This paper examines the choice of a monetary policy rule in a simple macroeconomic model. In a closed economy, the optimal policy is a ‘Taylor rule’ in which the interest rate depends on output and inflation. In an open economy, the optimal rule changes in two ways. First, the policy...

This paper finds evidence that firms may manipulate their systematic risk. This contrasts with previously held views that changes in estimates of systematic risk were an artefact of the estimators used. The central finding is that firms take actions which result in their equity betas adjusting...

In this paper we investigate the degree of competition in the market for housing loans by examining a new data set, the asset composition of individual banks. We construct a Herfindahl index of concentration in this market, and estimate a model of conjectural variations to examine the reactions...

No abstract available

Current account imbalances have in recent years become a concern of policy makers and public opinion in a number of countries. It is often argued that budget imbalances of the public sector are at the root of the current account imbalances. The aim of this paper is to provide a suitable...

A home is the single largest purchase that most households make, and it is one that usually requires some debt financing. Because housing debt is such a large component of households’ balance sheets, it is important to understand the financing decision. In this paper, we use household level...

This paper is the first of two companion pieces examining competition between payment systems. Here we develop a model of competing platforms which generalises that considered by Chakravorti and Roson (2006). In particular, our model allows for fully endogenous multi-homing on both the merchant...

Long-term nominal interest rates in a number of inflation-targeting small open economies have tended to be highly correlated with those of the United States. This observation has recently lent support to the view that the long end of the yield curve is determined abroad. We set up and estimate a...

No abstract available

This paper constructs coincident indices of Australian economic activity using techniques for estimating approximate factor models with many series, using data that begin in the early 1960s. The resulting monthly and quarterly indices both provide plausible measures of the Australian business...