Market Imperfections and Macroeconomic Dynamics is based upon a collection of papers originally presented at the 5th Theory and Methods in Macroeconomics (T2M) meeting in Paris, France, 2002. The contributions in this volume focus on a central theme: the aggregate dynamic consequences of market imperfections. Such effects are of great interest to researchers in macroeconomics as these imperfections play a primary role in the persistence of aggregate output, the characteristics of the business cycles and the interactions of agents over time. Incorporating up-to-date techniques and methods, these contributions exemplify the remarkable progress made by macroeconomists in tackling these issues. The primary market for Market Imperfections and Macroeconomic Dynamics is academic researchers in economics and graduate students specializing in macroeconomics. Divisions of economic studies in public administration and in financial organizations will also find this book beneficial.

We would like to thank Akos Valentinyi and Mark Schaffer for their advice on various stages of this research project. We also would like to thank our col leagues at the Department of Economics of the University of Milan - Bicocca for their advice and support. This book is the result of a long term project financed by various research grants: in particular the Phare-Ace programme (Project P-96-6151-R) and a research grant from the Italian Ministry of Education under the young researchers scheme. Milan, March 2005 Emilio Colombo Luca Stanca Contents Introduction 1 Financial market imperfections and corporate decisions: theory and evidence 7 2. 1 Introduction 7 2. 2 Financial market imperfections, investment and cycles 9 2. 2. 1 The Stiglitz view 9 2. 2. 2 Agency costs and macroeconomic fluctuations 15 2. 2. 3 Assessing the differences 18 2. 2. 4 Further developments 20 2. 2. 5 Empirical evidence 22 2. 3 Financial market imperfections and corporate capital structure 24 2. 3. 1 Asymmetric information and capital structure choice . . 25 2. 3. 2 Agency costs and capital structure choice 30 2. 3. 3 Empirical evidence 32 The transformation of the Hungarian financial system 35 3. 1 Introduction 35 3. 2 Macroeconomic background 36 3. 3 Liberalisation, privatisation and financial development 44 3. 3. 1 Banking and credit 45 3. 3. 2 Equity market 48 3. 3. 3 Foreign direct investment 49 3. 4 Financial sector reform 50 3. 4.

The development of the endogenous growth model rekindled interest in growth theory. In contrast to the neo-classical model, long-run endogenous growth emerged as an equilibrium outcome, reflecting the behaviour of optimizing agents in the economy. This book brings together a number of contributions in growth theory and macroeconomic dynamics, reflecting these developments and the ongoing debate over the relative merits of neo-classical and endogenous growth models. It focuses on the emergence of three important aspects: First, it develops growth models that extend the underlying theory in different directions. Second, it addresses one of the concerns of the literature on growth and dynamics: the statistical properties of underlying data and the effort to ensure that growth models are consistent with empirical evidence. Third, it discusses the increasingly international focus of macrodynamics and growth theory, an inevitable consequence of the integration of the world economy.

Foundations of International Macroeconomics is an innovative text that offers the first integrative modern treatment of the core issues in open economy macroeconomics and finance. With its clear and accessible style, it is suitable for first-year graduate macroeconomics courses as well as graduate courses in international macroeconomics and finance. Each chapter incorporates an extensive and eclectic array of empirical evidence. For the beginning student, these examples provide motivation and aid in understanding the practical value of the economic models developed. For advanced researchers, they highlight key insights and conundrums in the field. Topic coverage includes intertemporal consumption and investment theory, government spending and budget deficits, finance theory and asset pricing, the implications of (and problems inherent in) international capital market integration, growth, inflation and seignorage, policy credibility, real and nominal exchange rate determination, and many interesting special topics such as speculative attacks, target exchange rate zones, and parallels between immigration and capital mobility. Most main results are derived both for the small country and world economy cases. The first seven chapters cover models of the real economy, while the final three chapters incorporate the economy's monetary side, including an innovative approach to bridging the usual chasm between real and monetary models.

This book reflects the state of the art on nonlinear economic dynamics, financial market modelling and quantitative finance. It contains eighteen papers with topics ranging from disequilibrium macroeconomics, monetary dynamics, monopoly, financial market and limit order market models with boundedly rational heterogeneous agents to estimation, time series modelling and empirical analysis and from risk management of interest-rate products, futures price volatility and American option pricing with stochastic volatility to evaluation of risk and derivatives of electricity market. The book illustrates some of the most recent research tools in these areas and will be of interest to economists working in economic dynamics and financial market modelling, to mathematicians who are interested in applying complexity theory to economics and finance and to market practitioners and researchers in quantitative finance interested in limit order, futures and electricity market modelling, derivative pricing and risk management.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room of macroeconomics is the question of why the overlapping generations model didn’t become the central workhorse model for macroeconomics, as opposed to the neoclassical growth model. The authors here explore the co-evolution of the two models.

The Elgar Companion to Information Economics dexterously navigates this interdisciplinary field of research which celebrates the crucial contribution of information to decision making, market dynamics, and economic well-being. Offering a wealth of conceptual analysis, this erudite Companion embarks on an intellectual journey exploring the fundamentals of information economics. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

Part 6: Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy. 19. Asset prices, consumption, and the business cycle (J.Y. Campbell). 20. Human behavior and the efficiency of the financial system (R.J. Shiller). 21. The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework (B. Bernanke, M. Gertler and S. Gilchrist). Part 7: Monetary and Fiscal Policy. 22. Political economics and macroeconomic policy (T. Persson, G. Tabellini). 23. Issues in the design of monetary policy rules (B.T. McCallum). 24. Inflation stabilization and BOP crises in developing countries (G.A. Calvo, C.A. Vegh). 25. Government debt (D.W. Elmendorf, N.G. Mankiw). 26. Optimal fiscal and monetary policy (V.V. Chari, P.J. Kehoe).

This thesis was stimulated throughout the time of my participation in a research project on Dynamic Macroeconomics, supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The starting point was the central question of how to integrate price setting firms in a dynamic disequilibrium model. Almost all recent literature on imperfect competition in macroeconomics applies the objective demand approach by assuming that firms know the true demand curve they are faced with. While this approach can be ap plied in temporary monetary equilibrium models, it proves inadequate for formulating price adjustment in a dynamic disequilibrium model, where it has to be replaced by the concept of subjective demand. Based on this distinction, the thesis starts out with a comparison of the concepts of subjective and objective demand in an abstract framework and surveys the literature on general equilibrium theory with imperfect competition. The objective demand approach is criticized not only on the grounds of its strong rationality requirements and existence problems, but also by the observation that it cannot be applied successfully to characterize determinate rational expectations equilibria in intertemporal macroeco nomics. Finally, price setting firms using subjective demand functions are integrated in a dynamic disequilibrium model in order to study mo nopolistic and oligopolistic price adjustment.