Assuming information asymmetry between private agents and the central bank about the state of the economy, an unexpected change in interest rates signals the central bank's perceived state of the economy and facilitates an update of private expectations in an adverse, perhaps unintended way....

This paper studies the macroeconomic impact of ECB policy on the euro area and six non-EMU countries. The analysis is based on the evolution of a synthetic index of overall euro area monetary conditions (MCI) that can be decomposed into conventional and unconventional policy measures. A standard...

Do private analysts coordinate their forecasts via central bank forecasts? In this paper, we examine private and central bank forecasts for the Czech Republic. The evolution of the standard deviation of private forecasts as well as the distance from the central bank’s forecasts are used...

This article analyzes the phenomenon of financial integration on both the theoretical and empirical levels, focusing primarily on assessing the impacts of the current financial crisis. In the theoretical section we first look at the definition of financial integration and summarize the benefits...

This paper presents evidence on the extent of real wage flexibility in 24 EU member countries based on the Eurostat labour cost data covering 2000Q1-2010Q2. The term 'wages' refers, for brevity, to total hourly labour costs and their two main components, namely wages and salaries per hour, and...

The hedging behaviour of Czech exporting firms is analysed using questionnaire information and interviews with banks. Approximately 60% of the 184 firms surveyed hedge their FX exposures, and about 88% of their exports are hedged. Most exporters use natural hedging, i.e. they balance incoming...

This paper uses the credit-friction model developed by Curdia and Woodford, in a series of papers, as the basis for attempting to mimic the behavior of credit spreads in moderate as well as crisis times. We are able to generate movements in representative credit spreads that are, at times, both...

In this paper we use Household Budget Survey data to analyze the evolution of the household credit market in the Czech Republic over the period 2000–2008. While the share of households that borrow remained stable and below 40%, the amount of debt outstanding increased. We estimate a...

This paper examines the impact of monetary conditions on the risk-taking behaviour of banks in the Czech Republic by analysing the comprehensive credit register of the Czech National Bank. Our duration analysis indicates that expansionary monetary conditions promote risk-taking among banks. At...

We develop a numerical procedure that facilitates efficient likelihood evaluation in applications involving non-linear and non-Gaussian state-space models. The procedure employs continuous approximations of filtering densities, and delivers unconditionally optimal global approximations of...