This article summarises research on the role of forward-looking behaviour in important sectors of a macro- econometric model. It is based on the work of a number of researchers at the National Institute over the last two years. Important changes are introduced into many central equations in the...

This article summarises research on the role of forward-looking behaviour in important sectors of a macro- econometric model. It is based on the work of a number of researchers at the National Institute over the last two years. Important changes are introduced into many central equations in the...

This article argues that an independent central bank is not in itself sufficient to ensure the long-term success and stability of the economy. While there are strong academic arguments for making the central bank independent, these arguments are often developed in a closed economy setting. Where...

There has been growing interest in the use of financial spreads as advance indicators of real activity and inflation. Empirical evidence is marshalled on a range of spreads when these are used in vector autoregressive models of the UK and German economies. It is found that they do have...

This paper presents an analysis of the behavior of the Swiss labor market, which emphasizes both changes to labor supply and real wage inflexibility as determinants of recent unusually high levels of unemployment. Supply responses in the past meant that measured unemployment rates were rarely...