In this paper we study 2-state Markov switching VAR models of monthly unemployment and inflation for three countries: Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. The primary purpose is to examine if periods of low inflation are associated with high or low unemployment volatility. We find that...

We construct a slope factor from changes in federal funds futures of different horizons. Slope predicts stock returns at the weekly frequency: faster monetary policy easing positively predicts excess returns. Investors can achieve increases in weekly Sharpe ratios of 20% conditioning on the...

Some observers have worried that under or over-estimating the output gap may unnecessarily induce tightening or loosening of monetary conditions, causing real fluctuations. To investigate the relationship between the output gap and inflation, we examine models of inflation that do and do not use...

This paper carries out another evaluation on a highly debated property of inflation dynamics, namely its persistence. We study inflation dynamics for the United States since 1959 with a time-varying methodology where the intercept, variance and persistence are allowed to vary over time. We...

Like the gold standard, price level targeting (PT) involves not letting past deviations of inflation be bygones; both regimes return the price level (or price of gold) to its target. The experience of suspension of the gold standard in World War I, resumption in the 1920s (for some countries at...

The article provides estimates of short-run and medium-run exchange rate pass-through into domestic prices in Russia during the period of 2000–2012 using vector error correction model. Exchange rate pass-through asymmetry estimates, its assessments on different sub-periods and exchange rate...

We consider an alternative modelling approach to the mainstream DSGE paradigm, namely a Dynamic Stochastic General Disequilibrium (DSGD) baseline model of continuous and gradual adjustment processes on interacting real and financial markets. Heterogeneous capital gain expectations (chartists and...

Currently, many monetary and fiscal policy measures are aimed at preventing the financial market meltdown that started in the US subprime sector and has spread worldwide as a great recession. Although some slow recovery appears to be on the horizon, it is worthwhile exploring the fragility and...

In the last months, the world's economies were confronted with the largest economic recession since the Great Depression. The occurrence of a worldwide financial market meltdown as a consequence originally stemming from of the crisis in the US subprime housing sector was only prevented by...