Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1989. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-177).

published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Master / Master of Philosophy

The first essay intends to answer the following questions: "Has China's economic growth become less volatile in the reform period?" and if it is the case, "What are the sources behind the increasing macroeconomic stability?" The answer to the first question is yes. Using the quarterly data of China, this paper provides robust evidence of the existence of a structural break or regime shift in the variance of the GDP growth process (most likely in 1992 and 1993). Employing decomposition methods from different perspectives, this essay attributes the significant decline in aggregate output volatility to the following factors: the increasing stability of labor productivity growth and TFP growth at the aggregate level, the declined volatility of value-added growth at the sectoral level, the increasing stability of consumption growth and investment growth from the demand side, and the decrease in the covariances between provincial growth contributions from the regional economic perspective. / The second essay attempts to examine the underlying factors accounting for the volatility of China's economic growth. It particularly highlights the role of investment policy volatility in explaining output volatility. The results suggest that investment policy volatility amplifies the growth volatility, whereas fiscal policy volatility has no significant effect. Government size and investment share have opposite, albeit not always significant, influences on growth volatility. The main findings are robust to the inclusion of additional controls, the substitution of initial values for the mean values of control variables, and the alternative estimation specifications of policy volatilities. It suggests that the decline in investment policy volatility accounts for a significant part of the increasing stability of China's economic growth, and that stable policies and a better institutional environment are crucial in sustaining the macroeconomic stability of China. / This thesis consists of three essays, and discusses several issues about volatility, growth and development in the context of the Chinese economy. / Unlike the conventional wisdom that growth and volatility correlate negatively across countries, the third essay finds a significant and positive growth-volatility link across Chinese provinces in the reform period. This link remains significant and positive in several robustness tests. Further analyses from disaggregate perspectives find that the output volatility is correlated with rural consumption growth and urban consumption growth negatively and positively, respectively. At the sectoral level, more volatile sectors command higher investment rate and higher value-added growth. This essay also finds that the expected volatility has positive effect on growth, while both fiscal and investment policy volatilities are significantly harmful to economic growth. However, the significances of policy volatilities vanish once expected volatility is included in the analysis. It partly confirms the analytical argument that the growth-volatility link in China is mainly driven by the positive volatility component. Moreover, a stable policy environment is vital to the economic growth of China despite a positive aggregate growth-volatility link. / pt. 1. Has the Chinese economy become less volatile? structural break detection and volatility decomposition -- pt. 2. What accounts for the volatility of China's economy growth -- pt. 3. On the link between growth and volatility: evidence from China. / Zhang, Ning. / Adviser: Junsen Zhang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-09(E), Section: A. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-260). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

本論文集收錄了三篇有關開放經濟宏觀經濟學的文章。 / 第一篇文章研究了中國從1978年到2010年實際經濟週期。本文首先詳細記錄了中國實際經濟週期三十多年來經驗特征, 我們發現中國的實際經濟週期表現出不同于其他新興市場國家和發達國家的獨特的實際經濟週期經驗特征。再則，我們通過建立實際經濟週期模型和貝葉斯估計方法來檢驗現有新興市場實際經濟週期理論能夠在多大程度上解釋中國實際經濟週期。在我們的估計結果中，我們發現一個包含持久性生產力衝擊的基準模型不能很好的解釋中國實際經濟週期。而在基準模型的基礎上添加了國際金融摩擦的擴展模型（我們稱之為金融摩擦模型）能夠較好的解釋中國實際經濟週期。國際金融摩擦替代了持久性生產力衝擊的作用并優化了模型擬合。 / 第二篇文章研究了發展中國家廣泛使用的財政性油價穩定政策的福利影響。一些評論認為作為發展中國家的主要貿易對象的發達國家，特別是美國，能夠從發展中國家的油價穩定政策中獲利。我們的文章研究了這個論題，我們建立了一個具有美元非對稱性定價特征的兩國家模型。我們發現發展中國家的最優油價補貼率以及它的全球福利影響關鍵性的取決於是否貨幣政策能夠有效的應對油價衝擊。當貨幣政策能夠完全有效並且能夠央行使用最優貨幣政策時， 發展中國家則不需要財政性的油價穩定政策。然而當貨幣政策不能夠完全有效時，即使能夠使用最優貨幣政策，發展中國家還是需要油價補貼來穩定油價。而對美國來說，由於存在非對稱性的美元定價，美國反而受到福利損失。 / 第三篇文章研究了進口中間產品價格衝擊的福利影響和傳遞機制。隨著垂直貿易的快速發展，世界中間產品價格的波動成為了小型開放經濟體國家的主要不確定性衝擊之一。我們建立並且估計了一個兩部門的價格粘性的模型來解釋中間產品價格衝擊如何通過垂直貿易途徑對小型開放經濟體產生影響。我們發現其影響關鍵性的取決于垂直貿易結構和匯率制度。再次，其影響也顯著取決于國際金融市場准入的程度。 / This thesis consists of three essays on Open-Economy Macroeconomics. / The first essay studies real business cycle in Chinese economy. During the past three decades, Chinas economy experienced sizable economic fluctuations along with rapid economic growth. However, the research on Chinese real business cycle is limited. In this paper, we document some stylized facts of Chinese real business cycle from 1978 to 2010. We find that Chinese real business cycle exhibits a mixed pattern that is not consistent with those of developed economies or emerging market economies. Moreover, we investigate to what extent the existing theories of emerging market real business cycle can explain Chinese data using Bayesian estimation of small open economy real business cycle models. Our results show that a benchmark model with permanent pro-ductivity shocks cannot account for stylized facts of Chinese real business cycle very well. Instead, a Financial-Friction model that augments the benchmark with inter-national financial friction significantly improves the model fitness. And international financial friction dominates the role of permanent productivity shocks. / The second essay studies oil price stabilization polices that are adopted extensively in developing countries. Some argue that developed economies, especially the US, may gain from these policies through trade. This paper studies this issue in a two-country model with dollar currency pricing. We find that the optimal level of oil price stabilization chosen by developing countries and its implications for global welfare depend critically on whether monetary policy can eectively respond to oil shocks. In an environment without monetary shocks, when optimal monetary policies are considered, there is no role for oil price stabilization in developing countries. However, to make the oil price stabilization policy redundant, optimal monetary policy is not necessary. Some non-optimal endogenous monetary policies satisfying certain conditions can also make the developing countries choose zero oil price stabilization. The results change when there are monetary shocks. Even with optimal monetary policies, the developing countries will choose a positive level of oil price stabilization. However, due to dollar currency pricing, the US actually loses from the stabilization policy. Our results are well supported by the quantitative analysis in a full-fledged dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. / The third essay studies the welfare implication and transmission mechanism of imported intermediate goods price shock. With the rapid growth of vertical trade in small open economies, the world price fluctuation of intermediate goods has increasingly become one of major uncertainties faced by these economies. This paper develops and estimates a two-sector sticky-price model to show how intermediate goods price shock affects small open economies through vertical trade. We find that the effects depend critically on the structure of vertical trade and exchange rate policy regime. Furthermore, the quantitative eects of intermediate goods price shock also change significantly with the degree of financial integration. / 1. Real business cycle in Chinese economy -- 2. Oil price stabilization and global welfare -- 3. The effects of intermediate good price shocks on small open economy. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Wu, Zhouheng. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references. / Abstracts also in Chinese.

Wang, Boqun. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-37). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgment --- p.ii / Contents --- p.iii / List of Tables and Figures --- p.iv / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.v / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.1 / Chapter 2.1. --- Interpretation of the Output Moderation --- p.3 / Chapter 3 . --- Reduction of Output Volatility in China --- p.6 / Chapter 3.1. --- Data Description --- p.8 / Chapter 3.2. --- Basic Statistical Analysis --- p.8 / Chapter 3.3 --- Decomposition of the Reduction in Volatility --- p.13 / Chapter 3.4. --- Compositional Change --- p.13 / Chapter 4. --- Output Volatility Drop from Central-planning to Economic transition…… --- p.15 / Chapter 5. --- Output Moderation during the Reform Period --- p.19 / Chapter 5.1. --- Conceptual Framework --- p.19 / Chapter 5.2. --- General Determinants --- p.19 / Chapter 5.2.1. --- China-specific Determinants --- p.22 / Chapter 5.3. --- Panel Regression --- p.23 / Chapter 5.3.1. --- Without Share --- p.25 / Chapter 5.3.2. --- With Share --- p.29 / Chapter 5.3.3. --- Interpretation of the Regression Result --- p.33 / Chapter 6. --- Conclusion --- p.33 / References --- p.35 / Figures and Tables --- p.38

published_or_final_version / Applied Statistics / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This dissertation consists of two essays. The first essay focuses on developing a quantitative theory for a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with a housing sector allowing for both contemporaneous and news shocks. The second essay is an empirical study on the macroeconomic forecasting using both structural and non-structural models. In the first essay, we develop a DSGE model with a housing sector, which incorporates both contemporaneous and news shocks to domestic and external fundamentals, to explore the kind of and the extent to which different shocks to economic fundamentals matter for driving housing market dynamics in a small open economy. The model is estimated by the Bayesian method, using data from Hong Kong. The quantitative results show that external shocks and news shocks play a significant role in this market. Contemporaneous shock to foreign housing preference, contemporaneous shock to terms of trade, and news shocks to technology in the consumption goods sector explain one-third each of the variance of housing price. Terms of trade contemporaneous shock and consumption technology news shocks also contribute 36% and 59%, respectively, to the variance in housing investment. The simulation results enable policy makers to identify the key driving forces behind the housing market dynamics and the interaction between housing market and the macroeconomy in Hong Kong. In the second essay, we compare the forecasting performance between structural and non-structural models for a small open economy. The structural model refers to the small open economy DSGE model with the housing sector in the first essay. In addition, we examine various non-structural models including both Bayesian and classical time-series methods in our forecasting exercises. We also include the information from a large-scale quarterly data series in some models using two approaches to capture the influence of fundamentals: extracting common factors by principal component analysis in a dynamic factor model (DFM), factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR), and Bayesian FAVAR (BFAVAR) or Bayesian shrinkage in a large-scale vector autoregression (BVAR). In this study, we forecast five key macroeconomic variables, namely, output, consumption, employment, housing price inflation, and CPI-based inflation using quarterly data. The results, based on mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean squared error (RMSE) of one to eight quarters ahead out-of-sample forecasts, indicate that the non-structural models outperform the structural model for all variables of interest across all horizons. Among the non-structural models, small-scale BVAR performs better with short forecasting horizons, although DFM shows a similar predictive ability. As the forecasting horizon grows, DFM tends to improve over other models and is better suited in forecasting key macroeconomic variables at longer horizons.

by Cheung Hoi-Pang, Hung Leung-Bun. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-37). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II --- COBWEB THEOREM --- p.4 / The Cobweb Theory --- p.4 / Divergent Fluctuation --- p.5 / Continuos Fluctuation --- p.6 / Convergent Fluctuation --- p.6 / Mathematical Model --- p.7 / Hong Kong's Private Residential Property Market --- p.8 / Data and Evaluation --- p.11 / Chapter III --- PREY-PREDATOR MODEL --- p.14 / The Prey Predator Model --- p.15 / Observation --- p.17 / The Data --- p.19 / The Model --- p.20 / Chapter IV --- CONCLUSION --- p.22 / APPENDIX --- p.24 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.36