In this paper I evaluate inflation targeting for ten countries. The evaluation is based on unconditional as well as conditional measures of the variance of inflation around target. With strict inflation targeting, expectations of the future deviation from target given information about the...

Since the 2001 recession, average core inflation has been below the Federal Reserve's 2% target. This deflationary bias is a predictable consequence of a low nominal interest rates environment. When monetary policy faces the risk of encountering the zero lower bound, in.ation tends to remain...

Monetary policy in CEE is an important determinant in the wage bargaining process, because trade unions have to predict inflation as one component of future real wages. This paper scrutinizes whether countries in CEE that officially announce an inflation target are tempted to act...

This paper analyzes the stabilizing properties of alternative monetary policy regimes. In practice there is a choice between two broad types of monetary policy regimes: a fixed exchange rate regime or a floating exchange rate regime. In this paper I compare exchange rate targeting with different...

The role of the exchange rate under inflation targeting (IT) remains an unresolved issue in literature and policy discussions -and a challenge for central banks implementing IT, especially in developing countries. This paper aims at assessing whether there is a relation between the nominal...

This paper develops a set of leading indicators of industrial production growth and consumer price inflation for the period 2001-2010. The choice of indicators is based on pseudo out-of-sample forecasting exercise implemented by Stock and Watson (2003), amongst others. We find that asset prices...

The purpose of this paper is to examine inflation targeting (IT) in emerging countries by concentrating essentially on the case of Brazil. The IT monetary policy regime has been adopted by a significant number of countries. While the focus of this paper is on Brazil, which began inflation...

In response to Australia's decision to adopt international financial reporting standards (IFRSs) from 2005, New Zealand has subsequently decided to follow. New Zealand reporting entities are required to adopt IFRSs from 2007 with the option of early adoption from 2005.As New Zealand is one of...

In contrast to the trend of research investigating why firms decide to release earnings forecasts to pre-empt any expected change in earnings, our study investigates how firms manage their earnings forecast strategy once they have decided to release earnings forecasts. Using a sample of 350...

The editors of the Mirrlees Review asked us to evaluate the UK VAT and the European Union VAT Directive and compare them to the New Zealand VAT model, which is called GST (Goods and Services Tax). At first sight, this brief might seem strange. After all, the VAT is a European invention that has...