Since changes in import prices feed into consumer prices and thus might affect monetary policy decisions, policymakers need to establish whether or not German importers' long-run pricing behaviour has changed. Of particular interest are any shifts in the importance of cost passthrough and...

The capital-asset-pricing model (CAPM) is one of the most popular methods of financial market analysis. But, evidence of the poor empirical performance of the CAPM has accumulated in the literature. For example, based on their empirical results regarding the relation between market Beta and...

Risk neutral densities (RND) can be used to forecast the price of the underlying basis for the option, or it may be used to price other derivates based on the same sequence. The method adopted in this paper to calculate the RND is to firts estimate daily the diffusion process of the underlying...

Density forecasts have become quite important in economics and finance. For example, such forecasts play a central role in modern financial risk management techniques like Value at Risk. This paper suggests a regression based density forecast evaluation framework as a simple alternative to other...

In this paper, different Divisia monetary aggregates for the euro area are constructed over the period from 1980 to 2000. Theoretically, one main difference of these aggregates is their reaction to exchange-rate variations. Empirically, the aggregates are compared with respect to three issues....

This paper shows that the degree of competition affects the current account response to nominal shocks. The mechanism hinges on the relationship between the mark-up and the degree of real rigidity of prices. In a model with intermediate goods, the degree of real rigidity increases in the markup....

There is a broad consensus among economists that, in the long run, inflation is a monetary phenomenon. However, monetary policy is often analysed using models that have no causal role for monetary aggregates in the propagation of inflationary processes. Moreover, impulses from monetary policy...

This paper evaluates the consequences of accelerated technical progress for monetary transmission and the speed of adjustment in the real economy. With a decreasing service life, the long term rate relevant to real demand will resemble more closely the money market rate. We make the investment...

In this paper we propose a generalisation of the noise trader transmission mechanism to examine the impact of central bank intervention on exchange rates. Within a heterogeneous expectations exchange rate model intervention operations are supposed to provide support to either chartist or...

We analyse the European interbank market in a general equilibrium model. Several institutional aspects of the market are taken into consideration, especially the Eurosystem's two standing facilities, reserve requirements of banks and the fact that borrowing from the Eurosystem has to be secured....