This paper introduces a new indicator of core inflation for New Zealand, estimated using a dynamic factor model and disaggregate price data. Using disaggregate price data we can directly compare the predictive performance of our core indicator with a wide range of other ‘core inflation’...

The 2002 Policy Targets Agreement (PTA) between the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the government asks the Reserve Bank to target inflation "over the medium term" rather than over an annual target. This medium term objective shifts inflation targeting towards a "halfway-house" between inflation...

This paper examines stabilisation bias - the difference between the inferior macroeconomic outcomes attained with discretionary monetary policy relative to the ideal that could be attained with commitment policy. The paper works within the linear-quadratic framework and represents the monetary...

We estimate changes in the volatility of firm-level sales, earnings and employment growth of US firms. Our method differs from existing measures for firm-level sales and employment volatility in that it not only captures longer-run changes in volatility, but also measures cyclical changes in...

It is standard to model the output-inflation trade-off as a linear relationship with a time-invariant slope. We assess empirical evidence for three types of nonlinearity in the short-run Phillips curve. At an empirical level, we aim to discover why large negative output gaps in Japan during the...

This paper uses wavelets to develop a core inflation measure for inflation targeting central banks. The analysis is applied to the case of New Zealand – the country with the longest history of explicit inflation targeting. We compare the performance of our proposed measure against some popular...

The nature of expectations matters when conducting monetary policy. Models with a learning process can exhibit very different properties from models with other types of expectations rules. This paper draws on the work of Orphanides and Williams (2002), extending it to allow for the possibility...

Simple rules for guiding monetary policy actions have been shown to achieve policy objectives effectively. In many of these simple rules, policy prescriptions depend on the economy's level of potential output. However, potential output is unobservable and is estimated with uncertainty. We...

Some observers have worried that under or over-estimating the output gap may unnecessarily induce tightening or loosening of monetary conditions, causing real fluctuations. To investigate the relationship between the output gap and inflation, we examine models of inflation that do and do not use...

This paper develops a stochastically-based method of measuring core inflation, extending earlier research by Bryan and Cecchetti (1993) and Roger (1995).