The removal of the lower bound on the EUR/CHF exchange rate in January 2015 provides a unique setting to study the implications of a large and sudden appreciation in an otherwise stable macroeconomic environment. Using transaction-level data on non-durable goods purchases by Swiss consumers, we...

This article presents evidence based on a panel of 35 countries over the past 30 years that the Phillips’ curve relation holds for food inflation. That is, broader economic overheating does push up the food component of the CPI in a systematic way. Further, general inflation expectations from...

We explore the consequences of losing confidence in the price-stability objective of central banks by quantifying the inflation and deflationary biases in inflation expectations. In a model with an occasionally binding zero-lower-bound constraint, we show that both inflation bias and...

This paper highlights relative price adjustments taking place in the global economy as important sources of the lower levels of inflation rates observed in the recent decades. Using a markup model, it shows substantial effects from declines in wage costs and import prices relative to consumer...

Iceland was a high inflation country from the second half of the seventies and until the middle of the eighties. During the middle of the nineties inflation in Iceland, at less than 2% p.a., was among the lowest in the OECD. In this paper we analyse the roots of high inflation in Iceland and the...

What are liquidity crises? And what can be done to address them? This short paper brings together some personal reflections on this issue, largely based on previous work. In the process, it questions a number of commonly held beliefs that have become part of the conventional wisdom. The paper is...

The recent global financial crisis has led central banks to rely heavily on "unconventional" monetary policies. This alternative approach to policy has generated much discussion and a heated and at times confusing debate. The debate has been complicated by the use of different definitions and...

The recent global financial crisis has led central banks to rely heavily on "unconventional" monetary policies. This alternative approach to policy has generated much discussion and a heated and at times confusing debate. The debate has been complicated by the use of different definitions and...

If the criteria for an institution's success are diffusion and longevity, then central banking has been hugely successful. But if the criterion is the degree to which it has achieved its goals, then the evaluation has to be more nuanced. Historically, those goals have included a changing mix of...