The Maastricht convergence criteria are partially based on the theory of optimum currency areas and costs-benefits analysis of the creation of a single currency area as the EMU foundation. Fulfillment of convergence criteria should be durable, but it requires a certain degree of real convergence...

The dynamic general equilibrium model with hiring costs presented in this paper delivers involuntary unemployment in the steady state and involuntary fluctuations in unemployment. After calibrating the model, through simulations we are able to show that our model with labour market imperfections...

This paper analyses the implications of the 'expenditure switching effect' for the role of the exchange rate in monetary policy in a small open economy. It is shown that, when elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods is not equal to unity, welfare depends on the variances of...

This paper looks at the voting patterns of internal and external members of the MPC to investigate how far there are differences between insiders and outsiders. We make three contributions. First, we assess the extent to which the Bank of England internally generated forecasts explain the MPC...

This paper is a case study of the real world monetary policy data uncertainty problem. The initial and the latest release for growth rates of the distribution, hotels and catering sector are combined with official data on household income and two surveys in a state-space model. Though important...

We evaluate the degree of gradualism and inaction in UK monetary policy over the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) period (1997-2007) at the quarterly and the monthly frequency. After accounting for misspecification in standard Taylor rules, we find little evidence for gradualism. A measure of...

In the last years, a number of contributions has argued that monetary -- and, more generally, economic -- policy is finally becoming more of a science. According to these authors, policy rules implemented by central banks are nowadays well supported by a theoretical framework (the New...

This paper presents a general equilibrium currency crisis model of the 'third generation', in which the possibility of currency crises is driven by the interplay between private firms' credit-constraints and nominal price rigidities. Despite our emphasis on microfoundations, the model remains...

The ideal measure of inflation reflects long-run price movements driven by actual demand in the economy and excludes short-term supply shocks. Considering that CPI does not correspond to such a measure, the purpose of this research is to analyze alternative methods of core (or underlying)...