The objective of this paper is to point out that dollarization, apart from being a commitment device, may also be used as a signaling device if there is uncertainty about the government’s intentions. To this end, we modify the standard approach to modeling monetary policy by introducing two...

For the successful conduct of monetary policy the central bank needs reliable indicators of the monetary policy stance. A recently often advocated one is the gap between the real, market and the natural rate of interest. In this article we estimate the historical time series of the natural rate...

We study the impact of the publication of central bank’s macroeconomic projections on the dynamic properties of an economy where: (i) private agents have incomplete information and form their expectations using recursive learning algorithms, (ii) the short-term nominal interest rate is set as...

In this paper, we investigate the role of recessions on the relative forecasting performance of the Fed and the private sector. Romer and Romer (2000) showed that the Fed's forecasts of inflation and output were superior to that of the private sector in the pre-1991 period. D'Agostino and Whelan...

We analyze an economy populated by a sequence of generations who decide over their consumption and investment in human capital of their immediate descendants. The objective of the paper is twofold: firstly, to identify the impact of strategic interactions between consecutive generations on the...

We construct 14 alternative measures of technological progress for 19 OECD countries over the period 1970–2000, distinguishing between measures of productivity gains actually obtained in a given country (TFP growth, Malmquist index) and technological progress at the world technology frontier...

The US deposit insurance system (managed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – FDIC) has been established in 1933 to ensure the safety of deposited money and the overall stability of the banking sector. Although over decades the system proved to be successful in accomplishing those...

Euro-area accession caused boom-bust cycles in several catching-up economies. Declining interest rates and easier financing conditions fuelled spending and worsened the current account balance. Over time inflation deteriorated external competitiveness and lowered domestic demand, turning the...

This paper verifies strong and weak versions of the vanishing interim regime hypothesis (so-called bipolar view). It is shown herein that the strong as well as weak version of this hypothesis can be discredited. Empirical observations support the bipolar view only for the advanced countries, but...

This paper investigates the channels through which the global crisis of 2008- 2009 spread to economic activity of an emerging, fast growing economy with sound macroeconomic fundamentals. On the basis of Polish firm-level data we find that a number of individual f irm characteristics account for...