The recent financial crisis resulted in a steep contraction in the domestic economy together with a sharp decline in inflation. The Phillips curve model of inflation argues that inflation should be negatively related to economic performance and this would seem to be a potential explanatory...

Core inflation rates are widely calculated. The perceived benefit of core inflation rates is that they help to inform monetary policy. This is achieved by uncovering the underlying trend in inflation or by helping to forecast inflation. Studies which compare core inflation rates frequently...

This paper empirically tests whether Irish and UK petrol and diesel markets are characterised by asymmetric pricing behaviour. The econometric assessment uses threshold autoregressive models and a dataset of monthly refined oil and retail prices covering the period 1997 to mid-2009. A...

The paper presents a real time database of economic time series for Ireland. The database contains a record of what was considered official data at each point in time. The database is used to describe the properties of data revisions to the growth rates of GDP and its expenditure components in...

The substantial increase in oil prices over the past six or seven years has provoked considerable comment within the international media. While this increase has not had quite the same impact as that experienced in the 1970's, the magnitude of the price increases still has significant...

This note examines the longer term implications for Ireland of changes to EU budgetary rules embodied in the Fiscal Compact. On the basis of fiscal projections to 2015, it presents illustrative scenarios showing the on-going correction in the budgetary position post-2015 needed to support...

The paper constructs various core inflation measures. These include various trimmed means using highly disaggregated data and a structural VAR estimate of core inflation for Ireland. The ability of these core inflation measures to forecast future headline inflation is compared using a simple...

The issue of forecast aggregation is to determine whether it is better to forecast a series directly or instead construct forecasts of its components and then sum these component forecasts. Notwithstanding some underlying theoretical results, it is gener- ally accepted that forecast aggregation...

Ireland has no ability to affect the exchange rate through interest rates since the adoption of the euro. This paper provides a theoretically transparent method for analysing the impact of an exchange rate shock on employment and inflation in this context. The split between the tradable and...