The last decades have shown a tendency towards higher central bank transparency. It became customary for central bankers to explain their monetary policy decisions in detail and for them to publish inflation forecasts. This leads to the question of how central bank transparency is entangled with...

In this paper we investigate whether the forecast of the HICP components (indirect approach) improves upon the forecast of overall HICP (direct approach) and whether the aggregation of country forecasts improves upon the forecast of the euro-area as a whole, considering the four largest euro...

We develop a time-varying transition probabilities Markov Switching model in which inflation is characterised by two regimes (high and low inflation). Using Bayesian techniques, we apply the model to the euro area, Germany, the US, the UK and Canada for data from the 1960s up to the present. Our...

The issue of forecast aggregation is to determine whether it is better to forecast a series directly or instead construct forecasts of its components and then sum these component forecasts. Notwithstanding some underlying theoretical results, it is generally accepted that forecast aggregation is...

Trend inflation estimates for 12 of the largest Asian economies over 1995-2018 offer important insights on inflation dynamics and inflation expectations. The disinflationary shocks that hit the region since 2014 were partly transitory, but their effects have been different depending on the...

We propose a benchmark prior for the estimation of vector autoregressions: a prior about initial growth rates of the modeled series. We first show that the Bayesian vs frequentist small sample bias controversy is driven by different default initial conditions. These initial conditions are...

This paper addresses some issues concerning the definition and measurement of inflation persistence in the context of the univariate approach. First, it is stressed that any estimate of persistence should be seen as conditional on the given assumption for the long run level of inflation and that...

In this paper we report results on inflation persistence using 79 inflation series covering the EU countries, the euro area and the US for five different inflation variables. The picture that emerges is one of moderate inflation persistence across the board. In particular we find euro area...

This paper analyses the degree of inflation persistence in the EU15, the euro area and each of its member states using disaggregate price indices from the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. Our results reveal substantial heterogeneity across countries and indices. The overall results, based on...

In deciding the monetary policy stance, central bankers need to evaluate carefully the risks the current economic situation poses to price stability. We propose to regard the central banker as a risk manager who aims to contain inflation within pre-specified bounds. We develop formal tools of...