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...

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 uses a VAR model estimated with Bayesian methods to identify the effect of productivity news shocks on labor market variables by imposing that they are orthogonal to current technology but they explain future observed technology.  In the aftermath of a positive news shock,...

This paper introduces a new class of multivariate volatility models which is easy to estimate using covariance targeting, even with rich dynamics. We call them rotated ARCH (RARCH) models. The basic structure is to rotate the returns and then to fit them using a BEKK-type parameterization of the...

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...

This paper introduces a new class of multivariate volatility models that utilizes high-frequency data.  We discuss the models' dynamics and highlight their differences from multivariate GARCH models.  We also discuss their covariance targeting specification and provide closed-form formulas...

There is widespread disagreement about the role of housing wealth in explaining consumption.  This paper exploits liquid and illiquid wealth time series from household balance sheet data for South Africa, previously constructed by the authors, to explain fluctuations in the ratios of...

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...