This paper proposes a methodology for constructing a Financial Conditions Indicator (FCI) based on factor analysis and the approaches of Brave and Butters (2011) and Aramonte et al. (2013). A selected set of variables is used and their information content aggregated into a single index that...

The rapid growth of substitutes for cash, particularly debit and credit cards, has led economists to predict the advent of the “cashless society”. Yet cash holdings in most developed economies continue to grow and in the U.S., per capita currency holdings now amount to Edgar L. Feige. This...

This paper addresses the relative importance of monetary indicators for forecasting inflation in the euro area in a Bayesian framework. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA)based on predictive likelihoods provides a framework that allows for the estimation of inclusion probabilities of a particular...

Pre-Accession Transition Countries (PATCs) aim at early admittance to the monetary club. Their fiscal indicators – deficit and debt - do not show any serious symptoms. Closer scrutiny reveals, however, that the interest burden of their public debt might be underestimated, and that...

Once a country joins a monetary union, an efficient competitiveness channel is considered to be the main substitute for the abandoned autonomous monetary and exchange rate policy. This paper attempts to make an empirical assessment of how the price competitiveness of domestic producers...