The real interest rate gap or IRG - the gap between the short term real interest rate and its "natural" level - is a theoretical concept that has attracted much attention in central banks in recent years. This paper aims at clarifying its practical relevance for monetary policy in real time. For...

Many past studies of relative financing costs in the United States and Japan have relied on interest rates from the 1970s and earlier when Japanese financial markets were subject to numerous regulations and controls and were shielded by capital controls from financial markets abroad. Interest...

This paper empirically investigates the impact of changes in US real interest rates on sovereign default risk in emerging economies using the method of identification through heteroskedasticity. Policy-induced increases in US interest rates starkly raise default risk in emerging market...

Despite the centrality of the theoretical relationship between real exchange rates and real interest rates differential in open economy macroeconomics, its empirical evidence, particularly when cointegration methods are used, is rather mixed. The study uses IFS, IMF data for India and US for the...

Prevailing explanations of the decline in real interest rates since the early 1980s are premised on the notion that real interest rates are driven by variations in desired saving and investment. But based on data stretching back to 1870 for 19 countries, our systematic analysis casts doubt on...

Long term determinants of the movements in exchange rate have been an active interest area for both theoretical and empirical research. In this paper, we consider the long run relationship between exchange rates, inflation and interest rates. We find evidence that the Purchasing Power Parity...

Orthodox term structure theory holds that real interest rates are constant across all maturities. With the introduction of inflation indexed securities by various governments, the real interest rate is directly observable. The yields of these inflation linked securities show that the real rate...