In this paper, we study the potential of stocks as a hedge against inflation for different investment horizons. We show that stocks can be a hedge against inflation even if stock returns are negatively correlated with unexpected inflation shocks, and only moderately positively related to expected inflation. Depending on the investment horizon, the optimal hedge ratio can be either positive or n...

Using data from 15 EU countries for 1974-2004, with various specifications and estimation methods this paper gives strong support to the idea that the aggregate inflation-output gap or inflation-unemployment rate relationship is not linear because inflation is relatively more sensitive to markets and regions that are close to a capacity constraint. Accordingly, inflation is not only related to ...

Using a New-Keynesian framework, we investigate how far the inflationary processes in member states of EMU cause regional price levels to converge. We fail to produce hard evidence of the present existence of such an adjustment mechanism, notwithstanding that inflation in some countries tends to converge towards the euro area level. Overall, inflation persistence has declined significantly over...

This paper studies the joint business cycle dynamics of inflation, money growth, nominal and real interest rates and the velocity of money. I extend and estimate a standard cash and credit monetary model by adding idiosyncratic preference shocks to cash consumption as well as a banking sector. The estimated model accounts very well for the business cycle data, a finding that standard monetary m...

Our main result is that dynamic new-Keynesian (DNK) models with firm-specific capital feature a substantial amount of endogenous price stickiness. We use this insight to assess the desirability of alternative interest rate rules, and make the case for combining active monetary policy with interest rate smoothing and/or some responsiveness of the nominal interest rate to real economic activity. ...

Article history: Received 29 June 2013 Received in revised form 18 November 2013 Accepted 19 November 2013 Available online 12 December 2013 Constructing a duopoly model with non-constant marginal costs and a strict Pareto criterion, this paper examines welfare effects of world-price-fixing tariff reductions accompanied by adjustments of a domestic tax. If a destination-based consumption tax is...

Building on the experience of NAFTA, and assuming that rules of origin (RoO) negotiated under NAFTA are likely to resemble those that would be agreed upon in an FTAA, this paper discusses how different RoO criteria would affect different Southern partners in a multi-stage production setting. Next, we use a combination of parametric and non-parametric methods to estimate the costs of RoO under N...

Government budget balance forces the endogenous use of distortionary tax instruments when an exogenous reform is implemented. The aggregate efficiency of such reforms is based on comparisons of simple summary measures of the Marginal Cost of Funds of the various tariff or quota changes with the Marginal Cost of Funds of the alternative taxes, or of the Marginal Benefit of Government supplied go...

The link between US labor cost and price inflation has weakened notably over the past three decades. In this paper we document decline analyse potential contributing factors. We consider four important trends that have shaped economy of late: (i) improved anchoring expectations; (ii) changing constellation shocks hitting economy; (iii) increased trade integration (iv) rising firm market power. ...

Policy-makers and analysts are often concerned with the effect of tariff reductions, as part of trade liberalisation, on the volume of imports, and in particular adverse effects on domestic import-competing sectors. While there is limited evidence at an aggregate country level that imports increase following trade liberalisation, there is very little empirical evidence at a sector level. In the...