We study the interplay among imperfect memory, limited commitment, and theft, in an environment that can support monetary exchange and credit. Imperfect memory makes money useful, but it also permits theft to go undetected, and therefore provides lucrative opportunities for thieves. Limited...

This paper tracks data revisions in the Personal Consumption Expenditure using the exclusions-from-core inflation persistence model. Keeping the number of observations the same, the regression parameters of earlier vintages of real-time data, beginning with vintage 1996:Q1, are tested for...

A model is constructed in which trading partners are asymmetrically informed about future trading opportunities and where spatial and informational frictions limit arbitrage between markets. These frictions create an inefficiency relative to a full information equilibrium, and the extent of this...

There is an ongoing debate on how to identify monetary policy shocks in SVAR models. Graphical modelling exploits statistical properties of data for identification and offers a data based tool to shed light on the issue. The information set of the monetary authorities, which is essential for the...

In the summer of 2002, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) hosted the “SNB-Fed Cleveland Workshop on Monetary Economics”. Recent years have seen the development of the search-theoretic approach to monetary theory. It has established itself as an important strand of monetary theory in a very short...

I estimate DSGE models with recurring regime changes in monetary policy (inflation target and reaction coefficients), technology (growth rate and volatility), and/or nominal price rigidities. In the models, agents are assumed to know deep parameter values but make probabilistic inference...

Until the 19th and mid-20th centuries, economic theory explained that the economic status of a country was represented by the strength of its currency.2 This strength is measured by the exchange rate of one currency vis-á-vis another currency, a “zero-sum” game in which one currency gains...

Using parametric and nonparametric methods, inflation persistence is examined through the relationship between exclusions-from-core inflation and total inflation for two sample periods and in five in-sample forecast horizons ranging from one quarter to three years over fifty vintages of...

Most explanations for the necessity of an independent central bank rely on the time-inconsistency model and therefore assume that governments are weak, foolish, or untruthful and tend to cheat people. The model in this paper indicates, however, that an independent central bank is not necessary...

The nature of the relationship between asset price movements and monetary policy is a currently hotly debated topic in macroeconomics. This paper examines empirically if monetary policy in the euro-area, since 1987, has been influenced by high valuations of the equity and housing markets. A...