This Selected Issues paper takes a close look at the proximate determinants and short-term dynamics of inflation in Switzerland. It identifies salient features of the inflation experience in Switzerland. The paper uses a wage-price model to gauge the sensitivity of inflation to the business...

This 2004 Article IV Consultation highlights that Israel’s economic recovery is under way after a prolonged recession. Growth is being supported by more favorable global economic conditions, an improvement in the security situation, and appropriate policies, which have included tightening...

This study examines money demand and inflation dynamics in the Islamic Republic of Iran using quarterly data for the period 1990/91-2001/02 and tests whether the disinflation during 2000/01-2001/02 represents a structural break in the data. A long-run money market equilibrium condition is...

This paper uses a two-sector model to estimate the relationship between prices, money, and the exchange rate in Madagascar during the period 1982-2004. The estimated model, using quarterly data, finds a stable long-run relationship among monetary aggregates, domestic prices, real income, and...

This paper develops stylized facts about the inflation process in developing countries, focusing particularly on the relationship between the exchange rate regime and the sources of inflation. Using annual data from 1964 to 1998 for 53 developing countries, we find that money growth and exchange...

How should a central bank organize itself to produce the best possible inflation forecast? This paper discusses elements for building a comprehensive platform for an inflation forecasting framework. It describes the exercise of forecasting inflation as a production process, which induces a...

This paper develops a new macrofinance model for small open economies, allowing the investigation of Mauritius's experience with 'inflation targeting lite' as described in Stone (2003). It finds that this monetary policy regime has been associated with a general reduction in inflation,...

We develop a semi-structural new-Keynesian open-economy model, with separate food and non-food inflation dynamics, for forecasting and monetary policy analysis in low-income countries and apply it to Kenya. We use the model to run several policy-relevant exercises. First, we filter international...

We propose a new approach to test the full-information rational expectations hypothesis which can identify whether rejections of the arise from information rigidities. This approach quantifies the economic significance of departures from the and the underlying degree of information rigidity....

We develop a DSGE model with a banking sector to analyze the impact of the financial crisis on Zambia and the role of the monetary policy response. We view the crisis as a combination of three related shocks: a worsening in the terms of the trade, an increase in the country’s risk...