This paper assesses the OECD’s projections for GDP growth and inflation during the global financial crisis and recovery, focussing on lessons that can be learned. The projections repeatedly over-estimated growth, failing to anticipate the extent of the slowdown and later the weak pace of the...

This paper proposes quantifying the evolution of the U.S. output-inflation tradeoff using a Time-Varying Parameter Structural VAR. This methodology circumvents issues with existing methods which tend to be either reduced form in nature or rely on more ad hoc assumptions regarding sample split...

On August 11, 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 5.4% per year increase in the CPI for the third consecutive month, intensifying the ongoing debate about whether high inflation will prove temporary or more lasting. This paper seeks to inform this debate by evaluating the...

We seek to determine whether a United States President's job approval rating is influenced by the Misery Index. This hypothesis is examined in two ways. First, we employ a nonlinear model that includes several macroeconomic variables: the current account deficit, exchange rate, unemployment,...

This study adopts a dynamic approach to compute the level of economic distress in Nigeria. Quarterly series from 2002Q1 to 2016Q4 were utilized in computing the index. Leveraging on the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and Okun’s law, the results obtained indicate a minimum and maximum...

The authors apply a Hidden Markov Model to identify regimes of shifting inflation and then employ an attribution technique based on the Mahalanobis distance to identify the economic variables that determine the trajectory of inflation. Their analysis enables policymakers to focus on the most...

This note discusses the conditions for a sustainable fiscal policy defined as one that will result in a stable debt/income ratio. It is shown that the usually evoked condition for sustainability, that the real rate of interest be smaller than the rate of the income growth, is not a sufficient...

This paper develops a new index of economic uncertainty for South Africa for the period 1990-2014 and analyses the macroeconomic impact of changes in this measure. The index is constructed from three sources: (1) Disagreement among professional forecasters about macroeconomic conditions using...

Post Keynesian theory as opposed to Walrasian theory does not provide the foundations for a unique general equilibrium but claims the existence of multiple equilibrium positions. In this article, such a multiple of equilibrium positions is explained by different market constellations which are...

Historically high levels of private and public debt coupled with already very low short-term interest rates appear to limit the options for stimulative monetary policy in many advanced economies today. One option that has not yet been considered is monetary financing by central banks to boost...