近期经济情况

需求低,PPI高且增速快,CPI增高但增速显著低于PPI增速。于宏观总需求供给考量:

供给侧供给量基本稳定,但是供给侧价格上升(考虑AS曲线上移动)。其中供给侧价格提高来自于原材料价格升高,绿色金融要求对原料限制,以及大宗商品价格与美元绑定美元高通胀。

需求侧,需求量低,工资涨幅无法追赶物价涨幅,不消费。但是高通胀,金融市场规模预期扩大。同时低消费欲望拉低终端产品价格。

最终终端低价,原材料高价,导致生产者低利润。同时平台抽成导致生产者利润再次被压缩。病态经济结构。

解决:1. 从原材料价格入手:长期推断人民币国际化,短期限价补贴生产商(Problematic)。2. 从消费刺激入手:长期扩大内需(考虑Good-Bad Consumption转型),消费结构在转型,需要供给侧同时配合更新产品产品以与消费匹配,短期:新闻宣传(国民文化理念背景下,短期似乎无有效解决方案。可考虑政府购买,政策性囤货,或政府购买转移支付至欠发达地区)。3. 从降低中介平台费用入手(加强反垄断,2021年11月18日国家反垄断局已挂牌成立)。

思考:国家经济发展需要从生产及消费下手。而中间商虽然有加速资产配置消费配置的能力,但是过于泛滥及垄断的中间商(电商平台)同时带来了以下问题。1. 产品劣质。 2. 中间商利润过大,压榨生产者消费者surplus。此时即使市场达到类价格歧视形式,total surplus没有减少。但是由于consumer and producer surplus 减少带来了消费生产意愿降低!联系behavioral study和consumption preference。

C(L) and Good-Bad Consumption

22nd Nov 2021

People have less time to consume, thus consumption needs to be more effective, which links to the idea of the good-bad good.

People consume affordable goods. People from the less wealthy areas can only afford bad goods. However, with credits available, people prefer to consume high-quality goods. That logic constructs the relationship between credit availability and preference for high-quality goods.

The Study of 1973-75 Oil Crisis

The first oil crisis started with the oil embargo proclaimed by OPEC.

OPEC: Oil exporting nations accumulated vast wealth due to the price increase. US: the oil price increase induced the recession, inflation, reduced productivity, and low economic growth.

Whyt did Keynesian economics fail in the 1970s?

According to Keynesians, the growth in the money supply can increase employment and promote economic growth. Keynesian economists believe in the Philips relationship between unemployment (economic growth) and inflation. However, both of them hiked in the 1970s.

Why did stagflation occur?

The prevailing belief has been that high levels of inflation were the result of an oil supply shock and the resulting increase in the price of gasoline, which drove the prices of everything else higher (cost-push inflation).

A now well-founded principle of economics is that excess liquidity in the money supply can lead to price inflation. Monetary policy was expansive during the 1970s, which could help explain the rampant inflation at the time.

How did Friedman work?

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”

Milton Friedman

During the energy crisis of the 1970s, while everyone was blaming OPEC in the early part of the 70s, or the Iranian revolution in 1979, Friedman recognized who the real culprits were — Richard Nixon, who in 1973 instituted wage-price controls and, following Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter who continued these price controls on oil, gasoline, and natural gas.

“The present oil crisis has not been produced by the oil companies. It is a result of government mismanagement exacerbated by the Mideast war.”

Milton Friedman, “Why Some Prices Should Rise,” Newsweek, November 19, 1973.

Friedman believed prices could not increase without an increase in the money supply. The Fed followed a constrictive monetary policy that helped drive interest rates to double-digit levels, reduce inflation.

P.S. Fed’s credibility and inflation expectation (inflation targets) also play roles in resulting in stagflation.

Inspiration

Inflation (or hyperinflation) is a monetary phenomenon by Friedman and some economists. In China’s case, stagflation seems unable to happen if there are no vast increase in money supply and loss of credibility of the central bank.

To be continued

分析市场的方式 Market Analysis in China

  1. 宏观贯穿短、中、长期 Macroeconomic condition needs to be consider in short, medium, and long run.
  2. 短期:微观+市场(供求)+宏观
  3. 中期:周期+政策+宏观
  4. 长期:生产要素(labour+capital)+技术进步+宏观

保险研究:增加老年人对于secure money的使用,减少money held in the pocket,增加Velocity of Money,提高货币政策的效率。

Potential Ideas and Researches: 保险资金对对货币政策有效性的影响。建模+实证(see the example in the previous post: A Cash-in-Advance Model)。

Interaction Effects between Consumption And Leisure

In the utility function, consumption and leisure time might have interaction effects.

$$ U(C(L),L)$$

Currently, people’s overtime working hours increased. People hence spend more time on working and making money, and thus there is less time on leisure for people. Though wages are earned, people’s preference for less valuable goods is decreasing because of less time left on leisure. Meanwhile, consumption also takes time. Therefore, less leisure results in less consumption even though nominal income increase (did not consider the real terms now).

Ideas: Model(consumption is a function a leisure) + Empirical Analysis (include the interaction term)

近期经济情况

宏观经济情况 2021年11月14日

1. 目前国内情况仍然产能过剩,所以依旧是买方市场。国际大宗商品涨价带来的原材料上游成本上涨不能被中下游企业通过提价(终端产品)转移到消费者中,因为涨价就意味着industrial orgnisation原理中丧失市场。所以下游企业只能自己消化上游PPI带来的利润下降。

解决:保供稳价

2. US情况:供给端乏力,cost-pull inflation情况。供给方面消费意愿极低(推断),所以大额G使Aggregate Demand维持,Gov Spending仍为正但减少,可能会使AD减少。最终总供给+总需求双重下降导致经济衰退。中国情况:预期财政政策货币政策目标仍然是拉动经济刺激消费,扩大内需,同时保证出口。出口方面,他国通胀情况使外币升值,增加本国出口额。同时参考中金宏观“紧信用、松货币、宽财政”:紧信用为降低风险,货币+财政(降低T以刺激C+I)支持刺激消费。

A Good-Bad Quality Model

12 Nov 2021

1. Consider models including effective labours.

2. For producers (firms). How consumers preference of goods quality could be conveyed to producers. 消费者对质量好与坏的产品的需求倾向如何向生产者传递。

Consider a simplified model.

Firms:

$$ Y_{Good}=A\cdot L_{Good}^{\alpha} $$

$$ Y_{Bad}=A\cdot L_{Bad}^{\alpha} $$

\( s.t. \quad L_{Bad}\leq L_{Good} \)

That means good quality products take more factor inputs to produce.

$$ \pi_{Good}=P_{Good}\cdot Y_{Good}-W\cdot L_{Good} $$

\pi_{Bad}=P_{Bad}\cdot Y_{Bad}-W\cdot L_{Bad}

Consumers:

$$ u(C_{Good},C_{Bad})-v(L) $$

\( s.t. \quad P_{Good}C_{Good}+P_{Bad}C_{Bad}<=WL \) Budget Constraint (Non-negative constraint is ignored just now)

CE

Consumers:

$$\mathcal{L}= v(L) +\lambda (WL-P_{Good}C_{Good}-P_{Bad}C_{Bad}) $$

F.O.C.

$$ u_{C_{Good}}’-\lambda \cdot P_{Good}=0 $$

u_{C_{Bad}}’-\lambda \cdot P_{Bad}=0

$$ -v'(L)+\lambda W=0$$

$$So \frac{u_{C_{Good}}’}{P_{Good}}=\frac{u_{C_{Bad}}’}{P_{Bad}}, and \frac{u_{C_{Good}}’}{u_{C_{Bad}}’}=\frac{P_{Good}}{P_{Bad}}$$

Firms:

F.O.C.

$$ \alpha P_{Good} A L^{\alpha-1}_{Good}-W=0$$

\alpha P_{Bad} A L^{\alpha-1}_{Bad}-W=0

$$ So \frac{P_{Good}}{P_{Bad}}=( \frac{L_{Good}}{L_{Bad}} )^{1-\alpha} $$

Combining consumers and firms euler condition, we get

\frac{u_{C_{Good}}’}{u_{C_{Bad}}’} =( \frac{L_{Good}}{L_{Bad}} )^{1-\alpha}

Problems exist, reconsider it. Intra-temporal model + and intertemporal model in RBC framework.

3. 对于生产者公司模型的研究

Separate firms production \(Y^S=Y^{i}+Y^{-i}\), firms maxi long term total profits

$$ \max_{Y^{i}_t, Cost^{i}_t, Y^{-i}_t, Cost^{-i}_t } \sum_{t=0}^{\infty} \pi_t=A(s_t, m_t)P^{i}_t (Y^{i}_t-Cost^{i}_t)+P^{-i}_t(P^{-i}_t-Cost^{-i}_t) $$

s.t. \(Cost^{i}>Cost^{-i} \forall t \)

, where \(A(\cdot,\cdot)\) is a ratio function of \(s_t\) the market share and \(m_t\) the cross market occupation ratio (跨市场经营指数). Meanwhile, \(m_t\) and \(s_t\) are all functions of \(Y^{i}_t, Cost^{i}_t, Y^{-i}_t, Cost^{-i}_t \).

P.S. consider what is the competitive equilibrium in the long run. At the steady-state condition. VIE application and impacts to cross-market operations such as Tencent Alibaba and Facebook.

4. 消费者传递链条, 生产者->平台->消费者。 考虑情况:上游利润低是因为平台榨干上游利润,最终消费者剩余多,但是生产者剩余极低。导致Aggregate Supply 减少。

Revisit 24 Nov 2021

Generalise the model. I denote \(c_1, l_1, L_1, y_1\) as the consumption, labour supply and demand, and outputs of relative high-quality goods. Also, denote \(c_2, l_2, L_2, y_2\) as those of relative low-quality goods. Note that the high-low quality stated in this working blog only refers to relative quality.

Consumers maximise their utility function subject to the budget constraint. For a representative consumer, the utility function is,

$$ \max_{c_1, c_2, l_1, l_2} u(c_1,c_2,1-l_1,1-l_2) $$

$$ s.t. \quad (l_1\cdot w_1)^i (l_2 \cdot w_2)^{1-i}\geq P_1 c_1 +P_2 c_2 $$

$$ i\in \{0,1\} $$

The wealth of consumers is in Bernoulli form because we assume each consumer can only provide a unique kind of labour in productions.

Consumers provide labours \(l_1\) or \(l_2\), and consume goods \(c_1\) or \(c_2\).

Firms maximise profits. I simplify the model by considering only labour inputs as the factors input. The model could be further expanded by including capital term and letting the technology term be depending on other factor inputs. E.G. \(F( L, K )\).

$$ \max_{L_1, L_2} \pi = \max_{L_1, L_2} P_1 F(L_1)+P_2 F(L_2) – w_1 L_1 -w_2L_2 $$

Solve the model.

Consumer:

$$ \frac{{\partial} \mathcal{L}}{\partial l_1}: u’_3=i\cdot \lambda (w_1 l_1)^{i-1} (w_2 l_2)^{1-i} $$

$$ \frac{{\partial} \mathcal{L}}{\partial l_2}: u’_4=(1-i)\cdot \lambda (w_1 l_1)^{i} (w_2 l_2)^{-i} $$

$$ \frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial c_1}: u’_1=\lambda P_1 $$

$$ \frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial c_2}: u’_2=\lambda P_2 $$

And I can get,

$$ \frac{u’_4}{u’_3}=\frac{1-i}{i}\frac{w_1 l_1}{w_2 l_2} $$

$$ \frac{P_1}{P_2}=\frac{u’_1(c_1)}{u’_2(c_2)} $$

Firms:

$$ \frac{\partial \pi}{\partial l_1}: P_1 F’_{l_1}=w_1 $$

$$ \frac{\partial \pi}{\partial l_1}: P_2 F’_{l_2}=w_2 $$

And get,

$$ \frac{w_1}{w_2}=\frac{P_1 F’_{l_1}}{P_2 F’_{l_2}} $$

Quantity Theory of Money (QTM)

My current reviews of how the aggregate demand curve is determined and how is the development of Keynesianism and Monetarism encourage me to get further insights into QTM, which is also one of the oldest and currently surviving economic theory.

Karl Marx

Let’s begin the story with Karl Marx who is not the pioneer of QTM but partially believed it. His idea about money is that the amount of money in circulation is determined by the quantity of goods times the prices of goods.

Keynes

John Maynard Keynes also agreed on part of the QTM, but he held a different opinion about the determinant of the quantity of money. He thought that the amount of money depends on the purchasing power or aggregate demand.

Keynes also thought output and velocity (k) is not stable in the short run. (coincide with his idea of price is super sticky in the very short run)

The Cambridge equation formed as the following,

\( M^d=k \cdot P \cdot Y \)

Alfred Marshall, A.C. Pigou, and John Maynard Keynes assumed that money demand is determined by \(k\), which represents a percentage of money hoarded in hands, times the nominal income \( P\cdot Y\).

P.S. Dr. Rendahl at Cambridge taught that part in S201 Applied Macroeconomics before, but I did not get it when I am as a student. Liquidity traps would be introduced in a later blog.

Friedman

Friedman held the similar idea with Keynes that the velocity would not fixed in the short run. He also stated that the velocity might not offset the effect of money growth, instead velocity moves in the same direction and reinforece with money growth empircally. For example, when quantity of money increase, the velocity rises as well (p.s. my idea: is that still true during the covid crisis? The U.S. example might not be the case, but needs data to prove).

In summary, Marx, Keynes, and Friedman all agreed with the quantity theory of money, but they have different ideas. Marx emphasised the productions, Keynes the demand and income, and Friedman the supply or quantity of money.

Empircal Study

Here are a maths and empircal studies.

\( M\cdot V=P\cdot Y \)

In the long run, velocity and real output are constant, so money supply is positively correlated with the price level. However, in the short run, the output is not fixed, so changes in the money supply would change the real output.

By log transformation,

\( m+v=p+y \)

\( v=p+y-m \)

So the changes in velocity are determined by three parts, inflation, real output growth, and money growth. As shown in the figure below, some emprical data tell that correlation between money growth and inflation (y-axis) is close to one, about 0.82 exactly (as frequency is close to 0, means infinite long time period). Where the frequency (x-axis) means the frequency of periods used into the study. 0.5 frequency means horizon of changes in 2 periods (one period is a quarter as data are quarterly recorded). This study tells that in the long run, inflation is correlated with money growth, but the correlation is not that clear in the short run.

Ideas

  1. By the Cambridge method, quantity of money is determined by people’s income times a portion \(k\), and that \(k\) would definitely changable with the macroeconomic condition. For example, in the recession, people are more likely to hoard more money for security reason, even interest rate is close to zero by liquidity trap. How that \(k\) is determined, orhow to meature it? Also, how government and central banks’ policy could change people’s willingness of holding money?

Reference

Marx, K., 1911. A contribution to the critique of political economy. CH Kerr.

Wen, Y., 2002. The business cycle effects of Christmas. Journal of Monetary Economics49(6), pp.1289-1314.

Wen, Y., 2006. The quantity theory of money. Monetary Trends, (Nov).