We build a 4-equation model of the inflation process in South Africa (which has recently adopted inflation targeting), including the exchange rate, consumer prices, producer price, and import prices. This provides useful information on the speed and extent of exchange rate pass-through, and...

In many countries, house prices are subject to boom/bust cycles and in some these are linked to severe economic and financial instability.  Overheating can have both a price and a quantity dimension, but it is likely that they are linked by common drivers.  However, much depends on the...

Inflation is a far from homogeneous phenomenon, a fact often neglected in modeling consumer price inflation.  Using a novel methodology grounded in theory, the ten sub-components of the consumer price index (excluding mortgage interest rates), are modeled separately and forecast,...

Inflation targeting central banks will be hampered without good models to assist them to be forward-looking.  Many current inflation models fail to forecast turning points adequately, because they miss key underlying long-run influences.  The world is on the cusp of a dramatic turning point in...

We consider the reasons for nowcasting, how nowcasts can be achieved, and the use and timing of information.  The existence of contemporaneous data such as surveys is a major difference from forecasting, but many of the recent lessons about forecasting remain relevant.  Given the extensive...

A continuous time econometric modelling framework for multivariate financial market event (or `transactions`) data is developed in which the model is specified via the vector stochastic intensity. This has the advantage that the conditioning sigma-field is updated continuously in time as new...

Inflation is a far from homogeneous phenomenon, but this fact is ignored in most work on consumer price inflation. Using a novel methodology grounded in theory, the ten sub-components of the consumer price index (excluding mortgage interest rates, or CPIX) for South Africa are modeled separately...

A new test for non-linearity in the conditional mean is proposed using functions of the principal components of regressors.  The test extends the non-linearity tests based on Kolmogorov-Gavor polynomials (Thursby and Schmidt, 1977, Tsay, 1986, and Terasvirta, Lin and Granger, 1993), but...

A new test for non-linearity is developed using weighted combinations of regressor powers based on the eigenvectors of the variance-covariance matrix. The test extends the ingenious test for heteroskedasticity proposed by White (1980), but both circumvents problems of high dimensionality and...

We enrich a baseline RBC model with search and matching frictions on the labor market and real frictions that are helpful in accounting for the response of macroeconomic aggregates to shocks.  The analysis allows shocks to have an unanticipated and a new (i.e. anticipated) component.  The...