Communication has become a vital part of modern monetary policy, and its importance is even higher during a crisis when a central bank has to calm the markets down. This paper studies the information content of different styles of communication from individual central bank policymakers in the...

The never ending debate on the optimal money elasticity and predictability, coupled with the recent wishes of the major central banks to normalize monetary policy, as well as to revise their best practices, motivate this paper. Its aim is to offer a review of the evolution of the modern concept...

The first three years of European Monetary Union provide a good basis for a comprehensive analysis of this unprecedented and controversial monetary arrangement. The paper starts with a short discussion of the recent changeover to Euro notes and coins and the general difficulties with the...

We present a detailed survey of changes in the reserve requirement system in Brazil and analyze the system's main functions and goals during the period from 1994 to 2012. We identify four different subperiods with respect to the use of this policy tool. In the first subperiod, from july 1994 to...

The complexity resulting from intertwined uncertainties regarding model misspecification and mismeasurement of the state of the economy defines the monetary policy landscape. Using the euro area as laboratory this paper explores the design of robust policy guides aiming to maintain stability in...

In this study, we measure the central bank independence for all fourteen ESCWA countries using two indicators: the legal independence and accountability measure (the de jure measure) and the turnover rates of central bank governors (the de facto measure). The entire sample of countries is split...

In this paper, we develop a gap model based on a reduced form of the New Keynesian Model. The model offers various scenario structure tools which analyze the dynamics of key macro economic variables under diverse shocks and depicts their properties and historical decompositions. This framework...

This paper was presented as the 2006 W.A. Mackintosh Lecture at Queen's University. I consider some of the leading arguments for assigning an important role to tracking the growth of monetary aggregates when making decisions about monetary policy. First, I consider whether ignoring money means...

The neutral rate of interest is an important concept and communication tool for central banks. We develop a small open economy model with overlapping generations to study the determinants of the neutral real rate of interest in a small open economy. The model captures domestic factors such as...