This paper studies the role of monetary and open economy indicators in inflation targeting (IT) economies through the analysis of a nested Phillips curve/ P-star model for Chile and Mexico. For Chile a real money gap and a money growth indicator are found to be relevant in predicting deviations...

This paper focuses on how political regimes affect financial developments in Africa and the role of dominant religion, income levels and colonial legacies in this regard. The findings indicate that authoritarian regimes have a higher propensity to effect policies that favour the development of...

This paper studies the implication of unit root supply shocks for the Taylor rule. I find that, when supply shocks have a unit root, if a central bank wishes to guarantee the stationarity of inflation, then their interest rate reaction function should not respond to the output gap. Once the...

There is not a single classical approach to the lender of last resort, but several classical approaches to the lender of last resort. They have been successively developed by Baring, Thornton, the Banking School, Bagehot and Hawtrey. If these approaches converge in stressing that the lender of...

This paper studies the relationship between the availability of unsecured credit to households and unemployment. We extend the Mortensen-Pissarides model to include a goods market with search and financial frictions. Households, who have limited commitment, face endogenous borrowing constraints...

We show that TFP reacts counter-cyclically to macroeconomic shocks, which we identify by imposing sign restrictions. Counterfactual simulations, based on a New Keynesian DSGE model, show that firms manage to employ labor more efficiently during downturns, which leads to a muted drop in the...

We develop a theory that rationalizes the use of a dominant unit of account in an economy. Agents enter into non-contingent contracts with a variety of business partners. Trade unfolds sequentially in credit chains and is subject to random matching. By using a dominant unit of account, agents...

This paper studies monetary policy in models where multiple assets have different liquidity properties: safe and "pseudo-safe" assets coexist. A shock worsening the liquidity properties of the pseudo-safe assets raises interest-rate spreads and can cause a deep recession cum deflation. Expanding...

Currently, we have only a limited understanding of how central bank purchases of illiquid assets (“quantitative easing”) affect long-term interest rates, borrowing costs, and the real economy. Since the historical record of quantitative easing is sparse, theoretical work is needed to guide...

This investigation aims to explain and quantify the deviations of the Taylor Rule. A novel three-step econometric procedure designed to reflect the data-rich environment in which central banks operate is proposed using information for 229 macroeconomic series. This procedure can be applied to...