The current implementation of the Fan Chart displays equal tail probability bands and do not take into account that the variable of interest may be subject to data revision. In this note I propose the use of Highest Probability Density, HPD, bands and include flexibility to display the risks...

The ongoing euro zone debt crisis creates an undesirable scenario for the global economy as well as for the Asia-Pacific region given that the region has close economic linkages. The paper aims to provide quantitative estimates of the potential impact of the euro zone debt crisis on merchandise...

High food prices have put increasing inflationary pressures across the Asia-Pacific region and threatened food security. Bad weather in important food-producing countries and speculation in commodity markets have affected global food supplies and added volatility to booming commodity markets...

The similarities yet differences across South Asian countries, and their differential response to recent food and oil price shocks, gives a useful opportunity to better understand the structure of inflation in these economies. Analysis of the internal and external balance and evidence on demand...

Skill erosion during unemployment was of particular concern as unemployment duration increased in the Great Recession. I argue that it generates an externality in job creation: firms ignore how their hiring decisions affect the unemployment pool’s skill composition, and hence the output...

We may find numerous works in the existing literature regarding the cohesion between oil prices and exchange rates, yet an exact shape of the relationship remains undefined. By restoring to wavelet analysis and using a rich database from Japan, this study contributes to the literature by...

We test whether the Bank of Canada pursues a flexible inflation forecast target, one that weights output growth as well as inflation. For the period 19962007, we find evidence that the Bank did effectively pursue such a target over the forecast horizon of 12 to 18 months. We find the relative...

This paper studies optimal monetary policy from the timeless perspective in a general model of state-dependent pricing. Firms are modeled as monopolistic competitors subject to idiosyncratic menu cost shocks. We find that, under certain conditions, a policy of zero inflation is optimal both in...

We conducted an anonymous survey in December 2013 asking around 200 economists worldwide to provide an interval (a to b) of average inflation in the US expected "over the next two years". The respondents were also instructed to give a probability of inflation being higher or lower than the...

In this paper, we apply the theory of rational expectation bubbles to the Chinese house market. Rational expectation bubbles imply that negative returns on house prices are, theoretically, less likely to occur if the bubbles exist and persist. Based on the data of 29 cities in China, we find no...