A key issue in monetary policymaking is the time inconsistency problem confronting central banks. The impact of openness on inflation enables testing this rule versus discretion debate. This study examines the effect of openness and exchange rate regimes on inflation for 137 countries from 1999...

We investigate the updating behavior of individual consumers regarding their short and long-run inflation expectations. Utilizing the University of Michigan Survey of Consumer's rotating panel microstructure, we can identify whether individuals adjust their inflation expectations over a period...

Tiny changes in the American monetary policy can have dramatic effects on the rest of the world because of dollar's double role of national and international currency. This is the Triffin dilemma. The paper shows how it works through three examples: price of commodities, dollarization, and the...

The paper gives a brief account of the Swedish experience of an inflation target in a floating exchange rate regime; identifies, documents and discusses the current problems in Swedish monetary policy and their origins; suggests what can be done to remedy the problems; and draws some general...

Over the last few decades several countries have turned to inflation targeting as a policy choice for instilling stability into their economies. Prior studies have shown that inflation targeting has reduced inflation in those countries without significantly impacting GDP. This study seeks to...

Since the onset of the Great Recession in peripheral Europe, nominal hourly wages have not fallen from the high levels they had reached during the boom years -- this in spite of widespread increases in unemployment. This observation evokes a well-known narrative in which nominal downward wage...

This 2003 Institute for Fiscal Studies Lecture addresses two sets of issues relevant to current and prospective future E(M)U members: the consequences of the Stability and Growth Pact for fiscal-financial sustainability and macroeconomic stability, and some risks associated with operational...

This paper studies how competition affects firms' expectations in a new dynamic general equilibrium model with rational inattention and oligopolistic competition where firms acquire information about their competitors' beliefs. In the model, firms with fewer competitors are less attentive to...

One of the commonly used estimates of expected inflation is the yield differential between nominal bonds and inflation-indexed bonds (breakeven inflation). Breakeven inflation is however a biased estimate of expected inflation because it includes an inflation risk premium (IRP). The novelty of...

This paper estimates variants of a small-scale New Keynesian model using observations on inflation, inflation expectations and nominal interest rates. We ask whether those variables alone can tell us something about the time series properties of real marginal costs.