We study the bond yield conundrum in a macro-finance framework. Building upon a exible and non-structural macro-finance model, we test the hypothesis that the bond yield conundrum is connected to various sources of uncertainty in the financial markets. Moreover we explicitly test for the role of...

In 2001, the Fed has lowered interest rates in a series of cuts, starting from 6.5 % at the end of 2000 to 2.0 % by early November.This paper asks, whether the Federal Reserve Bank has been surprising the markets, taking as given the conventional view about the effect of monetary policy...

In this paper we analyze disinflation in two environments.One in which the central bank has perfect knowledge, in the sense that it understands and observes the process by which private sector inflation expectations are generated, and one in which the central bank has to learn the private sector...

This paper studies how the exposure of a country's corporate sector to interest rate and exchange rate changes affects the probability of a currency crisis.To analyze this question, we present a model that defines currency crisis as situations in which the costs of maintaining a fixed exchange...

Central banks have become increasingly transparent during the last decade. One of the main bene ts of transparency predicted by theoreticalmodels is that it enhances the credibility, reputation, and exibility of monetary policy, which suggests that increased transparency should result in lower...

Should central banks increase their degree of transparency any further? We show that there is likely to be an optimal intermediate degree of central bank transparency. Up to this optimum more transparency is desirable: it improves the quality of private sector inflation forecasts. But beyond the...