This paper introduces new data on the term in office of central bank governors in 137 countries for 1970-2004. Our panel models show that the probability that a central bank governor is replaced in a particular year is positively related to the share of the term in office elapsed, political and...

Using new data on the term in office of central bank governors for a large set of countries for 1970-2005, we estimate a model for the probability that a central bank governor is replaced before the end of his legal term in office. We formulate hypotheses based on the literature on the...

Nowadays, it is widely believed that greater disclosure and clarity over policy may lead to greater predictability of central bank actions. We examine whether communication by the European Central Bank (ECB) adds information compared to the information provided by a Taylor rule model in which...

We use real-time annual data on the fiscal balance, government current spending, current revenues and net capital outlays as published at a half yearly frequency in the OECD Economic Outlook for 25 OECD countries. For each fiscal year t we have a number of forecasts, a first release, and...

We examine the relationship between capitalism and income inequality for a large sample of countries using an adjusted economic freedom index as proxy for capitalism and Gini coefficients based on gross-income as proxy for income inequality. Our results suggest that there is no robust...