Using the recursive unit root test by Phillips et al. (2011) we show that the Target balances of the German Bundesbank have been explosive from the beginning of 2009 to the beginning of 2013. By implementing a full-allotment policy and reducing the required minimum quality of collaterals in...

We study the dynamics of inflation persistence in 45 countries for the period 1960-2008. We use a nonparametric unit root test robust to nonlinearities, error distributions, structural breaks and outliers, many of them typical features of inflation data, and a test for multiple changes in...

This paper assesses the contemporaneous, leading and lagging indicator properties of financial market variables relative to movements in six major developed country currency pairs. As indicator variables changes in various relative asset prices, short-term portfolio flows and currency options...

We develop an N-country model with stock markets in which closed-form solutions for the real exchange rate is derived. Our model allows for a given number of risky-assets, which form an incomplete market. Risky asset prices and allocations of risky assets among countries are determined...

The aim of this paper is to study the main macroeconomic, financial and structural factors that shaped current account developments in Greece over the period from 1960 to 2007 and discuss these developments in relation to the issue of external sustainability. Concerns over Greece’s external...

The paper discusses global imbalances under the aspect of an asymmetric world monetary system. It identifies the US and Germany as center countries with rising / high current account deficits (US) and surpluses (Germany). These are matched by current account surpluses of countries stabilizing...

This paper reviews three different concepts of equilibrium exchange rates that are widely used in policy analysis and constitute the backbone of the IMF CGER assessment: the Macroeconomic Balance, the External Sustainability and the reduced form approaches. We raise a number of econometric...