This paper reviews the "Austrian" theory of the business cycle first proposed by Friedrich Hayek in the 1920s. His theory claimed that credit creation by monetary authorities would push investment beyond society's long-term willingness to save, creating a mismatch between supply and demand that...

This paper provides a how-to guide to model-based forecasting and monetary policy analysis. It describes a simple structural model, along the lines of those in use in a number of central banks. This workhorse model consists of an aggregate demand (or IS) curve, a price-setting (or Phillips)...

Conventional economic policy models focus only on selected elements of the central bank balance sheet, in particular monetary liabilities and sometimes foreign reserves. The canonical model of an "independent" central bank assumes that it chooses money (or an interest rate), unconstrained by a...

Inflation targeting (IT) serves as monetary policy framework in several advanced economies, where it has enhanced policy transparency and accountability. The paper considers its wider applicability to developing countries. The prerequisites for a successful IT framework are identified as an...

This paper estimates a small dynamic macroeconomic model for the South African economy with Bayesian methods. The model is tailored to assessing the impact of domestic as well as external shocks on inflation within an inflation targeting framework, by incorporating forward-looking behavior of...

Many countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have recently experienced surges in money growth that apparently have not generated significant inflationary pressures. Moreover, several MENA countries have followed monetary policy rules that according to standard monetary theory...

This paper emphasizes the distinction between two ‘monetary approaches to the balance of payments’, one developed in the IMF, the other under the leadership of Harry Johnson in Chicago. The IMF approach is presented as an evolutionary development of the Kahn/Keynes multiplier model in an...

This paper examines the household demand for narrow money in Poland during the 1980s. At that time, there were shortages, but informal trade in both goods and foreign exchange was common, and holdings of foreign currency were substantial. Household money demand in this environment is first...

The purchasing power's difference between currencies appears to trigger a person to make the decision of emigrating, but it does not look to be the only one. European Union enlargement, immigration policies, as well as different personal and/or psychological reasons, have modified migrations...

Actual policy decisions are made in real time and are not irrevocable. These observations are mundane, but most policy modeling has neglected them. We show that when policy is made in an environment of uncertainty, costs of switching policies give the option to wait positive value. This insight...