Conjectures about inflation expectations are inextricably linked to our understanding of the relationship between the real and monetary sides of the economy; yet, direct empirical research on the matter has been scarce at best. This paper therefore examines the empirical properties of inflation...

This paper studies the relative performance of alternative monetary policy rules in the presence of oil price shocks in a small open economy optimizing model. Our analysis shows that it is important to distinguish between alternative price indices (CPI, core CPI, and GDP deflator) when modeling...

Traditionally, observed fluctuations in aggregate economic time series have been mainly modelled as being the result of exogenous disturbances. A better understanding of macroeconomic phenomena, however, surely requires looking directly at the relations between variables that may trigger...

The celebrated Taylor rule provides a simple formula that aims to capture how the central bank interest rate is adjusted as a linear function of inflation and output gap. However, the rule does not take explicitly into account the zero lower bound on the interest rate. Prior studies on interest...

The purpose of this paper is to show how to solve linear dynamic rational expectations models with anticipated shocks by using the generalized Schur decomposition method. Furthermore, we determine the optimal unrestricted and restricted policy responses to anticipated shocks. We demonstrate our...

In this paper we empirically investigate the time- and state-dependent behavior of aggregate price setting. We implement a testing procedure by means of a nonparametric representation of the structural form New Keynesian Phillips curve. By means of the so-called functional coefficient regression...

We examine both the degree and the structural stability of inflation persistence at different quantiles of the conditional inflation distribution. Previous research focused exclusively on persistence at the conditional mean of the inflation rate. As economic theory provides reasons for inflation...

Previous research on the optimal size of a monetary policy committee (MPC) focused on theoretical analyses and experimental studies. These studies suggest that the ideal monetary policy committee may not have many more than five members. In this paper we conduct an empirical cross-country study...

In this paper the author attempts an analysis of the current financial/economic crisis that is wider ranging and more fundamental than he has been able to find. For this purpose he reviews some social science literature that views the current crisis as an episode in the secular decline of the...