Inflation volatility is clearly important for structural analysis, forecasting and policy purposes, yet it is often overlooked in the literature. This paper compares inflation volatility among advanced open economies with inflation targeting monetary policy frameworks. The results of the...

Has the "Swiss interest rate anomaly" persisted after the financial crisis? Regarding the hypothesis that the Swiss interest rate anomaly results from systemic risk anticipation, we discuss whether Switzerland remains an interest rate island in the wake of the financial crisis. We find evidence...

It is often argued that deregulation of international transactions and its effects on the globalization of financial markets is behind the decline in the attractiveness of fixed exchange rate regimes. We argue that, instead, much of the recently observed decrease in the level of capital controls...

According to the traditional 'optimum currency area' approach, not much will be lost from a very hard peg to a currency union if there has been little reason for variations in the exchange rate. This paper takes a different approach and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may...

We use the demise of silver-based standards in the 19th century to explore price dynamics when a commodity-based money ceases to function as a global unit of account. We develop a general equilibrium model of the global economy with gold and silver money. Calibration of the model shows that...

Output gaps (OG) identify economic cycles and the cyclical and structural components in government budget balances. A new simple method for estimating OGs is presented here. The new results are more transparent than those published by the leading economic policy institutions. - The retroactive...

We examine the impact of the ECB's QE on Euro Area real GDP and core CPI with a Bayesian VAR, estimated on monthly data from 2012M6 to 2016M4. We assess the total impact via a counter-factual exercise, country-by-country and through alternative transmission channels. QE anouncement shocks are...

This paper studies the reaction of the mean and volatility of the euro-dollar exchange rate to statements of ECB officials during the first years of EMU. We focus on statements on monetary policy and the (potential) strength of the euro. We find that the Bundesbank has dominated the news...

Over the last decade, the simple instrument policy rule developed by Taylor (1993) has become a popular tool for evaluating monetary policy of central banks. As an extensive empirical analysis of the ECB s past behaviour still seems to be in its infancy, we estimate several instrument policy...

This paper studies the role of long-term unemployment in the determination of prices and wages. Labor market theories such as insider-outsider models predict that this type of unemployed are less relevant in the wage formation process than the newly unemployed. This paper looks for evidence of...