The "quiet life hypothesis (QLH)" posits that banks enjoy the advantages of market power in terms of foregone revenues or cost savings. We suggest a united approach to measure competition and efficiency simultaneously to test this hypothesis. We estimate bank-specific Lerner indices as measures...

We develop simple diagrams that can be used by undergraduates to understand interest rate setting by policy-makers. We combine an inflation target, Fisher equation, policy reaction function and short and long run aggregate supply analysis to give a depiction of the policy problem. We illustrate...

Over the last twenty years the level and volatility of inflation decreased across industrial countries. The inflation behaviour can be explained by a shift in monetary policy or by a lucky period of low volatility in business cycle shocks. To test the"luck hypothesis" we examine the inflation...

We calibrate a standard New Keynesian model with three alternative representations of monetary policy- an optimal timeless rule, a Taylor rule and another with interest rate smoothing- with the aim of testing which if any can match the data according to the method of indirect inference. We find...

Refet Gürkaynak, Brian Sack, and Eric Swanson (2005) provide empirical evidence that long forward nominal rates are overly sensitive to monetary policy shocks, and that this is consistent with a model where long-term inflation expectations are not anchored because agents must infer the central...

Recent literature has argued that exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into domestic inflation has been declining in many countries following a dramatic change in inflation environment during the 1990s. Available empirical results face two central challenges: (i) the evidence on declining ERPT is...

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding on how inflation targets are set. For this reason, we first gather evidence from official central bank and government publications and from a questionnaire sent to central banks on how inflation targets are set; we then estimate the...

This paper investigates why Europe fared particularly poorly in the global economic crisis that began in August 2007. It questions the self-portrait of Europe as the victim of external shocks, pushed off track by reckless policies pursued elsewhere. It argues instead that Europe had not only...

Capital flows to emerging market economies (EMEs) have been characterized by high volatility since the 1980s. In recent years (especially since 2003), although gross as well as net capital flows to the EMEs have increased, they could not be absorbed domestically. Overall, savings have flowed...