Inflation targeting needs to be supplemented by an economic growth target so that central banks will not adopt monetary policy which results in stagnation. There is no guarantee that the economy will move towards full employment by itself when the inflation rate is kept between two to three per cent. Monetary policy does not have a comparative advantage in achieving price stability. Svensson's ...

This paper investigates price rigidity arise out of the speci c market structures, such as degree of market concentration and pricing decisions of retailers and manufacturers. Using Japanese scanner data that contains transaction prices and sales for more than 1,600 commodity groups from 1988 to 2008, we nd statistically signi cant negative correlation between the degree of market concentration...

In this paper the long-run trend in CPI in‡ation (core in‡ation) for Italy is estimated over the 1962-1997 period within the framework of a multivariate common trends model. In this framework core in‡ation is directly linked to money and wage growth and interpreted as the long-run forecast of in‡ation. This measure displays several desirable properties: lower variability than observed in‡ation,...

The paper analyzes the effects of financial liberalization on inflation. We develop a monetary and endogenous growth, dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open semi-industrialized economy, with financial intermediaries subjected to obligatory ”high” reserve ratio, serving as the source of financial repression. When calibrated to four Southern European semi-industrialized countries, name...

This paper develops a measure of U.S. monetary policy shocks for the period 1969–1996 that is relatively free of endogenous and anticipatory movements. Quantitative and narrative records are used to infer the Federal Reserve’s intentions for the federal funds rate around FOMC meetings. This series is regressed on the Federal Reserve’s internal forecasts to derive a measure free of systematic re...

This paper investigates forecasts of US in#ation at the 12-month horizon. The starting point is the conventional unemployment rate Phillips curve, which is examined in a simulated out-of-sample forecasting framework. In#ation forecasts produced by the Phillips curve generally have been more accurate than forecasts based on other macroeconomic variables, including interest rates, money and commo...

High Curie temperaturepiezoelectricthin films of xBiInO3-(1-x)PbTiO3 (x = 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, and 0.25) were prepared by pulsed laser deposition. It was found that the tetragonality of films decreased with increasing BI content. The dielectric constant and transverse piezoelectric coefficient (e31,f ) exhibit the highest values of 665 and -13.6 C/m2 at x = 0.20. Rayleigh analyses were performed t...

Despite their popularity as theoretical tools for illustrating the effects of nominal rigidities, some have questioned whether models based on Taylor-style staggered contracts can match the persistence of the empirical inflation process. This paper presents some general theoretical results about Taylor-style models. It is shown that these models do not have a problem matching high autocorrelati...

This paper examines the in ationary consequences of a currency changeover in the catering market. Empirical evidence from the Michelin Red Guide shows that: i) di erently from restaurants in non-euro countries, restaurants in the euro area experienced abnormal price increases just after the changeover, ii) among restaurants in the euro area, tourist restaurants are responsible for most of the a...

Motoyuki Hattori, Norihiko Iwase, Noritaka Furuya, Yoshiki Tanaka, Tomoya Tsukazaki, Ryuichiro Ishitani, Michael E Maguire, Koichi Ito*, Andres Maturana* and Osamu Nureki* Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan, Department of Biological Information, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of T...