Asset prices and the equity premium might reflect doubts and pessimism. Introducing these features in an otherwise standard New-Keynesian model changes in a quite substantial way its normative conclusions. First, following productivity shocks, optimal policy should be very accommodative even to the point to inflate the equity premium. Second, asset-price movements improve the inflation-output t...

The empirical “gravity” equation is extremely successful in explaining bilateral trade. This paper shows how a multi-country model of specialization and costly trade (i.e. a microfounded gravity model) can be applied to explain empirical exchange rate puzzles. One such puzzle is the fact that nominal exchange rates are enormously volatile, but that this volatility does not appear to affect infl...

Two sources of asymmetry in the Phillips curve are considered: the “capacity constraint hypothesis” and downward rigidity on wages and/or prices. The short run trade-off between inflation changes and the unemployment gap is modeled in a state-space framework that allows for time variation in both the NAIRU and the trade-off parameter. Empirical evidence for the US using the Kalman filter favors...

The impact of changes in exchange rate on inflation is an issue of extreme importance for nations with a history of high inflation. While there have been significant studies on industrial and advanced economies, little analysis has been conducted on smaller economies that are open to trade and financial relationships. This paper estimates exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into CPI and import pr...

This paper conducts empirical investigation on the relationship between exchange rate and inflation targeting regime in the three developed and three emerging Asian economies that have adopted inflation targeting (IT) regime. Using a multivariate GARCH model under BEKK specification, we investigate if exchange rate affect the performance of IT and the performance of IT is compared between Asian...

This paper studies the effects of anticipated inflation on aggregate output and welfare within a search-theoretic framework. We allow money-holders to choose the intensities with which they search for trading partners, so inflation affects the frequency of trade as well as the quantity of output produced in each trade. We consider the standard pricing mechanism for search models, i.e., ex post ...

This paper provides an empirical exploration of the interaction between fiscal policy, monetary policy, exchange rates, and external balances as well as their impacts on real economic growth and inflation for the BRICS countries. A panel VAR model is employed to assess the dynamic relationships. Our results generally confirm the significant impacts of a monetary shock on real economic activity ...

HE FUNDAMENTAL task of the central bank is to preserve the value of the currency. The understanding of the centrality of price stability has evolved over the years, and it is worthwhile to review selectively recent developments in thinking about this aspect of the role of the central bank, with an emphasis on unsettled and controversial issues. As long as countries adhered to the gold standard,...

The rate of inflation in the consumer price index over the past three years has been low and stable, averaging 2.8 percent and never exceeding that average by more than one-half percentage point in any quarter. Attending this success on the inflation front has been a gradual decline in the unemployment rate to a level that most economists agree is consistent with full employment. In broad terms...