We argue that a stronger emphasis on macrofinancial risk could provide stabilization benefits. Simulations results suggest that strong monetary reactions to accelerator mechanisms that push up credit growth and asset prices could help macroeconomic stability. In addition, using a macroprudential...

This paper presents a basic plan for developing a Forecast and Policy Analysis System designed to support an inflation-forecast targeting regime at a central bank. It includes discussion of the development of data management and reporting processes; the creation of a forecast team and the...

We find that inflation, output and the stance of monetary policy do not typically display unusual behavior ahead of asset price busts. By contrast, credit, shares of investment in GDP, current account deficits, and asset prices typically rise, providing useful, if not perfect, leading indicators...

There is a common perception that the prices of unrelated commodities move together. This paper re-examines this notion, using a measure of comovement of economic time series called concordance. Concordance measures the proportion of time that the prices of two commodities are concurrently in...

We study the properties of a test that determines whether two time series comove. The test computes a simple nonparametric statistic for “concordance,” which describes the proportion of time that the cycles of two series spend in the same phase. We establish the size and power properties of...

This paper examines the duration and magnitude of commodity-price cycles. It finds that for most commodities, price slumps last longer than price booms. How far prices fall in a slump is found to be slightly larger than how far they rebound in a subsequent boom. There is little evidence of a...

Accommodative monetary policies in advanced economies have spurred increased capital inflows into emerging markets since the global financial crisis. Starting in May 2013, when the Federal Reserve publicly discussed its plans for tapering unconventional monetary policies, these emerging markets...

This paper investigates the consequences of exchange rate volatility on the variability of export prices and quantities in the presence of market segmentation and pricing to market. Firms stabilize destination prices through systematic price discrimination, limiting the degree of exchange rate...

Despite the liberalization of foreign portfolio investment around the globe since the early 1980s, the home-bias phenomenon is still found to exist. Using a relatively new IMF survey dataset of cross-border equity holdings, this paper tests new structural equations from a consumption-based...

This paper develops an overlapping agents model with age-specific mortality rates. The analytical framework also nests Blanchard's (1985) "perpetual youth" model as a special, though perhaps not realistic, case. With age specific mortality rates, youth is "fleeting." Using standard hyperbolic...