It is generally thought that members in a monetary union experience a similar level of inflation. This paper verifies this conventional belief. Using regional data, we present statistical evidence of heterogeneous inflation in Japan. Not only does the average inflation differ significantly...

According to the Balassa-Samuelson effect, productivity gains in the domestic tradable sector raise the relative price of domestic non-tradables causing deviations from the purchasing power parity. In the literature, the Balassa-Samuelson effect is typically invoked to explain the Penn effect,...

This paper examines the behavior of real GDP (levels and growth rates), unemployment, inflation, bank credit, and real estate prices in a twenty one-year window surrounding selected adverse global and country-specific shocks or events. The episodes include the 1929 stock market crash, the 1973...

Even well managed emerging market economies are exposed to significant external risk, the bulk of which is financial. At a moment's notice, these economies may be required to reverse the capital inflows that have supported the preceding boom. While capital flows crises are sudden nonlinear...

We study economic growth and inflation at different levels of government and external debt. Our analysis is based on new data on forty-four countries spanning about two hundred years. The dataset incorporates over 3,700 annual observations covering a wide range of political systems,...

Questo lavoro analizza le due ipotesi che sostengono l'introduzione dei vincoli sugli afflussi di capitale in caso di crisi finanziaria: la prima è che le crisi siano legate ad un eccessivo indebitamento di breve periodo, la seconda è che i vincoli asimmetrici alterino la maturità del debito....

We demonstrate how capital account and trade account liberalizations help reduce inefficiencies associated with the fluctuations in the output gap, relative to the inefficiencies associated with the fluctuations in inflation. With capital account liberalization the representative household is...

One of the most serious problems that a central bank in an emerging market economy can face, is the sudden reversal of capital inflows. Hoarding international reserves can be used to smooth the impact of such reversals, but these reserves are seldom sufficient and always expensive to hold. In...

The paper considers three methods for eliminating the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates and thus for restoring symmetry to domain over which the central bank can vary its policy rate. They are: (1) abolishing currency (which would also be a useful crime-fighting measure); (2) paying...

In this paper we develop a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model of the Greek economy, in the real business cycle modelling tradition. Household preferences depend on private and public consumption and leisure. Government finances its investment, consumption and transfer payments by means...