Wages have been rising faster than productivity in many European countries for the past few years, yet signs of underlying consumer price pressures remain limited. To shed light on this puzzle, this paper examines the historical link between wage growth and inflation in Europe and factors that...

Fiscal consolidation has become an important policy prescription for many emerging market countries (EMCs), particularly for the highly indebted ones. Although prudent fiscal policies tend to reduce vulnerabilities, their implementation is usually postponed. This paper represents, to the best of...

This paper extends a small linear model of the Israeli economy to allow for nonlinearities in the inflation-output process that arise from convexity in the Phillips curve and endogenous monetary policy credibility. We find that the dynamic responses to shocks in the extended model more closely...

This paper investigates the transmission of Israeli monetary policy since 1990. Two issues are addressed: the extent to which monetary policy exerts real effects, and the relative importance of different transmission channels. The impact of monetary restraints on aggregate industrial production...

This paper surveys the main theoretical approaches for analyzing movements in the current account of the balance of payments, from the Mundell-Fleming paradigm to modern intertemporal approaches. It discusses the main implications of these analyses for policymaking, highlighting that modern...

Israel’s post-stabilization experience of moderate inflation and eventual disinflation is compared with experiences in other countries. Lessons that emerge from an examination of international experiences indicate the importance of establishing early on credibility in the nominal anchor and a...

Financial decisions of economic agents are based on volatility considerations. However, no aggregate indicators have been used by policymakers and regulators to assess the market risk environment. This paper applies a market volatility indicator to analyze the Israeli''s transition toward...

We propose a fiscal rule that fulfills a specific debt reduction objective while maintaining significant fiscal flexibility-two overarching concerns in Israel. Not unlike the Swiss ""debt brake,"" the rule incorporates an error-correction mechanism (ECM) through which departure from the debt...

This paper examines the role of exchange rate appreciation and the minimum wage in the relative decline of traditional sectors in Israel. It finds little evidence to indicate that real exchange rate appreciation is primarily responsible for this decline. Rather, the evidence indicates that...