This paper examines whether government ideology has influenced monetary policy in OECD countries. We use quarterly data in the 1980.1-2005.4 period and exclude EMU countries. Our Taylor-rule specification focuses on the interactions of a new time-variant index of central bank independence with...

This paper examines the effect of government ideology on monetary policy in a quarterly data set of 15 OECD countries in the period 1980.1-2005.4. Our Taylor-rule specification focuses on the interactions of a new time-variant indicator for central bank independence and government ideology. The...

This paper attempts to test whether financial supply-side shifts explain the low-investment climate of private firms in Germany. The core contention is that a firm's financial position contributes to its access to external finance on credit markets. Special emphasizes is put on small and...

Can monetary policy be used to promote financial stability? We answer this question by estimating the impact of a monetary policy shock on private-sector leverage and the likelihood of a financial crisis. Impulse responses obtained from a panel VAR model of 18 advanced countries suggest that the...

Output growth, investment and the real interest rate are all found empirically to be negatively affected by inflation. But a seeming puzzle arises of opposite Tobin-like inflation effects because theory indicates a negative Tobin effect when investment falls and a positive Tobin effect when the...

The paper examines the effect of inflation on growth in transition countries. It presents panel data evidence for 13 transition countries over the 1990-2003 period; it uses a fixed effects, full-information maximum likelihood, panel approach to account for possible bias from correlations among...

This paper examines the effect of government ideology on monetary policy in a quarterly data set of 15 OECD countries in the period 1980.1-2005.4. Our Taylor-rule specification focuses on the interactions of a new time-variant indicator for central bank independence and government ideology. The...

This paper uses the European Monetary Union (EMU) as a natural experiment to investigate whether more effective monetary policy reduces the persistence of inflation. Taking into account the fractional integration of inflation, we confirm that inflation dynamics differed considerably across Euro...

The paper examines the effect of inflation on growth in transition countries. It presents panel data evidence for 13 transition countries over the 1990-2003 period; it uses a fixed effects panel approach to account for possible bias from correlations among the unobserved effects and the observed...

This study examines empirically the information content of the euro area Bank Lending Survey for aggregate credit and output growth. The responses of the lending survey, especially those related to loans to enterprises, are a significant leading indicator for euro area bank credit and real GDP...