In this paper series are derived for capital utilisation, labour effort and total factor productivity (TFP) from a general equilibrium model with variable factor utilisation and labour adjustment costs. Impulse responses from the model show that firms initially respond to unanticipated shocks by...

Any monetary policy maker using a short-term nominal interest rate as the primary policy tool will have an interest in understanding developments in ex-ante real interest rates. In this paper, several methods for calculating real interest rates for the United Kingdom are explored. These include:...

For standard calibration, this paper shows that the optimal price, in a model with Calvo form of price stickiness and strategic complementarities, is only defined for annualised trend inflation rates of under 5.5%. This critical inflation rate is below the average inflation rate over recent...

Although the target of monetary policy is clear, there have been suggestions that the conduct of monetary policy is improved by monitoring trimmed mean inflation rates, the mean of some central portion of the distribution of price changes. This paper assesses critically the theoretical and...