Published papers

Recent theoretical papers argue that countries can insulate themselves from volatile world capital flows by using a variable tax on foreign capital as an instrument of monetary policy. But empirical papers argue that we rarely observe these cyclical capital flow taxes used in practice. We construct a small open economy model where the central bank engages in sterilized foreign exchange intervention. When private agents freely trade foreign bonds, sterilized intervention has no effect. But we prove that when frictions prevent the free trade in foreign bonds, optimal sterilized foreign exchange intervention is equivalent to an optimal tax on foreign capital. The model is then calibrated to match the levels of capital account restrictions that we observe in the data. For levels of capital account openness that we observe in many emerging market economies, a variable tax on capital flows is a close approximation for sterilized foreign exchange intervention.

Is there asymmetry in the distribution of government bond returns in developed countries? Can asymmetries be predicted using financial and macroeconomic variables? To answer the first question, we provide evidence for asymmetry in government bond returns in particular for short maturities. This finding has important implications for modeling and forecasting government bond returns. For example, widely used models for yield curve analysis such as the affine term structure model assume symmetrically distributed innovations. To answer the second question, we find that liquidity in government bond markets predicts the coefficient of skewness with a positive sign, meaning that the probability of a large and negative excess return is more likely in a less liquid market. In addition, a positive realized return is associated with a negative coefficient of skewness, or a small probability of a large and negative return in the future. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

This paper explores a causal link between aging of the labor force and the declining trend in the real interest rate in Japan. We develop a search and matching model that features heterogeneous workers with respect to their ages and firm-specific skills. Using the model, we examine the long-run implications of the sharp drop in labor force entry in the 1970s. We show that the changes in the demographic structure induce significant low-frequency movements in per capita consumption growth and thus the real interest rate. The model suggests that aging of the labor force caused the real interest rate to decline by 1 percentage point between 1980 and 2010 in Japan.

We examine the implications of automation technology in Japan since 1980, comparing different local labor markets with different degrees of automation exposure. First, we do not find evidence that automation reduces employment rate within demographic groups and automation encourages workers to move from regular to non-regular employment. Second, we show that automation shifts employment from routine occupations in the manufacturing sector to service sectors, while increasing the share of establishments and sales in the manufacturing sector. Finally, we show that this shift in labor demand is attributed to younger generations and non-college-educated workers.