This paper deals with optimal payment systems. The issue boils down to how large are the costs of different payment media, which can be interpreted as a question of the efficiency of the means of payment. However, there are other qualifications related to the choice of payment media. Here, at...

This paper contains a set of tests for nonlinearities in economic time series. The tests comprise both standard diagnostic tests for revealing nonlinearities and some new developments in modelling nonlinearities. The latter test procedures make use of models in chaos, theory, so-called...

The Finnish Consumer Barometer was introduced in autumn 1987. Data were first collected twice a year and from August 1991 until September 1995 quarterly. After Finland joined the European Union in 1995, the survey was adopted as one member of the Harmonised Consumer Survey of the European...

Given the emphasis on price stability in monetary policy, the concern caused by recent rapid increases in housing prices are understandable. It is suspected that such rises may provide early indication of mounting inflationary pressure. The purpose of this paper is to formulate and estimate an...

This collection of seven papers deals with three different areas of econometric applications: consumption, asset prices, and forecasting. The papers apply techniques related to the analysis of unit roots and cointegration methods. <p> The first paper deals with consumption theories and formulates...</p>

This paper analyzes the use of cash in the Euro area. It attempts to give at least a partial answer to the question of whether cash is predominantly used in the shadow economy and whether, consequently, the behavior of cash balances is useful in monitoring changes in the shadow economy. The...

The high volatility of both housing investment and housing prices has raised questions about the determinants of housing investment in Finland. In this paper we estimate investment equations for the period 1972 -1987. The exceptional durability of houses makes housing investment sensitive to...

This paper looks at the efficiency of asset markets and pricing rules with regard to house and stock markets in Finland. House and stock prices are found to have unit roots, which is a necessary condition for efficient markets. However, asset prices are not pure random walks, but instead unit...