|
on Monetary Economics |
By: | Julia Lendvai (University of Namur) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:51&r=mon |
By: | Sujit Kapadia (Balliol College University of Oxford) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:81&r=mon |
By: | Bernd Hayo (Philipps University Marburg); Stefan Voigt (University of Kasel and ICER) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:57&r=mon |
By: | Koffie Ben Nassar |
Keywords: | Demand for money , Madagascar , Inflation , Prices , Money markets , Exchange rates , Interest rates , Economic models , |
Date: | 2005–12–30 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:05/236&r=mon |
By: | Sònia Muñoz |
Keywords: | Inflation , Zimbabwe , Demand for money , Price controls , Economic models , |
Date: | 2006–01–30 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:06/15&r=mon |
By: | Rebeca I Muñoz Torres (University of Leicester) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:3&r=mon |
By: | Robert Rennhack; Masahiro Nozaki |
Keywords: | Dollarization , Latin America , Monetary policy , Credit , Flexible exchange rates , Exchange rate depreciation , |
Date: | 2006–01–19 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:06/7&r=mon |
By: | Doyle, Matthew |
Abstract: | Caplin and Leahy (1996) show that, when central bankers learn about the economy by observing its response to policy shock, cautious monetary policy may be ineffectual as private agents correctly anticipate that today's interest rate cuts are likely to be followed by future cuts. The central banker has to account for this strategic response of private agents to small interest rate cuts by acting more aggressively than would otherwise be the case. Caplin and Leahy, however, do not examine whether or not this strategic behavior on the part of private agents represents a constraint on the ability of monetary policy to implement optimal investment outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to show that the kinds of strategic interactions between investors and the central banker highlighted by Caplin and Leahy affect only the policy rule and do not influence the investment outcome in equilibrium. |
Keywords: | Monetary Policy, Strategic Delay |
JEL: | E5 |
Date: | 2006–02–22 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12503&r=mon |
By: | Gianluca Di Lorenzo; Giuseppe Marotta |
Abstract: | A new approach to search for structural breaks in the retail lending rA new approach is proposed for searching multiple unknown breaks, possibly associated with EMU, in the short term business lending rate pass-through. Multiple breaks are detected in five out of nine countries of the euro area. The last break occurs much before the start of EMU for France, several months after that event for Austria, Italy and Germany. Long run pass-throughs decrease (except for France) sizably below one (except for the Netherlands); heterogeneity in the monetary transmission increases across countries. These results raise doubts on claims of a more effective monetary policy under EMU. |
Keywords: | Interest rates; Monetary policy; Economic and Monetary Union; Cointegration analysis; Structural breaks |
JEL: | E43 E52 E58 F36 |
Date: | 2006–02 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:modena:0602&r=mon |
By: | Titiana Kirsanova (University of Exeter); David Vines (Balliol College University of Oxford); Mathan Satchi (University of Kent); Simon Wren-Lewis (University of Exeter) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:17&r=mon |
By: | Christian Mose Nielsen (Aalborg University) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:86&r=mon |
By: | Andrea Pescatori (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Caterino Mendicino (Stockholm School of Economics) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:67&r=mon |
By: | Chiona Balfoussia (University of York); Mike Wickens (University of York and CEPR) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:16&r=mon |
By: | Julian di Giovanni; Jay C. Shambaugh |
Keywords: | Exchange rate regimes , Interest rates , Economic growth , Monetary policy , Economic models , |
Date: | 2006–02–10 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:06/37&r=mon |
By: | Manuel M F Martins (Universidade do Porto); Alvaro Aguiar (Universidade do Porto) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:41&r=mon |
By: | Marie Musard-Gies (University of Orleans) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:56&r=mon |
By: | Sean Turnell (Department of Economics, Macquarie University) |
Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the efforts to fashion a central bank in Burma during the years in which the country was a province of British India. Throughout this period, which lasted from 1886 to 1937, questions of money and finance in Burma were mostly the preserve of the Raj in Calcutta and New Delhi. And, yet, it is a little-known fact that plans to establish a central bank for Burma were promoted throughout the colonial years by a succession of imperial officials. These plans, which reached their apogee in the 'monetary reform' advocacy that followed the Great Depression, were never realised in the colonial era. They were, however, indicative of a political economy discourse in colonial Burma that was more vigorous, and theoretically sophisticated, than is commonly supposed. |
Keywords: | Monetary institutions, British Empire, Burma, Indian monetary reform |
JEL: | N25 E42 E58 |
Date: | 2005–07 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mac:wpaper:0511&r=mon |
By: | Ana Paula Ribeiro (Universidade do Porto); Alvaro Aguiar (Universidade do Porto) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:25&r=mon |
By: | Doyle, Matthew; Falk, Barry L. |
Abstract: | Recent theoretical work shows that volatility in inflation and/or unemployment can generate time consistency problems when the central banker's loss function is asymmetric. Empirical work to date has been inconclusive. We show that previous evidence offered in support of the proposition that the volatility of unemployment helps explain inflation outcomes suffers from a spurious regression problem. Once this problem is controlled for, the evidence suggests that the volatility of unemployment does not help explain inflation outcomes. Inflation volatility can help explain inflation outcomes, but for this relationship to be due to asymmetries in central bank preferences it would require that central bankers dislike low inflation more than they dislike high inflation. |
JEL: | E5 |
Date: | 2006–02–20 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12501&r=mon |
By: | L. Randall Wray |
Abstract: | From this paper's Preface, by Dr. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, President: In Public Policy Brief No. 79, L. Randall Wray wrote about the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate hikes that "the most charitable interpretation of the Fed’s policy change is that it appears to be premature."Wray marshaled a convincing array of data on payrolls, employment-to-population ratios, and other labor market indicators to show "that the current recovery has not yet attained the degree of labor market tightness that was common in previous recoveries," and therefore that the threat of inflation was minimal. Hence, the Fed, in raising rates, was unnecessarily jeopardizing the economy’s weak recovery. In this new brief, we learn about the flaws in the Fed’s thinking that have led to its frequent policy mistakes.Wray traces several strands of current central bank thinking back to their roots in the Fed’s internal discussions in the mid-1990s. Transcripts of these discussions have recently been released, a development that has yielded some disturbing and telling insights about the way in which monetary policy is formed. The situation of 1994 closely parallels that of current times. Unemployment was clearly above its lowest sustainable level, and inflation was low. Still, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and its chairman, Alan Greenspan, believed that interest rates had to be raised to keep prices in check. As it turned out, inflation stayed low, even as unemployment sank to levels previously believed to be inflationary. The Fed’s interest rate hikes proved to be unnecessary at best and counterproductive at worst. Not only is the current economic environment reminiscent of 1994, but so are contemporary justifications for recessionary policies.Wray lists six tenets of policy making common to both periods: transparency, gradualism, activism, low inflation as the only official goal, surreptitious targeting of distributional variables, and the neutral rate as the policy instrument to achieve these goals. The Fed would not be eager to espouse some of these principles publicly, but they were all discussed in committee meetings, as the recently released transcripts make clear—and there is no reason to think the Fed has changed its philosophy. Wray shows that this philosophy is convoluted. Fed officials claim that they are attempting to reach a neutral interest rate that neither provokes inflation nor causes recession. But they also say that they will not know the level of the neutral rate until they reach it. Little can be gained by pursuing such a chimerical goal. Moreover, even when the interest rate was far below its supposedly neutral level, the economy seemed to be free of inflation. Finally, the Fed seems to have painted itself into a corner by promising in advance a gradual series of interest rate increases. It is small wonder that the press finds the Fed’s public statements to be somewhat confusing and cryptic. The Fed transcripts shed light on the events of 1994 and those of the present day. I think that it is time for a new approach to monetary policy; this brief shows why. |
Date: | 2004–12 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:levppb:ppb80&r=mon |
By: | Ulrich Fritsche (German Institute of Economic Research); Vladimir Kuzin (Goethe-University Frankfurt) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:70&r=mon |
By: | Athanasios Papadopoulos (University of Crete); Giuseppe Diana (University Robert Schuman); Moise Sidiropoulos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:58&r=mon |
By: | Ester Faia (Department of Economics); Alessia Campolmi (Department of Economics) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:80&r=mon |
By: | Marika Karanassou (Queen Mary - University of London and IZA); Dennis J Snower (Institute of World Economics IZA and CEPR) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:50&r=mon |
By: | Maarten Dossche (National Bank of Belgium); Gerdie Everaert (Ghent University) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:85&r=mon |
By: | Jean-Claude Nachega |
Keywords: | Inflation , Congo, Democratic Republic of the , Fiscal policy , Economic stabilization , |
Date: | 2005–12–08 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:05/221&r=mon |
By: | Alan Blinder |
Abstract: | Among the most notable, but least discussed, hallmarks of what I have called the "quiet revolution" in central banking practice (Blinder, 2004a) has been the movement toward making monetary policy decisions by committee. Until about a decade ago, most central banks had a single governor, who might or might not have been independent of the rest of the government. But since then, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Brazil, to name just a few, have opted to establish monetary policy committees (MPCs). In addition, the committee-based ECB replaced 12 central banks, most of which had previously been run by individual governors. Thus the existence of a pronounced worldwide trend is clear. In this paper, I discuss two questions. The first question is why. Why have so many central banks switched from individual to group decisionmaking? The second question is how. How should central banks make decisions and how should they communicate with the public, the government, and the markets? |
Keywords: | central banks; committees; voting; communication. |
JEL: | E58 D71 D78 |
Date: | 2006–02 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:092&r=mon |
By: | Phillip Lawler (University of Wales, Swansea); Jonathan James (University of Wales, Swansea) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:27&r=mon |
By: | James M. Boughton |
Keywords: | Fund , International monetary system , White, Harry Dexter , Exchange rate regimes , Capital controls , Capital flows , |
Date: | 2006–01–19 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:06/6&r=mon |
By: | Chiara Dalle Nogare; Matilde Vassalli |
Abstract: | Following Havrilesky’s seminal work (1995) and its extension by Maier, Sturm and de Haan (2002) we construct a monthly index of external influences on Bank of Italy’s conduct for the period 1984-1998. This paper aims at describing the index of overall pressure on Italian monetary policy and the five sub-indexes of which it is composed, namely the index of political pressure, the index of pressure coming from the economic sectors, the index of pressure coming from trade unions, the index of pressure coming from the financial sector and the index of pressure coming from other sources. |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubs:wpaper:ubs0407&r=mon |
By: | Michael Arghyrou (Cardiff Business School); Virginie Boinet (Brunel Business School); Christopher Martin (Brunel Business School) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:35&r=mon |
By: | Charalambos G. Tsangarides; Pierre Ewenczyk; Michal Hulej |
Keywords: | Bilateral trade , Africa , Monetary unions , Economic models , |
Date: | 2006–02–07 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:06/31&r=mon |
By: | Maria Demertzis (De Nederlandsche Bank and University of Amsterdam); Nicola Viegi (University of KwaZulu-Natal) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:52&r=mon |
By: | L. Randall Wray |
Abstract: | From this paper's Preface, by Dr. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, President: For a time, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) seemed to have learned from the mistakes of the past. Instead of taking good economic performance as a sign of incipient inflation, Chairman Alan Greenspan kept interest rates relatively low in the late 1990s, even as unemployment plummeted.Many commentators worried that the FOMC's unusually easy stance would usher in a period of runaway inflation, but inflation stayed in the 2 to 3 percent range. Now, with scant evidence of an inflationary threat, Greenspan and his committee seem intent on raising interest rates. Greenspan argues that the current anemic expansion is "self-sustaining" and no longer needs the support of low interest rates. In this new brief, Levy Institute Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray evaluates the Fed's concern about a coming inflation and its decision to begin raising interest rates. He begins with an examination of key market developments that might signal inflation.Most economists worry about inflation when labor markets begin to tighten and employees gain the bargaining power necessary to demand pay raises.Wray marshals an array of evidence demonstrating that workers can only wish for such conditions. The economy has created no net new jobs since the beginning of the current presidential term. To match the 64.4 percent proportion of adults who held jobs during the Clinton era, the economy would have to generate four million new positions. It is clear that the job market will not be a source of inflation any more than it was during the Clinton boom. |
Date: | 2004–08 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:levppb:ppb79&r=mon |
By: | Luke Willard; Tarhan Feyzioglu |
Keywords: | Inflation , China , United States , Japan , Deflation , Trade , Economic models , |
Date: | 2006–02–09 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:06/36&r=mon |
By: | Bruce D. Smith; Mohsin S. Khan; A. Senhadji Semlali |
Abstract: | Prepayment required for individual copies. An annual subscription is $375.00 a year. It includes 12 monthly shipments and priority mail delivery. The Stock No. for the subscription is WPEA. |
Keywords: | Inflation , Markets , Economic models , |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:01/44&r=mon |
By: | Celine Rochon |
Abstract: | In an economy with a fixed exchange rate regime that suffers a random adverse shock, we study the strategies of imperfectly and sequentially informed speculators that may trigger an endogenous devaluation before it occurs exogenously. The game played by the speculators has a unique symmetric Nash equilibrium which is a strongly rational expectation equilibrium in the set of all strategies with delay. Uncertainty about the extent to which the Central Bank is ready to defend the peg extends the ex ante mean delay between the exogenous shock and the devaluation. We determine endogenously the rate of devaluation. Forthcoming in the Journal of International Economics |
Date: | 2006 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sbs:wpsefe:2006fe03&r=mon |
By: | Roberto Guimaraes (International Monetary Fund); Cem Karacadag (International Monetary Fund) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:68&r=mon |
By: | Anne Sibert |
Abstract: | There is a small, but growing, economics literature on the importance and effects of having monetary policy made by a committee, rather than by an individual. Complimenting this is an older and larger body of literature on groups in the other social sciences, particular in social psychology. This paper provides a review of some of this work, focusing on two important features of committees: the effect of their size on performance and whether or not they are more moderate than the members who make them up. Individual members of a committee acquire idiosyncratic information which the committee uses to make a decision. A result of the famous Condorcet Jury Theorem is that larger committees have more resources, in the form of more information, and are thus better than smaller ones. This result depends on individuals being willing to work as hard at gathering information when they are members of a committee as they would be willing to work if they were acting alone. The economics literature suggests that this may not hold; that individual members may have an incentive to shirk. This phenomenon of a member withholding effort is called social loading in the social pyschology literature. Studies stretching over 125 years document its existence and suggest that it becomes more important as committee size increases and that it disappears when individual members contributions can be identified and evaluated. The Condorcet Jury Theorem also depends on the committee being able to aggregate members information and on members being willing to truthfully reveal their information. An excessively formal meeting structure may cause the former to fail to hold; committee members with different objectives may cause the latter not to be true. As a result of shirking and coordination problems, smaller committees may be better than larger ones and the optimal size for a committee is an empirical issue. Committees pool members information and views, thus it seems that monetary policy made by a committee should be more moderate than monetary policy made by a single individual. However, several hundred studies demonstrate that belonging to a committee polarizes its members and, hence, committees may be more extreme than individuals. A particularly harmful form of group polarization occurs when committee members striving for consensus causes them to stop paying suffcient attention to alternative courses of action. In this case the committee may make terrible decisions that none of its members would have made on their own. The results of the literature on committee size and committee polarization suggest that the ideal monetary policy committee may not have many more than five members. It should have a well defined objective and it should publish the votes of its members. It should be structured so that members do not act as part of a group, perhaps by having short terms in office and members from outside the central bank. External scrutiny of the decision-making process should be encouraged. |
Keywords: | committees; monetary policy. |
JEL: | E58 C92 D71 |
Date: | 2006–02 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:091&r=mon |
By: | Klaus Schaeck (University of Southampton); Simon Wolfe |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:44&r=mon |
By: | Jonathan David Ostry; Jeromin Zettelmeyer |
Keywords: | Fund , Crisis prevention , Exchange rate policy surveillance , |
Date: | 2005–11–08 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:05/206&r=mon |
By: | Young-Sook Lee (University of Wales Swansea); Tae-Hwan Kim (University of Nottingham); Paul Newbold (Yonsei University) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:19&r=mon |
By: | Rodolphe Blavy |
Keywords: | Banking , Bank credit , Bank supervision , |
Date: | 2005–12–13 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:05/222&r=mon |
By: | Matthias Doepke (UCLA); Martin Schneider (NYU and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) |
Date: | 2006–02–01 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:uclawp:846&r=mon |
By: | Fabrizio Zampolli (Bank of England); Andrew Blake (Bank of England) |
Date: | 2005–09–03 |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mmf:mmfc05:2&r=mon |