Suchergebnisse

The dispersion of European Union inflation rates drifted upward in recent years, after the drive toward the euro pushed it downward sharply in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Inflation accelerated in economies that have either grown faster than their potential output or have failed to liberalize their factor and product markets, generating cost-push pressures and monetary transmission inefficiencies. To the extent inflation performance has been affected by factors outside of the control of the European Central Bank stabilization of inflation around a euro-area target will remain an elusive goal. [Copyright 2008 The Society for Policy Modeling; published by Elsevier Inc.]

We offer a novel methodology for assessing the quality of inflation reports. In contrast to the existing literature, which mostly evaluates the formal quality of these reports, we evaluate their economic content by comparing inflation factors reported by the central banks with ex-post model-identified factors. Regarding the former, we use verbal analysis and coding of inflation reports to describe inflation factors communicated by central banks in real time. Regarding the latter, we use reduced-form, new Keynesian models and revised data to approximate the true inflation factors. Positive corr

This paper contributes to the analysis of monetary policy in the face of financial instability. In particular, we extend the standard new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with sticky prices to include a financial system. Our simulations suggest that if financial instability affects output and inflation with a lag and if the central bank has privileged information about credit risk, monetary policy that responds instantly to increased credit risk can trade off more output and inflation instability today for a faster return to the trend than a policy that follows the

The effects of debt relief on incentives to accumulate debt, consume, and invest are an important concern for donors and recipients. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with a minimum consumption requirement and an endogenous relief probability, we show that excessive debt accumulation is consistent with an anticipation of a future debt relief. Simulations of the calibrated model using 1982-2006 Ugandan data suggest that debt-relief episodes are likely to have only a temporary impact on the level of debt in low-income countries, while being associated w