Contenu du sommaire
| Revue |
Economie et prévision  |
|---|---|
| Numéro | no 99, 1991/3 |
| Texte intégral en ligne | Accessible sur l'internet |
Analyses conjoncturelles
- Présentation générale - Eric Dubois, Patrick Artus p. 1-8
Les anticipations des ménages dans les enquêtes de conjoncture de l'Insee
- I- Revenu et intentions d'achat - Jean-Loup Madré, François Gardes p. 1-11
I - Income and Willingness to Purchase Durables, by François Gardes, Jean-Loup Madre. From two surveys taken one year apart on the same household we derive models of income expectations on the basis of financial standing or household savings. Dummy variables and logit techniques give almost the same split of households having correctly forecast the evolution of their income, those who underestimated it and those who overestimated it. This transitory income developed therefrom proves to have a strong effect on car purchases. The consistency of answers to a variety of similar questions and the heterogeneity of households' behaviour with regard to purchasing durable goods and predicting their financial standing are also analyzed. - II- Comment se forment les anticipations d'inflation ? - p. 13-29 II - How are price expectations determined? by François Gardes, Jean-Loup Madre. From qualitative answers to questions about perception and expectation of price growth, collected by INSEE from 40,000 households interviewed twice between 1972 and 1988, we propose four methods to quantify this information and construct models on expectative behaviour. The main results obtained are: (i) the rationality properties, which seem to be verified on aggregate data are no longer verified on individual data, (ii) both the adaptive and the regressive mechanism are well estimated on individual data, the later becoming more and more important over specific periods (for instance when a long-term trend is broken), (iii) the parameters of these two models are shown to depend mainly on the volatility of inflation, and to a smaller degree on its level: the hypothesis made by Allais and Friedman - Schwarz (1982) is thus positively tested on these data against the hypothesis made by Gibson (1972) and Cagan(1956).
- I- Revenu et intentions d'achat - Jean-Loup Madré, François Gardes p. 1-11
- Indicateurs de conjoncture et marchés financiers - Patrick Artus p. 31-41 Indicators on the Current Economic Situation and Financial Markets, by Patrick Artus. Traders on the financial markets follow the indicators on the current economic situation closely. Making use of these indicators, however, raises a number of problems, such as: are they reliable? Do they correspond to the real economic situation? Aren't the revised figures so different from the first figures published that the first ones do not mean anything at all? Is their effect actually felt over the short term or over the long term? The effect they are expected to have is often based on the reactions central banks are expected to have; do they follow the same indicators? We aim to answer these questions on the basis of the cases of France and the United States.
- Vingt ans de prévisions macro-économiques : une évaluation sur données françaises - Pierre Morin, Pierre Malgrange, Catherine Doz, Carine Bouthevillain, Didier Borowski p. 43-65 Twenty Years of Macro-Economic Forecasts : Analysis From French Data, by Didier Borowski, Carine Bouthevillain, Catherine Doz, Pierre Malgrange, Pierre Morin. This paper gives an idea of how accurate macro-economic forecasts have been over these past twenty years. The inaccuracy is most likely due to the degree of uncertainty that the analysis of behaviour regarding the past is inevitably responsible for. It can also be traced back to the difficulty in measuring quantities in public accounts. Lastly, it is due to the complex situations economists have had to deal with for over twenty years now. However, it does not appear that the level of inaccuracy has been higher over that period, 1975 having been a noteworthy example thereof. When compared with the accuracy rate of forecasts for other countries, France's forecasts are not bad.
- Tests de racine unité et stationnarisation des séries non stationnaires, présentation générale et application au cas des séries agricoles - Christophe Tavéra p. 67-80 Root unit and transformation of non-stationary series: General Presentation and Application to the Agricultural Series, by Christophe Tavéra. Many agricultural studies use time-series models which require that data series must first be made stationary. The problem is that choosing an inappropriate transformation can lead to drastic empirical problems and bias estimated results. In this paper, we present the problems frequently encountered when using tests for stationarity around a deterministic time trend against first-difference stationarity. Both seasonal and non-seasonal cases are treated. These tests are then applied to several agricultural types of price and volume data series.
- Marché au comptant et marché à terme du pétrole brut et des produits raffinés : analyse économique et efficacité des marchés à terme - Moncef Kaabi, Patrick Artus p. 81-94 The Crude Oil and Fuels Spot and Futures Markets : Economic Analysis and Efficiency of Futures Markets, by Patrick Artus, Moncef Kaabi. We analyze the way spot and futures prices for crude oil and fuels are determined. We discuss various aspects of the efficiency of futures markets: information content of prices, the possibility of hedging against future price changes and the effect on volatility.
- Le modèle de lissage de la production par les stocks est-il valide en France ? - Eric Dubois p. 95-111 Is the Production-Smoothing Model of Inventory Behaviour Valid for France? by Eric Dubois. The production-smoothing model of inventory behaviour has been examined empirically in a series of papers drawn up after Blinder 's seminal one (1986). These papers have shown that two of its basic implication are invalidated: the variance of production exceeds the variance of demand ; the covariance between production and demand is not negative. In this paper, the empirical results found with American data are confirmed when confronted with French data. These results are apparently due to sizable disturbances in productivity. Where there is a lag in demand, the inventories play their role by smoothing production.
- Consommation-revenu permanent : un regard d'économètre - Françoise Maurel, Laurence Bloch p. 113-144 Consumption - Permanent Income: An Econometrician's Standpoint, by Laurence Bloch, Françoise Maurel. The purpose of this paper is to show how the development of new econometric techniques has resulted in new approaches and solutions in consumer theory. The theoretical context of the permanent income model under rational expectations (Hall, 1978) is first determined. The major statistical properties of the French series are given which are helpful in constructing a consumption model. Anumber of empirical tests are run on the permanent income model under rational expectations (Hall, 1978, Flavin, 1981). Using French data, we come to the same paradoxical conclusion as Deaton did, according to whom consumption is too "smooth" to be compatible with the permanent income theory. A number of extensions of the model are then developed and empirical tests on the permanent income model under rational expectations hypothesis are run.
- Endettement, rentabilité, débouchés et investissement : une analyse sur données individuelles d'enquêtes et de comptes d'entreprises - Daniel Szpiro p. 145-162 Debt, Profitability, Demand and Investment: An Analysis Using Individual Survey Data and Corporate Data, by Daniel Szpiro. The quick, year-end survey carried out by the Banque de France offers significant information on the constraints having weighed on investment decisions taken by firms since 1985. Most frequently, firms were not discouraged from investing. In the other cases, constraints were mostly encountered on demand or debt level, and only slightly on profitability or interest rates. Only the demand and debt constraints have any significant effect on the growth of investment. Firms that say that they are constrained by profitability and interest rates have an investment growth rate similar to those who say that they are not constrained. Financial accounting data from the Balance Sheet Data Department of the Banque de France confirm the reality of demand and debt constraints. In this latter case, firms prefer to restrain dividends paid in order to maintain the production capacity growth. However, interest rates are reportedly not a direct constraint on investment.
- Présentation générale - Eric Dubois, Patrick Artus p. 1-8
Note
- Logement et épargne - Joël Dessaint p. 165-172 Housing and Savings, by Joël Dessaint. It does not require a great deal of insight to observe that housing is an important factor in household savings and that the marked slowdown in housing investment is one of the causes of the drop in the savings rate observed in the 1980s. However, estimates concerning the phenomenon are often inaccurate because housing investments are wrongly linked with savings for housing. This paper proffers a different definition, making a more accurate estimate possible. The role housing plays in the drop in the savings rate is more complicated than it may seem. It also gives an account of the major financial effects of changes in housing investment.
- Logement et épargne - Joël Dessaint p. 165-172
- Résumés - Summaries - Zusammenfassungen - Resùmenes - p. 174-181
