In this paper we show that a two-factor constant volatility model provides an adequate description of the dynamics and shape of the German term structure of interest rates from 1972 up to 1998.

Structural models are apowerful tool for business cycle and monetary analysis because they are invariant to either policy changes or external stocks. In this paper, we derive a sidrauski-type model in which both the demand and supply side are structural in the sense that the behavorial equations...

Estimates of cyclically-adjusted budget balances, correcting actual government budget balances for business cycle fluctuations, are produced by many institutions, including the European Commission, the IMF and the OECD. This paper presents an alternative approach for the cyclical adjustment of...

Recently, several central banks have abandoned the usual secrecy in monetary policy and become very transparent. This paper provides an explanation for this puzzling fact, focussing on the disclosure of central bank forecasts. It shows that transparency reduces the inflationary bias and gives...

Recent empirical work increasingly points to imperfect intellectual property rights as an important determinant of firm's organization strategy.This paper argues that imperfect intellectual property rights, and the ensuing im- portance of reducing information leakages outside innovating firms...

This paper uses a small, calibrated forward-looking model of the euro-area economy to investigate the implications of incomplete information about potential output for the conduct and the design of monetary policy.

While domestic interbank markets are often considered to work in an efficient way, cross-country bank lending appears to be subject to market imperfections leading to persistent interest rate differentials. In a model where banks need to cope with liquidity shocks by borrowing or by liquidating...