Words are critical in how the public perceives the work of central banks and the quality of monetary policy. Press releases that accompany policy rate decisions and, where available, the minutes of central bank committee meetings, are focal points for the media in public discussions about the...

Relying on quarterly data since 1998 we estimate, for China and the U.S., small scale econometric models that economize on the number of variables employed and yet are rich enough to provide useful insights about spillover effects between the two countries under different maintained assumptions...

This paper estimates forward-looking and forecast-based Taylor rules for France, Germany, Italy, as well as the euro area, using both final revised data and real-time data. We are particularly interested in the impact of adding asset prices to the standard Taylor rule specification. Since...

Uncertainties associated with the informational content of real-time data and the impact of policy initiatives on expectations have been offered as rationales for gradualism in monetary policy. Our objective is to assess these potential explanations quantitatively. Focusing on inflation as the...

One way of evaluating how well monetary authorities perform is to provide the public with a regular and independent second opinion. The European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE) are shadowed by professional and academic economists who provide a separate policy rate recommendation...

We examine policy rate recommendations of the Bank of Canada’s Governing Council (GC) and its shadow, the C.D. Howe Institute’s Monetary Policy Council (MPC). Individual recommendations of the MPC are observed but not those of the GC. Differences in the two committee’s recommendations are...

This paper examines the policy rate recommendations of the Bank of Canada’s Governing Council (GC) and the C.D. Howe Institute’s (CDHI) Monetary Policy Council (MPC) since 2003. We find, first, that differences in the median recommendations between the MPC and the GC are persistent but small...