The conventional view is that a monetary policy shock has both supply-side and demand-side effects, at least in the short run. Barth and Ramey (2001) show that the supply-side effect of a monetary policy shock may be greater than the demand-side effect. We argue that it is crucial for monetary...

We examine the high-frequency response of the rand-dollar nominal rate within ten-minute intervals around five minutes before, five minutes after) official inflation announcements, and show that the rand appreciates (respectively, depreciates) on impact when inflation is higher (respectively,...

The Dutch disease argument suggests that in commodity exporting countries "overvaluation" of the currency due to increases in commodity prices harms manufacturing even though the economy as a whole benefits, led by the booming natural resources sector. The relationship between the real exchange...

This paper constructs a number of possible core measures of annual inflation using Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA). Annual inflation is decomposed into its trend, oscillating and noise components in order to develop an understanding of the trend and cyclicality in South African headline...

How detrimental is inflation to growth in South Africa? At what level? Motivated by the adoption of inflation targeting by many countries, this paper sets out to empirically determine the threshold level of inflation in South Africa. This study adopts quarterly time series data spanning over the...

In this paper we study concentration in the European Internet upstream access market. The possibility of measuring market concentration depends on a correct definition of the market itself; however, this is not always possible, since, as it is the case of the Internet industry, very often...

In this paper, we use a general equilibrium overlapping generations monetary endogenous growth model of a small open economy, to analyze whether financial repression, measured via the “high†mandatory reserve-deposit requirements of financial intermediaries, is an optimal response of a...

In this paper, we estimate the long-run equilibrium relationship between money balance as a ratio of income and the Treasury bill rate for the period of 1965:02 to 2007:01, and, in turn, use the relationship to obtain welfare cost estimates of inflation. Using the Johansen (1991, 1995)...

There is growing emphasis on the role played by the private sector in alleviating poverty in Africa. At the same time, greater focus is being placed on cash transfers as a poverty alleviation tool. This paper provides an economic rationale for private sector involvement in the provision of cash...

We examine the impact of inflation on financial development in Brazil and the data available permit us to cover the period between 1985 and 2002. The results - based initially on time-series and then on panel time-series data and analysis, and robust for different estimators and financial...