We test the Barro-Gordon model extended to allow for persistence in unemployment. First, we build an index of central bank independence and measures of persistence, and then we compare them with inflation performance in OECD countries. Our results show, as theory predicts, a robust negative...

This document contains the text of the 1998 Central Banking Lecture delivered at the London School of Economics and Political Science on June 4th. It starts by asking what factors have been behind the remarkable retreat of inflation that has taken place internationally since the mid-eighties,...

This paper studies two aspects of the behaviour of provincial relative prices in Spain: the relevance and the nature of provincial inflation divergences and relative price shifts. Inflation differentials are found to be small (the range is less than half point per year in the long-run), but...

One of the most significant economic developments of recent years in industrialized countries has been the increasing orientation of macroeconomic policies - and of monetary policies in particular - to achieving lower inflation rates. This has led to a move from low inflation to price stability...

We use an integrated framework based on the CCAPM to jointly estimate ex-ante real interest rates, inflation risk premia and agents' inflation expectation errors in four countries - France, Spain, UK and US - under three different preference specifications.

This paper studies the joint behaviour of inflation and unemployment in Spain over the period 1964-1995. We analyze the implications both of full hysteresis in unemployment and high inflation persistence for inference regarding dynamic Phillips trade-offs and sacrifice ratios in the Spanish...

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Spain suffered high rates of inflation but inflation declined and by 1997 inflation had fallen to approximately 2 percent. To fight inflation, Spain implemented austere monetary programs, joined the EMS in 1989, enacted central bank autonomy in 1994, and...

The Balassa-Samuelson (BS) model is evaluated in eight of the eleven EMU countries. This model suggests that productivity differentials between traded and non-traded goods sectors generate sectoral inflation differentials (dual inflation). Furthermore, differentials in the degree of dual...

We estimate real interest rates, bounds on inflation expectations and inflation risk premia in a CCAPM framework under four different preference specifications.

Taking into account two salient Spanish stylized facts, namely, a persistent disinflationary process and hysteresis in the unemployment, this paper tries to answer the following question: Is a nominal permanent disinflation compatible with short-run unemployment costs but also with long-run...