This paper discusses several popular methods to estimate the ‘output gap’. It provides a unified, natural concept for the analysis, and demonstrates how to decompose the output gap into contributions of observed data on output, inflation, unemployment, and other variables. A simple bar-chart...

This paper proposes a novel way of formulating priors for estimating economic models. System priors are priors about the model's features and behavior as a system, such as the sacrifice ratio or the maximum duration of response of inflation to a particular shock, for instance. System priors...

This paper investigates financial frictions in US postwar data to understand the interaction between the real business cycle and the credit market. A Bayesian estimation technique is used to estimate a large Vector Autoregression and New Keynesian models demonstrating how financial shocks can...

In recent years, the decline in inflation in Angola has stalled and further steps may be needed to attain the authorities' medium term goal of meeting the Southern African Development Community (SADC) convergence criteria of a low single digit inflation rate. A Vector Error Correction (VEC)...

Inflationary pressures have heightened in the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since 2003. This paper studies determinants of inflation in GCC, using an empirical model that includes domestic and external factors. Inflation in major trading partners appears to be the most relevant foreign...

The analysis in this paper suggests that the large fiscal deficits that Pakistan has experienced over most of the period since 1970 led to some crowding out of private investment, resulting in slower output growth than would otherwise have been observed. Past fiscal deficits have also resulted...

This paper explores the relationship between the constitutional entrenchment of central bank independence and inflation performance. Empirical studies for developing countries have not found a relationship between central bank independence, proxied by the "de jure" independence established in...

Standard theory shows that sterilized foreign exchange interventions do not affect equilibrium prices and quantities, and that domestic and foreign currency denominated bonds are perfect substitutes. This paper shows that when fiscal policy is not sufficiently flexible in response to spending...

This paper examines empirically U.S. broad money demand emphasizing the role of financial market risk. We find that money demand rises with the liquidity risk of stock markets or the credit risk of corporate bond markets. After controlling for the effect of financial market risk, money demand...

Cambodia became dollarized suddenly in the early 1990s, as a result of massive dollar inflows stemming from a postconflict situation. Considering that the amount of dollars in circulation is unusually high, we attempt to estimate the true degree of dollarization empirically. Our results show...