Collaborative Research on Dynamic General Equilibrium Theorywith Distortions

本课题研究的是带扭曲的动态一般均衡模型。有两个主要领域令人担忧。第一类是一般具有扭曲的价格采取模型的理论性质(即存在性、唯一性等)。这是一项基础性研究，研究在政府政策发挥重要作用的环境下，瓦尔拉斯经济学观点的内在一致性。第二个领域是增长决定因素的更专门领域。这里的重点是政府政策对发展的影响的类型和数量性质。将对三个不同的项目进行调查。第一个涉及内生增长模型中最优(拉姆齐)税收的形式，并涉及对政府支出(例如，教育)所发挥的生产性作用的估计。这将通过分析来自完全特定的一般均衡模型的稳态方程来实现。第二个项目涉及货币政策和通货膨胀对经济增长或发展速度的影响。在有关增长决定因素的经验文献中，这已被确定为一个数量上重要的政策变量。最后一个项目研究了不确定条件下内生增长理论的变化。到目前为止，在这方面所做的工作很少。在经验文献中被认为是重要的一个例子是，货币扩张规则的方差增加对增长的压抑效应。过去几年里，关于内生增长模型的研究几乎呈爆炸式增长。这是因为这些模型在帮助我们理解增长和发展过程方面具有重要意义。这一领域的经验研究和理论研究的充分发展将使我们更深入地了解过去40年的成功(例如日本和韩国)和失败(例如乍得)。作为一个整体，这项研究将对这一努力做出重大贡献。特别是，关于通货膨胀和增长以及增长和不确定性的工作将特别有用，因为这些因素在经验文献中已经被确定为重要的解释变量。

This project studies dynamic general equilibrium models with distortions. There are two main areas of concern. The first of these deals with the theoretical properties of price taking models with distortions in general (that is, existence, uniqueness, etc.). This is basic research studying the internal consistency of the Walrasian view of economics in environments in which government policy plays an important role. The second area is the more specialized area of the determinants of growth. The emphasis here is on the types of and quantitative nature of the effects of government policies on development. Three distinct projects will be investigated. The first concerns the form of optimal (Ramsey) taxation in models of endogenous growth and involves the estimation of the productive role played by government expenditures (for example, schooling). This will be accomplished through the analysis of the steady state equations from a completely specified general equilibrium model. The second project concerns the effect of monetary policy and inflation on the rate of growth or development of an economy. This has been identified as a quantitatively important policy variable in the empirical literature on the determinants of growth. The last project studies the alterations which arise in the theory of endogenous growth under conditions of uncertainty. Very little work has been done in this area to this point. An example identified as important in the empirical literature is the depressing effect on growth of an increase in the variance of the monetary expansion rule. The last few years have seen a virtual explosion of work on models of endogenous growth. This is because of the importance of these models in helping our understanding of the process of growth and development. A full development of both empirical and theoretical research in this area will bring us to a deeper understanding of both the successes (for example, Japan and Korea) of the last 40 years as well as the failures (for example, Chad). Taken as a whole, the research will make a serious contribution to this effort. In particular, the work on inflation and growth and growth and uncertainty will be of particular use since these factors have already been identified as important explanatory variables in the empirical literature.