This paper evaluates the impact of non-monetary factors on inflation for a sample of 97 countries over the period 1975-2005. We complement and extend the existing literature in the following dimensions: (i) we assemble a comprehensive set of inflation determinants classified in 5 groups — high...

Supply shock effects comming from high import prices, such as the current oil price shock, are analyzed based on a dynamic semi-structural model calibrated for the Guatemalan economy. It is argued that a worldwide oil price increase affects domestic prices through a direct and an indirect...

Over the past decade, most Latin American countries have moved toward either extreme of floating rates or dollarization, in line with worldwide trends. In this paper, we evaluate the wisdom of those decisions and the choice of monetary regime more generally. We first evaluate the desirability of...

We evaluate the ability of a measure of external imbalances that combines the trade and the financial channels to forecast the real effective exchange rate for Chile. By making use of a quarterly database of external assets and liabilities for the period 1983 to 2005, and employing a recently...

Central banks must make policy decisions in the face of uncertainty based on imperfect and evolving knowledge about the economy. While few general results have emerged from the research on monetary policy in the face of uncertainty and learning, a key lesson is that neither uncertainty nor...

The inclusion of the agrarian sector in the North American Foreign Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has created controversy since the beginning of negotiations. Mexico’s official vision has been that free trade, as well as agricultural reforms initiated in the country in the late eighties would...

There is an ample literature whose main subject is to build models able to anticipate or provide some early warning signals of problematic financial institutions. This article overview these literature in an attempt to detect latent fragility in the Chilean financial system. Most applications in...

We estimate a cointegrated VAR of consumption, household money and their determinants in Chile.We find two long-run relations that can be specified as a classic money-demand equation and aconsumption equation that is homogenous in disposable income. We find that the household money overhang has...

This paper shows the results of the Capital Stock Project included in the upcoming 2003 Base Year Program now in progress in the National Accounts Department. The project has been prepared in accordance with the objectives and methodological framework set forth in the Program, and has benefited...

In this paper we use a set of methods to estimate the neutral interest rate for Chile (NRIR). We group the methods into three categories: methods derived from pure economic theory, the NRIR implicit in the price of financial assets, and the rate estimated from a statistical model using...