We evaluate the degree of gradualism and inaction in UK monetary policy over the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) period (1997-2007) at the quarterly and the monthly frequency. After accounting for misspecification in standard Taylor rules, we find little evidence for gradualism. A measure of...

Excessive inflation is usually attributed to the lack of central bank’s credibility. In this context, most of the literature considers transparency a means to establish central bank’s credibility. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it shows that, even in the absence of...

The paper surveys the recent literature on the fiscal implications of central bank balance sheets, with a special focus on political economy issues. It then presents the results of simulations that describe the effects of different scenarios for the Federal Reserve's longer-run balance sheet on...

This paper analyses the implications of imperfect exchange rate passthrough for optimal monetary policy in a linearised open-economy dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to euro area data. Imperfect exchange rate pass through is modelled by assuming sticky import price behaviour. The...

The conservative central banker has come under attack recently. Explicitly modeling the interaction of a trade union with monetary policy, it has been argued that the standard solution to the inflationary bias in monetary policy might actually be welfare reducing if the trade union has an...

We propose that the natural rate of unemployment has an active role in the business cycle, in contrast to the prevailing view that the rate is essentially constant. We demonstrate that this tendency to treat the natural rate as near-constant would explain the surprisingly low slope of the...

Four types of economics" relevant for institutional analysis are distinguished: Standard Neoclassical Economics; Socio-Economics or Social Economics; New Institutional Economics; and Psychological Economics (often misleadingly called Behavioural Economics). The paper argues that an extension of...

Theories of industrial organization (IO) are tested in the laboratory more and more often. The example we consider throughout the paper is oligopoly theory, specifically, the Cournot and the Stackelberg model of duopolistic quantity competition with homogeneous products. These models have often...