Existing economic indicators and indexes assess economic activity but no single indicator measures the general macro-economic performance of a nation, state, or region in a methodologically simple and intuitive way. This paper proposes a simple, yet informative metric called the Economic...

Against the backdrop of an ongoing review of the inflation-targeting framework, this paper examines the real-time inflation forecasts of the Bank of Canada with the aim of identifying potential areas for improvement. Not surprisingly, the results show that errors in forecasting non-core...

In the early 1870s, the global monetary system transitioned from bimetallism—a regime in which gold and silver currencies were tied at quasi-fixed exhange ratios—to the gold standard that was characterized by the use of (only) gold as the main currency metal by the largest and most advanced...

Thailand had to endure three major shocks during 2008-2011: the global financial crisis, the Japanese earthquake, and the Thai floods of 2011. Over this period, consistent with its inflation targeting framework, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) let the exchange rate depreciate and cut interest rates...

The effectiveness of the monetary policy transmission mechanism in open economies could be impaired if interest rates are driven primarily by global factors, especially during periods of large capital inflows. The main objective of this paper is to assess whether this is true for emerging Asia's...

Since the start of the 2008 - 09 financial crisis, the Polish Overnight Index Average (POLONIA) has persistently been below the policy rate, suggesting a limited influence of the NBP's open market operations on the short-term interbank rate. In this regard, this paper analyzes the behavior of...

A distinctive feature of market-provided services is that some of them have close substitutes at home. Households may therefore switch between consuming home and market services in response to changes in the real wage - the opportunity cost of working at home - and changes in the price of market...

This paper empirically investigates the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using a structural vector autoregressive model. The results indicate that the interest rate and bank lending channels are relatively effective in influencing...

We study the effects and historical contribution of monetary policy shocks to consumption and income inequality in the United States since 1980. Contractionary monetary policy actions systematically increase inequality in labor earnings, total income, consumption and total expenditures....

Pacific Islands countries are vulnerable to commodity price shocks, and this poses challenges to monetary policy. The high degree of exchange rate pass-through to headline inflation and the weak monetary transmission mechanism in PICs suggest a greater efficacy of exchange rate changes in...