The inflation measure used by the European Central Bank excludes housing costs that are borne by home owners even though they make up more than a tenth of household final consumption expenditure in the euro area. Has the exclusion of owner-occupied housing costs driven a wedge between the...

The inflation measure used by the European Central Bank excludes housing costs that are borne by home owners even though they make up more than a tenth of household final consumption expenditure in the euro area. Has the exclusion of owner-occupied housing costs driven a wedge between the...

South Africa’s macroeconomic framework has served the economy well, but should be strengthened to make the economy more resilient to external shocks. Enhancing the credibility of the inflation target would provide the monetary authorities with more space for flexibility in the face of...

The structural rate of unemployment and associated non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (the NAIRU) are of major importance to the analysis of macro and structural economic developments, although in practice these concepts are not well defined and there is considerable uncertainty and...

Economists often seek to estimate unobserved variables, representing “equilibrium” or “expected” values of economic variables, as benchmarks against which observed, realised values of these variables may be evaluated. Such comparisons are often used as economic policy indicators, for...

This paper analyses the determinants of structural unemployment rates in a two-stage approach. First, time-varying NAIRUs are estimated for a panel of OECD economies on the basis of Phillips curve equations using Kalman filter techniques. In a second stage, the estimated NAIRUs are regressed on...

The global recession is likely to results in higher structural unemployment for some time in many OECD countries. This paper assesses how the shock to aggregate unemployment as a result of the economic crisis may be transmitted to structural unemployment through hysteresis effects that occur...

This short paper analyses the decline of France’s trade balance over the past 15 years. While the loss in export market shares is comparable to that of the major OECD countries except Germany, it is one of the largest among the countries of the euro area. The determinants of this outcome seem...

This paper analyses the monetary and fiscal policy implications of output gap estimates in times of crisis. The widening of output gaps observed in major OECD economies in the wake of the recent crisis has been mainly due to total factor productivity gaps, except in the United States where it...

The financial crisis has resulted in a substantial increase in unemployment in the OECD. This paper shows that this increase has reversed the reduction in structural unemployment which has been estimated to have occurred in most OECD countries since the late 1990s. Structural unemployment is...