Dissertation (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A number of themes run through this dissertation, the first of which is the importance of money in facilitating decentralised decision making by lowering transaction costs and by contributing to the definition and maintenance of property rights. A second (and more melancholy) theme is that government control of money has often been poor, and systematically so since the War. This leads to a third theme, the combined force of economic theory and central bank practice of the last quarter of a century or so has led to clearer limits to the discretionary power of government in the management of money. These limits are increasingly expressed as contingent rules containing explicit targets for monetary policy, for example an inflation target. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate inflation targeting both normatively and positively as a framework for monetary policy. A set of criteria from the New Institutional Economics literature is used to evaluate the extent to which inflation targeting captures the lessons from the three themes mentioned above, in both normative and positive dimensions. The practical importance of the thesis is in the application of this institutional evaluation to the inflation the targeting regime of recent vintage in South Africa, which leads to a number of policy recommendations. Part I consists of three chapters of which the first two are mainly abstract and concerned with the theory of the New Institutional Economics. The third chapter has a historical character and considers the history of and recent trends in monetary policy. These trends are consistent with adopting an inflation target as a framework for monetary policy. The second part of the thesis starts with a theoretical consideration of monetary policy rules in chapter 4, and is followed by a discussion of one such rule, inflation targeting, in chapter 5. This discussion starts with the theory of inflation targeting, but proceeds to details of actual inflation targeting central banks, with special reference the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). The history of anti-cyclical monetary in South Africa is also considered empirically to determine whether inflation targeting would represent an important new direction on this issue. Chapter 6 follows with a literature review of the empirical record of the first decade of inflation targeting internationally. The seventh chapter is the core of the thesis and provides the institutional evaluation of inflation targeting. This evaluation is applied to the present inflation targeting regime in South Africa, and leads to recommended policy reforms. These policy reforms are mapped on a two-dimensional chart that indicates their priority and the expected cost of the associated institutional reform. Additionally a new econometric methodology is used in chapter 7 to gauge the contribution of monetary policy to the more stable economy of recent years. In part 3 the focus of the thesis turns to certain political economy considerations that arise from the independence of the central banks (as is typical for inflation targeting central banks). Chapter 8 considers the issue of central bank independence and is followed by an application of constitutional economics to inflation targeting in chapter 9. Whereas the bulk of the dissertation is concerned with the positive evaluation of inflation targeting, chapter 9 attempts a normative evaluation using the Pareto-Wicksell criterion. Both the positive and normative assessments in this thesis support the case for inflation targeting as a framework for monetary policy, / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van hierdie proefskrif is 'n institusionele evaluering van inflasieteikening as raamwerk vir monetêre beleid. Vir hierdie doel is 'n stel kriteria saamgestel uit die literatuur van die Nuwe Institusionele Ekonomie met die oog op 'n positiewe en 'n normatiewe evaluering van inflasieteikening as 'n raamwerk vir monetêre beleid. Die praktiese waarde van die tesis lê in die stel institusionele hervormings wat voorgestel word om die stelsel van inflasieteikening in Suid- Afrika meer doeltreffend en normatief meer gewens te maak. Etlike temas loop deur die proefskrif, maar veral drie verdien vermelding in die opsomming, naamlik: eerstens, die belangrikheid van die monetêre stelsel om gedesentraliseerde besluitneming te vergemaklik en as bydraende faktor in die vestiging van eiendomsreg. Tweedens, hoewel moderne owerhede tipies 'n monopolie op die plaaslike geldeenheid bestuur, het die monetêre bestuur in die moderne tydgewrig (veral sdert WOII) veel te wense oorgelaat. Hierdie wanbestuur was boonop telkens sistematies. Derdens, beide teoretiese ontwikkelings en die praktyk van sentrale bankwese het die afgelope kwarteeu aanleiding gegee tot 'n terugrol van die regering se rol in monetêre beleid en die toenemende gebruik van sistematiese beleidsreëls as raamwerk vir monetêre beleid. Die eerste deel van die proefskrif beskou die teorie van die Nuwe Institusionele Ekonomie in hoofstukke 1 en 2. Die derde hoofstuk is histories van aard en beskou die geskiedenis van moderne monetêre beleid en die tendense wat daaruit afgelei kan word. Afdeling twee fokus meer nougeset op inflasieteikens en begin met die teorie van beleidsreëls in hoofstuk 4. Die vyfde hoofstuk volg met 'n interpretasie van inflasieteikens as een van die sogenaamde terugvoerreëls vir monetêre beleid wat sedert die laat sewentigerjare ontwikkel is en sedertdien gewild geword het. 'n Toenemende aantal ontwikkelde- en ontwikkelende-lande het gedurende die afgelope dekade (en langer) inflasieteikens as raamwerk vir monetêre beleid aangeneem. Hoofstuk ses evalueer die empiriese rekord van hierdie kort geskiedenis. Die sewende hoofstuk is die kern van die tesis en bevat die institusionele evaluering van die inflasieteikens aan die hand van die kriteria saamgestel in hoofstuk 1, met spesifieke toepassing op Suid-Afrika. 'n Nuwe ekonometriese tegniek word ook in hoofstuk 7 gebruik om die bydrae van monetêre beleid tot die meer stabiele ekonome van onlangse tydgewrig te kwantifiseer. Die netelige institusionele kwessie van onafhanklik sentrale banke word rue 111 hoofstuk 7 bespreek rue, maar staan oor tot deel drie van die proefskrif waar die politieke-ekonomie van inflasietekens bespreek word. Hoofstuk 8 handel dan oor onafhanklike sentrale banke, met toepassing op die SARB, terwyl hoofstuk 9 'n toepassing is van die konstiutionele ekonomie op inflasieteikening. Hoofstukke 8 en 9 bied derhalwe verdere positiewe evaluering van die instrument-onafhanklike SARB onder inflasieteikens, asook 'n normatiewe evaluering van inflasieteikens aan die hand van die Pareto-Wicks ell kriteria wat uit hoofstuk 2 spruit. Beide die normatiewe en positiewe evaluerings ondersteun die saak ten gunste van inflasieteikens as raamwerk vir monetêre beleid.

Inflation, especially recently, has distorted the nominal historical-cost measurement of gains and losses from transactions in assets. This distortion has exacerbated the existing controversy over the federal taxation of such gains and losses realized by individuals. The main purpose of the study was to examine the equity of actual and proposed methods respecting such taxation in view of these inflation distortions. Particularly, the study investigated how the applicable law, as it was in the immediate past (1977 Law), as it is now (1979 Law), and as many have proposed that it should be (the Reform Plan), compared under the traditional ability-to-pay theory of equity. The Reform Plan combines two current and popular tax reform proposals, the comprehensive income tax and indexing. As it was interpreted and applied in this study, gains and losses from transactions in assets were fully included in income, after they were indexed for inflation. Indexing consists of multiplying the historical cost of an asset by the ratio of some price index (herein the CPI) at the time of disposition to the index at the time of acquisition. Subtracting the result from the disposition price gives a gain or loss measured in real, inflation-adjusted terms. The comparisons of the three taxing methods were based upon historical tax-return data of 224 individual taxpayers for 1970-1977. The non-random manner in which the taxpayers were selected precludes the results and conclusions of the study from being statistically extended to the population of U.S. taxpayers. Significantly, however, the tax characteristics of the selected taxpayers indicated that they were more sensitive to effects of inflation than their national counterparts. Provisions of 1979 Law and the Reform Plan were simulated on the historical data, resulting in recomputed incomes and tax liabilities. The historical and recomputed incomes and taxes were then averaged by taxpayer over the eight years. These averages gave better approximations of the normal financial status of the taxpayers than single-year data. Data generated in the Reform Plan simulation indicated that the selected taxpayers' historical gains and losses were substantially distorted by inflation. Moreover, the proportional effects of inflation decreased as taxpayers' income increased. These findings were fully consistent with two published studies. Various procedures measured and compared the horizontal equities and vertical equities (progressivities) of the three disparite taxing methods. None of them exhibited any clear, unambiguous superior ratings. The Reform Plan was only slightly more horizontally equitable and only slightly more progressive than 1977 Law; 1979 Law ranked last in both analyses, but by small margins. Importantly, under all three methods, progressivity was maintained at higher income levels, but only when income was defined in real terms. When income was defined in nominal terms, a marked decrease in progressivity was manifested. This finding suggests that the appearance at these levels of reduced progressivity, and hence of reduced vertical equity, may be an illusion. Given the above findings, perhaps too much historical emphasis has been placed on the equity benchmark in evaluating the taxation of individuals' gains and losses from transactions in assets. If so, then other judgmental criteria would seem to take on relatively greater importance. Four such criteria deemed pertinent were neutrality, simplicity, mitigation of the "lock-in effect" and stimulation of capital information. The Reform Plan appeared to be more neutral than either 1977 or 1979 Law. Whether it is simpler is questionable. Probably less unrealized gains would be locked-in under the Reform Plan. However, with respect to capital formation, considerable theoretical disagreement precluded a conclusion as to which taxing method would be more stimulative.

This thesis is a technical inquiry into remedies for high inflation. In its center there is the usual tradeoff between inflation aversion on the one hand and some benefit from inflation via Phillips curve effects on the other hand. Most remarkable and pioneering work for us is the famous Barro-Gordon model - see (Barro & Gordon 1983a) respectively (Barro & Gordon 1983b). Parts of this model form the basis of our work here. Though being well known the discretionary equilibrium is suboptimal the question arises how to overcome this. We will introduce four different models, each of them giving a different perspective and way of thinking. Each model shows a (sometimes slightly) different way a central banker might deliver lower inflation than the one shot Barro-Gordon game at a first glance would suggest. To cut a long story short we provide a number of reasons for believing that the purely discretionary equilibrium may be rarely observed in real life. Further the thesis provides new insights for derivative pricing theories. In particular, the potential role of financial markets and instruments will be a major focus. We investigate how such instruments can be used for monetary policy. On the contrary these financial securities have strong influence on the behavior of the central bank. Taking this into account in chapters 3 and 4 we come up with a new method of pricing inflation linked derivatives. The latter to the best of our knowledge has never been done before - (Persson, Persson & Svenson 2006), as one of very view economic works taking into account financial markets, is purely focused on the social planer's problem. A purely game theoretic approach is done in chapter 2 to change the original Barro-Gordon. Here we deviate from a purely rational and purely one period wise thinking. Finally in chapter 5 we model an asymmetric information situation where the central banker faces a trade off between his current objective on the one hand and benefit arising from not perfectly informed agents on the other hand. In that sense the central bank is also concerned about its reputation.

M.Com. (Economics) / Inflation is the continuous, meaningful increase in the price level of an economic system. A distinction can be drawn between demand-pull factors (where demand exceeds the supply) and cost-push factors (prices are pushed higher by an increase in wages or input prices) as causes of inflation. Cost-push inflation is the result of the exercising of bargaining power by certain groups, e.g. trade unions. Prices can escalate as a result of competition between trade unions and firms for higher wages or competition between trade unions for a bigger portion of the national income. The aim of trade unions is to maintain the standard of living of their members, whose only source of income is the sale of their labour. Trade unions have a number of mechanisms, e.g. strikes and the withdrawal of co-operation, by means of which they can force an employer to meet their demands. Trade unions usually bargain collectively with employers regarding their wage demands. There are great differences of opinion among economists whether trade unions are the cause of inflation or whether they only contribute to inflation. Trade unions grouped themselves in organisations to look after the concerns of their members while employers have also grouped themselves in organisations. The government also plays an important role in the labour market, especially because' of the payment of unemployment benefits. Trade unions can contribute to inflation because wage increases are declared nationally, trade unions refuse to· accept any cuts in wages, contracts between employers and employees make provision for increases in salaries and also include a stipulation regarding cost of living adjustments. Trade unions can increase wage demands by being more militant, the spillover effect and wage imitation. The first white trade unions were established in the second half of the previous century and black trade unions in the early 1900' s. The numbers of especially the black trade unions increased considerably during the seventies and eighties, to such a degree that black trade unions have almost 3 million members and consist of 23,9 percent of the total economically active population. As a result of their great numbers, strikes have also shown an escalating tendency (there were 908 strikes per year during the period 1987 to 1992). The annual average inflation rate in South Africa reached double figures in 1974 and has not moved back to single figures since. If wage demands since 1985 are compared to this, the wage demands from 1987 to 1991 were higher each year than the inflation rate. Trade unions definitely have an influence on wages as the increase in minimum wages of unskilled labourers were mostly higher than. that of skilled workers. The increase in productivity has however, not kept up to date with the increase in wage rates.

Submitted by Elba Lopes (elba.lopes@fecap.br) on 2016-05-30T16:37:30Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Wellington Rodrigues Silva Souza.pdf: 2159942 bytes, checksum: 4bcc65837dc19c9e3effdadb756567d0 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-30T16:37:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Wellington Rodrigues Silva Souza.pdf: 2159942 bytes, checksum: 4bcc65837dc19c9e3effdadb756567d0 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-29 / This research has provided a discussion about the impacts on qualitative characteristics of comparability of information resulting from the lack of monetary correction of financial statements in the current Brazilian economic scenario. In face of that, the monetary correction of balance sheet was applied in the financial statements of Brazilian companies included in the subsector of steel and metallurgy that are listed on BM&FBOVESPA, from 2009 to 2014. It was calculated the comparability ratio between different companies and between different periods of the same company both at historical values and at adjusted for inflation values, considering the net profit, return on equity (ROE) and the economic value added (EVA??), which are important performance ratio used by investors as users of accounting information. Hypotheses were made for each variable in order to verify the differences of comparability between the adjusted information and the historical information. Those hypotheses were tested through the application of Student???s T-test, assuming as the null hypothesis the equality between the comparability of adjusted ratio and historical ratio, so the test???s role is indicate its acceptance or rejection. Moreover, it was calculated and analysed the percentage change between the comparability ratio considering inflationary effects and the comparability ratio without those effects. The results of hypothesis tests have shown comparability between different companies for all variables. In another hand, the results of the time axis tests have shown comparable differences for the ROE, with no statistical evidence of differences in comparability between periods for net income and for EVA??. However, the percentage change of the adjusted ratio of temporal comparability compared to historical ratio for those variables has shown significant impacts on the companies, which should not be neglected. This discovery corroborates the importance of the monetary correction of financial statements. / Este estudo promoveu uma discuss??o sobre os impactos causados ?? caracter??stica qualitativa de comparabilidade da informa????o decorrentes da aus??ncia da corre????o monet??ria das demonstra????es cont??beis no atual contexto econ??mico brasileiro. Para tanto, aplicou-se ??s demonstra????es financeiras das empresas brasileiras do subsetor de ???siderurgia e metalurgia??? listadas na BM&FBOVESPA, no per??odo de 2009 a 2014, a sistem??tica de corre????o monet??ria de balan??os (CMB). Foram calculados ??ndices de comparabilidade entre diferentes empresas e entre per??odos da mesma empresa tanto a valores hist??ricos quanto a valores monetariamente corrigidos, considerando-se as vari??veis lucro l??quido, retorno sobre o patrim??nio l??quido (ROE) e valor econ??mico agregado (EVA??), importantes indicadores de performance utilizados pelos investidores enquanto usu??rios da informa????o. Formularam-se hip??teses para cada uma destas vari??veis buscando-se verificar a exist??ncia de diferen??as de comparabilidade entre as informa????es corrigidas e as informa????es hist??ricas. Estas hip??teses foram testadas por meio da aplica????o do teste t de Student, pressupondo-se como hip??tese nula a igualdade entre os ??ndices de comparabilidade corrigidos e os ??ndices hist??ricos, cabendo ao teste indicar sua aceita????o ou rejei????o. Ademais, foram calculadas e analisadas as varia????es percentuais entre os ??ndices de comparabilidade com os efeitos inflacion??rios e os ??ndices isentos destes efeitos. Os resultados dos testes de hip??teses evidenciaram diferen??as de comparabilidade entre empresas para todas as vari??veis. J?? os resultados dos testes relativos ao eixo temporal apontaram diferen??as de comparabilidade para a vari??vel ROE, n??o havendo evid??ncia estat??stica de diferen??as na comparabilidade entre per??odos para o lucro l??quido e EVA??. No entanto, as varia????es percentuais dos ??ndices corrigidos de comparabilidade temporal em rela????o aos ??ndices hist??ricos para estas vari??veis revelaram impactos relevantes para parte das empresas, os quais n??o devem ser desprezados. Os achados da pesquisa corroboram com a import??ncia da corre????o monet??ria das demonstra????es financeiras.

This Study addressed the inflation accounting problem with respect to Greece. This problem had been unaddressed despite the serious implications it may have on micro- and macro-decision making due to the high and persistent inflation Greece has sustained from 1973 and afterwards. To accomplish the above purpose, the general significance of inflation accounting as well as its specific significance for Greece was established by means of the existing inflation accounting literature and the economic setting of Greece. Following this, the relevance of GPPA rather than CCA to the Greek financial reporting was established by means of correspondence between specific features of GPPA and specific characteristics of the Greek setting. After having established the a priori relevance of GPPA for Greece, the potential usefulness of GPPA to the Greek users of accounts was established as well on an empirical basis. For this purpose the impact of GPPA on Greek accounts was approximated ex ante through detailed restatement procedures and estimation techniques. It was found that inflation has a serious impact on earnings and especially on such important (for decision making) financial parameters as tax rate, dividend payout ratio, and return on capital employed. This impact of inflation on earnings does not seem to be systematic, and hence it cannot be estimated by use of HCA numbers. Therefore, GPPA should be adopted at least on a supplementary (to HCA) basis, if in the future the increase in the inflation rate continues to be as high as it was in the period examined by the study (i.e. 25% or so). In additon to the main conclusion above, other conclusions drawn on the basis of the empirical findings obtained are as follows: 1. The Composite Age Technique used (mainly in the USA) for the restatement of fixed assets and depreciation does not work at all in the Greek case. In contrast, the Dichotomus Year Technique in the first place, and the Equal Additions Technique, in the second place, may be used for adjusting fixed assets not only in developing countries like Greece, but, perhaps in developed countries as well. 2. Operation costs of GPPA can be saved by restating fixed assets and depreciation on an annual rather than monthly basis. 3. Perhaps the Greek government should consider the taxes imposed on corporate net profits in times of high inflation because it was found that the effective tax rate is substantially different from the nominal one. 4. There are serious implications for the Greek businesses in the finding that in real term dividends are paid out of capital rather than out of income. 5. The profitability of Greek companies is low when measured in real terms. Hence, businessmen should exercise every effort to improve it. On the other hand, the Greek government should consider the prices control imposed.

published_or_final_version / Statistics / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1979. / Bibliography: p. 96-98.

The thesis has two overarching objectives. One is to understand monetary policy in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia during 1990s and early 2000s; the other to use these findings to shed light on monetary policy in less developed, but highly open and financially integrated market economies. In order to achieve its aims, it analyses specific factors with significant influence on the conduct or outcomes of monetary policy in these countries; it analyses the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in Central Europe, based on a technique called vector autoregression; and examines use of principal types of constraints on policy discretion, such as central bank independence, exchange rate commitments and domestic targets for monetary policy, in countries of the sample. The thesis finds that strong internal and external pressures, together with frequent bouts of fiscal irresponsibility and sizeable additive and parametric uncertainty regarding the working of the economy, led, in all four countries, to pronounced macroeconomic vulnerability and a need for periodic adjustment to dangerous fiscal and external imbalances. Reaction of policy-makers in countries of the sample to this environment can be characterized as discretion constrained by a strong nominal anchor and real exchange rate considerations. Experience of Central European countries shows that various elements of a commitment by monetary authorities are not duplicatory or contradictory, but interdependent in contributing to the goal of constraining discretion. During the period studied, the two key overall developments in policy were the gradual shift of emphasis from exchange rate targets to domestic targets and (within domestic targets) a shift from monetary targets to inflation targets. This approach has been largely successful.

The distinctive features of inflation targeting include the publishing of the formal (official) target band or point target for the rate of inflation at one or more time horizons and the explicit confirmation that low and steady inflation is the long-run objective of monetary policy. There are four main preconditions of inflation targeting: 1) an independent central bank that is free from fiscal and political pressures; 2) a central bank that has both the ability to forecast inflation and the capability to model inflation data; 3) the presence of fully deregulated prices and an economy that is affected by changes of commodity prices, as well as exchange rates; and 4) the presence of sound banking system and well developed capital markets. In most developing countries, the use of seigniorage revenues as a source of financing government debts, the lack of commitment by monetary authorities to low inflation as a primary goal, the absence of the central bank’s functional independence, and of powerful models to make domestic inflation forecasts, prevent the satisfaction of these preconditions. This dissertation investigates the extent to which Malawi meets the preconditions for inflation targeting by comparing the situation in that country to other developing countries, which have already adopted the framework. Malawi is committed to the central bank’s functional independence as well as the pursuit of prudent fiscal policy measures for the attainment of low inflation. Despite the failure to meet all the preconditions, this study recommends that Malawi should adopt an inflation targeting framework due to the strength of commitment of the monetary authorities in satisfying these preconditions.