A stable and predictable demand for money function is a pre-requisite for the use of targets for monetary aggregates as a suitable intermediate objective of monetary policy. In spite of the clear difficulties which have manifested themselves in the estimation of such money functions, empirical...

This paper is divided into 4 sections. 1) Deals with measurement issues and provides an overview of both the main statistical trend estimation methods as well as the more economically respectable production function approach. 2) Gives a detailed presentation of the potential output and output...

In 1968 Friedman put forward the notion of a natural rate of unemployment to encapsulate the idea that a normal level of unemployment, roughly equivalent to the amount of frictional and structural unemployment, persists even when the labour market is in equilibrium. Since there are no direct...

This paper looks at the evolution of consumption theory over time and critically examines the widely accepted permanent income / life cycle hypotheses concerning consumer behaviour in terms of the empirical evidence. Attention is also devoted to the role of time horizon, time preference and...