This paper considers the costs and benefits of Sweden joining the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).  We pay particular attention to the costs of abandoning the krona in terms of a loss of monetary policy independence.  For this purpose, we apply a cointegrated VAR framework to...

In this paper, the monetary policy independence of European nations in the years before European Monetary Union (EMU) is investigated using cointegration techniques.  Daily data is used to assess pairwise relationships between individual EMU nations and 'lead' nation Germany, to assess the...

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...

This paper incorporates limited asset markets participation in dynamic general equilibrium and develops a simple analytical framework for monetary policy analysis. Aggregate dynamics and stability properties of an otherwise standard business cycle model depend nonlinearly on the degree of asset...

This paper studies the efficient taxation of money and factor income in intertemporal optimizing growth models with infinite horizons, transaction costs technologies and flexible prices.  Second-best optimality calls for a positive inflation tax and a non-zero capital income tax when there are...

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...

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...

This paper investigates how best to determine time-invariant policy rules in macroeconomic models with forward-looking constraints, where fully optimal policy is known to be time-inconsistent.  It proposes a new 'coefficient optimisation' approach that improves upon the timeless perspective...

In countries with credible inflation targeting, it seems plausible to suggest that instead of forming a rational expectation, some firms (inflation-targeters) might simply expect future inflation to always equal its target. This paper analyses the implications of this for optimal monetary policy...