Like other transfer programs, a pay-as-you-go public pension system can significantly affect economic behavior and, hence, relative prices and macroeconomic aggregates. This paper illustrates some of these effects, which are important in weighing options for reforming public pensions, in the...

Modifications to Japan's monetary policy framework will be needed as positive inflation resumes because the current monetary regime and operations are tailored to ending deflation. The paper suggests that the monetary regime should move from an "anti-deflation" objective to an inflation...

The question of how India should adapt monetary policy to ongoing financial globalization has gained prominence with the recent surge in capital inflows. This paper documents the degree to which India has become financially globalized, both in absolute terms and relative to emerging and...

Can fundamentals account for the recent performance of the U.S. stock market? The price/earnings ratio is out of line with historical averages, and the dividend/price ratio has recently reached a historic low. These developments and record levels of inflows into mutual funds have led some to...

The relationship of stock returns and trading volume is the focus of much recent interest. I examine an economic model of a rational trader who operates in a market with transactions costs and noise trading. The level of trading affects the rational trader’s marginal cost of transacting; as a...

Much recent commentary suggests that global liquidity has influenced financial conditions in the major international markets to an important degree, and that excess liquidity in one financial center can influence financial conditions elsewhere. Little formal research has addressed these issues,...

Models of Fundamental Equilibrium Exchange Rates (FEERs) impose internal and external balance, and so appeal to fundamental notions of equilibrium from a macroeconomic perspective. However, the need to estimate internal and external imbalances creates uncertainty in the approach. Parameters must...

The estimation of discount factors is a central issue in empirical finance, particularly in the literature on excess volatility. In particular, it is difficult to find empirical discount factors that are volatile enough to account for fluctuations in asset prices. This paper constructs discount...

Asian equity markets have grown significantly in size since the early 1990s, driven by strong international investor inflows, growing regional financial integration, capital account liberalization, and structural improvements to markets. The development of equity markets provides a more...

We find nonlinear feedback between the stock market and certain macroeconomic factors. This evidence calls into question the adequacy of these factors as a basis for a linear pricing model. It also means that the interaction between the economy and the stock market is more complicated than given...