In estimating a gravity model it is essential to analyse not just bilateral trade resistance, the barriers to trade between a pair of countries, but also multilateral trade resistance (MTR), the barriers to trade that each country faces with all its trading partners. Without correctly modelling...

Alternative measures of the UK output gap are considered for 1984-2007. The real-time series is strongly affected by the rolling-time estimation of the trend, and produces a picture of the business cycle which is not consistent with contemporary perceptions of the large fluctuations of the late...

A ‘new version’ gravity model, is used to estimate the effect of a full range of de facto exchange rate regimes, as classified by Reinhart and Rogoff (2004), on bilateral trade. The results indicate that, while participation in a common currency union is typically strongly...

Between 1994 and 1997, UK monetary policy decisions were taken by the Minister of Finance, but the advice of the central bank was published with a short delay. Thus, the financial markets could observe when the political authority took the same view as the monetary authority and when it did not,...