During the last decade, a new consensus has emerged among economists with respect to the way in which monetary policy should be conducted. According to this view, monetary policy should be focused in order to achieve a given inflation target. However, the

For policy makers and business cycles analysts is important to count on variables that anticipate points of inflection in economic activity. This paper studies aggregate real money balances as leader indicator of the economic activity based on a Probit mo

Central banks act as lenders of last resort to commercial banks and other financial institutions. However, there is much controversy about whether or not they should perform this function. This article analyses, in the first place, the principal aspects o

Since the mid-1970s, the banking industry has been changing rapidly, but our analysis of its regulation has been lagging. Leaving aside the sterile discussion about the intrinsic instability of the industry, today its regulation aims at preventing systemi

This note presents the arguments for and against the move from a monetary policy interest rate indexed to past inflation to a rate set in pesos (nominal) that took place in August 2001. The debate within the Central Bank was long and at sometimes hot, and