In this paper we investigate whether the forecast of the HICP components (indirect approach) improves upon the forecast of overall HICP (direct approach) and whether the aggregation of country forecasts improves upon the forecast of the euro-area as a whole, considering the four largest euro...

In deciding the monetary policy stance, central bankers need to evaluate carefully the risks the current economic situation poses to price stability. We propose to regard the central banker as a risk manager who aims to contain inflation within pre-specified bounds. We develop formal tools of...

This paper provides evidence on the reliability of euro area real-time output gap estimates. A genuine real-time data set for the euro area is used, including vintages of several sets of euro area output gap estimates available from 1999 to 2006. It turns out that real-time estimates of the...

In this paper we analyse in a mark-up framework the pass-through of commodity price and exchange rate shocks to the main components of producer and consumer prices. Thereby we link movements in prices at the different production stages as firms set their prices as a mark-up over production...

This paper proposes a methodology to nowcast and forecast inflation using data with sampling frequency higher than monthly. The nowcasting literature has been focused on GDP, typically using monthly indicators in order to produce an accurate estimate for the current and next quarter. This paper...

We explore the consequences of losing confidence in the price-stability objective of central banks by quantifying the inflation and deflationary biases in inflation expectations. In a model with an occasionally binding zero-lower-bound constraint, we show that an inflation bias as well as a...

​This paper examines aggregated inflation expectations based on the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters (ECB SPF). We analyse possible impacts of changing panel composition on short and long term point forecasts and forecast uncertainties using approach, which is based on a set of...

Abstract Negative interest rates policies (NIRP), usually depicted in economic textbooks as an impossibility due to the prospect of infinite demand for money, are now a reality in several countries due to different reasons. But while the ZLB has been surpassed when it comes to Central Banks, it...

This note considers the reliability of Federal Reserve Board staff estimates of the output gap after the mid-1990s, and examines the usefulness of these estimates for inflation forecasting. Over this period, we find that the Federal Reserve's output gap is more reliably estimated in real time...

We offer a novel methodology for assessing the quality of inflation reports. In contrast to the existing literature, which mostly evaluates the formal quality of these reports, we evaluate their economic content by comparing inflation factors reported by the central banks with ex-post...