The mild response of the German labor market to the worst global recession in post-warhistory appears as an economic miracle. In response to the crisis, Germany has shown to bea strong case of internal flexibility. We argue that important factors that have contributed tothis development include...

Aggregate shocks that move output and inflation in opposite directions create a tradeoff between output and inflation variability, forcing central bankers to make a choice. Differences in the degree of accommodation of shocks lead to disparate variability outcomes, revealing national central...

Over the last two decades, communication has become an increasingly important aspect of monetary policy. These real-world developments have spawned a huge new scholarly literature on central bank communication -- mostly empirical, and almost all of it written in this decade. We survey this...

We ask whether recent changes in monetary policy due to the financial crisis will be temporary or permanent. We present evidence from two surveys--one of central bank governors, the other of academic specialists. We find that central banks in crisis countries are more likely to have resorted to...