We show how monetary aggregates can be usefully incorporated in forecasts of inflation. This requires fully disregarding the high-frequency fluctuations blurring the money/inflation relation, i.e., the projection of inflation onto monetary aggregates must be restricted to the low frequencies....

In this paper, we analyze the implications of price setting restrictions for the conduct of cyclical fiscal and monetary policy. We consider an environment with monopolistic competitive firms, a shopping time technology, prices set one period in advance, and government expenditures that must be...

In this paper we study the effects of quality change on the price index for new passenger cars in Portugal for the years 1997-2001. Hedonic regression models are studied, giving particular emphasis to the relation between the form of the price index and the specification of the hedonic equation...

This paper identifies the empirical stylized features of price setting behaviour in Portugal using the micro-datasets underlying the consumer and the producer price indexes. The main conclusions are the following: 1 in every 4 prices change each month; there is a considerable degree of...

We study environments with sticky prices, wages or portfolios where it is feasible and optimal to use monetary policy to replicate the allocation under full flexibility. In these environments the optimal policy does not depend on the scope of the frictions. In this sense, the strength of the...

What instruments of monetary policy must be used in order to implement a unique equilibrium? This paper revisits the issues addressed by Sargent and Wallace (1975) on the multiplicity of equilibria when policy isconducted with interest rate rules. We show that the appropriate interestrate...

This paper proposes testable conditions that core inflation measures should satisfy. Trend inflation indicators calculated by Banco de Portugal are tested against this background. The major conclusion is that the so-called “underlying inflation”, the “10% trimmed mean”, and the “25%...

In this paper we critically reappraise some measures of the importance of time-dependent price setting rules and propose an alternative way to gauge the significance of this type of price setting behaviour. The merits of the proposed measure are highlighted in an application using micro-data....

This paper investigates the dynamics of aggregate wages and prices in the United States (US) and the Euro Area (EA) with a special focus on persistence of real wages, wage and price inflation. The analysis is conducted within a structural vector error-correction model, where the structural...

We consider standard cash-in-advance monetary models and show that there are interest rate or money supply rules such that equilibria are unique. The existence of these single instrument rules depends on whether the economy has an infinite horizon or an arbitrarily large but finite horizon.