Research
Is an international lender welfare enhancing?
This Central Bank of Chile working paper examines the role of an extra lender in the international markets - such the IMF or another similar institution. The authors suggest that the existence of such a lender "is not beneficial from a welfare standpoint…
Japan's CPI understated deflation - NBER paper
Japan's deflation would have more than twice as severe as official statistics suggested if the country adopted American methodologies which correct for substitution biases and quality upgrading, this NBER working paper finds.
Monetary integration in Southern Africa
This IMF working paper finds that the current Common Monetary Area (CMA) agreements between South African, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia, although not a full monetary union, have delivered many benefits of a full monetary union.
ECB paper on Fed and ECB response to shocks
This ECB working paper employs a medium-scale dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions to contrast the policy responses of the ECB and the Federal Reserve to economic shocks since 2001.
Weak integration in Asian bond markets
Integration in Asian bond markets has been weak and has stalled since 2003, argues a research paper from Hong Kong's central bank.
IMF paper on public debt markets
This IMF paper reviews the state of domestic public debt markets in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
Explaining interest rate differentials
In this NBER working paper, Marvin Goodfriend and Bennett T. McCallum, suggest that a central bank that fails to recognise the distinction between inter-bank and other short rates could miss its appropriate settings by as much as 4% per year.
The "butterfly effect" of small economies
This Reserve Bank of Australia Working Paper studies the implications of foreign-induced indeterminacy for the conduct of monetary policy in a small open economy.
Examining inflation target uncertainty
In this Bank of Japan Working Paper, the authors analyse the interaction between private agents' uncertainty about inflation target and the central bank's data uncertainty.
New RBNZ research bulletin
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand recently released the June 2007 edition of its research bulletin. The first article of this issue looks at how monetary policy influences the general price level.
New Bank of Chile paper on inflation expectations
This paper studies the relationship between inflation compensation and inflation expectations in Chile. The results show that inflation-expectations movements account for about only 25% of the relative returns, indicating that premiums are a very…
IMF: global imbalances matter to Europe
According to an IMF working paper published in June, although Europe in the aggregate is a not a major contributor to global current account imbalances, its trade and financial linkages with the rest of the world mean that it will still be affected by a…
New ECB Research Bulletin
The European Central Bank released it latest Research Bulletin on 29 June. The bulletin contains articles on the international carry trade, financial integration and capital flows in the new EU member states and productivity growth in the euro area.
BoC paper: fiscal and monetary interdependence
A new working paper by the Bank of Canada studies the interdependence between fiscal and monetary policies, and their joint role in the determination of the price level.
IMF authors on impact of remittances
In this article on remittances, published in the IMF's quaterly Finance & Development, the authors suggest that the "bottom line is that remittances cannot be a substitute for a sustained, domestically engineered development effort."
Gold and inflation - BoC paper
In this Bank of Canada Working Paper, the authors find that the gold price "contains significant information for future inflation for several countries, especially for those that have adopted formal inflation targets."
Monetary policy with imperfect knowledge
This ECB Working Paper examines the performance and robustness properties of monetary policy rules in an estimated macroeconomic model in which the economy undergoes structural change and where private agents and the central bank possess imperfect…
IMF backs inflation targets for Armenia, Georgia
A new paper from the IMF makes a case for a gradual transition to full-fledged inflation targeting in both Armenia and Georgia in the medium term.
Examining monetary policy press conferences
This ECB working paper studies how explanations of monetary policy decisions at press conferences are perceived by financial markets, and finds that ECB press conferences provide substantial additional information to financial markets beyond that…
Constructing a sovereign balance sheet
In this article two IMF economists discuss a "new tool in surveillance, the public sector balance sheet, [which] can help diagnose vulnerabilities that are not immediately visible in the budget."
Chicago Fed paper on mobile payments
Will mobile payments go the way of the stalled smart-card revolution of the 1990s? This Chicago Fed letter looks at these new payments fit into the larger payment system.
ECB: Inflation-linked bonds benefit central banks
In a recent occasional working paper the European Central Bank argues that "the issuance of inflation-linked bonds has explicit benefits for central banks."
Ball: globalisation does not affect inflation
A recent paper by Laurence Ball for the National Bureau of Economic Research suggetss that "globalisation has had little effect on the rate of inflation in the United States."
The benefits of the SARB's transparency
This IMF Working Paper suggests that the increased transparency of monetary policy in South Africa since the late-1990s has helped to improve the accuracy of inflation and interest rate forecasts.