We derive a comprehensive one-year ahead forecasting model of US per capita GDP for 1955-2000, collectively examining variables usually considered singly, e.g. interest rates, credit conditions, the stock market, oil prices and the yield gap, of which all, except the last, are found to matter....

Economic conditions exert a strong influence on regional migration. On the one hand, strong labour market conditions, as exemplified by low unemployment rates and high earnings, draw migrants into regions. On the other hand, strong housing market conditions can prevent movement since expensive...

It is difficult to obtain reliable measures of evolving openness to trade, despite its relevance to models of growth, inflation and exchange rates. Our innovative technique measures trade openness encompassing both observable trade policy (tariffs and surcharges) and unobservable trade policy...

In common with many emerging market countries, South Africa’s government does not publish balance sheet wealth estimates on a market value basis, as produced in the US, UK, Japan, and elsewhere. Yet without information on the market values of liquid and illiquid personal sector wealth, it is...

Many factors have contributed to the development of credit markets, easing access of households to credit. This paper considers the implications of easier credit for the influence of higher house prices on consumer expenditure. It argues that with poorly developed credit markets, the effect is...

This paper documents the role of consumption in explaining the weak interest rate effect of monetary transmission in Japan. Economic theory suggests circumstances in which a rise in short term real interest rates can increase consumption, contrary to much conventional wisdom. This paper suggests...

This paper models regional earnings and unemployment in the ten regions of Great Britain between 1972 and 1995, paying particular attention to their interaction and to the important influence of the housing market. In contrast to Blanchard and Katz (1992, 1997) for the United States, we find...

The often volatile behaviour of UK house prices between 1957 and 1994 is analysed in an annual econometric model. Theory suggests that financial liberalization of mortgage markets in the 1980s should have led to notable shifts in house price behaviour. The evidence supports the predictions of...

There has been considerable controversy over the apparent slowdown in productivity growth in Britain and in other industrial countries over 1971-80 and the apparent speed up in at least British productivity growth over 1980-83. This paper throws light on these matters by means of an aggregate...

Inflation is a far from homogeneous phenomenon, a fact often neglected in modelling consumer price inflation. This study, the first of its kind for an emerging market country, investigates gains to inflation forecast accuracy by aggregating weighted forecasts of the sub-component price indices,...