reference to the New Keynesian Phillips curve of Galí and Gertler [Journal of Monetary Economics (1999) Vol. 44, 195] and the forward-looking Taylor rules of Clarida, Galí and Gertler [Quarterly Journal of Economics (2000) Vol. 115, 147], we demonstrate that the usual ,weak instruments' problem can arise naturally, when the predictable variation in inflation is small relative to unpredictable future shocks (news). Hence, we conclude that those models are less reliably estimated over periods when inflation has been under effective policy control. [source]

MEASURING MONETARY POLICY IN THE UK: A FACTOR-AUGMENTED VECTOR AUTOREGRESSION MODEL APPROACH

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 2005
GIANLUCA LAGANŔ
This paper investigates the determinants of UK interest rates using a factor-augmented vector autoregression model (VAR), similar to the one suggested by Bernanke, Boivin and Eliasz (Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 120 (2005), No. 1, pp. 387,422). The method allows impulse response functions to be generated for all the variables in the data set and so is able to provide a more complete description of UK monetary policy than is possible using standard VARs. The results show that the addition of factors to a benchmark VAR generates a more reasonable characterization of the effects of unexpected increases in the interest rate and, in particular, gets rid of a ,price puzzle' response present in the benchmark VAR. The extra information generated by this method, however, also brings to light other identification issues, notably house price and stock market ,puzzles'. Importantly the out-of-sample prediction performance of the factor-augmented VARs is also very good and strongly superior to those of the benchmark VAR and simple autoregression models. [source]

Recent and future changes to the Quarterly Journal

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, Issue 637 2008
John Thuburn
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

A Walrasian Theory of Commodity Money: Paradoxical Results

BULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 3 2000
Xavier Cuadras-Morató
This note analyses some implications of the model of commodity money described by Banerjee and Maskin (Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 111, 1996, pp. 955-1005) which may seem paradoxical. In order to do this, a general production cost structure is incorporated into the model. Two different results are highlighted. First, the existence of technologies that make counterfeiting a commodity more difficult may exclude it from being used as a medium of exchange. Second, allocative distortions due to problems of asymmetric information may become larger in the presence of such technologies. [source]