The Taylor rule establishes a simple linear relation between the interest rate, inflation and output gap. However, this relation may not be so simple. To get a deeper understanding of central banks’ behaviour, this paper asks whether central banks are indeed following a linear Taylor rule or,...

This paper investigates the relationship between electricity demand and temperature in the European Union. We address this issue by means of a panel threshold regression model on 15 European countries over the last two decades. Our results confirm the non-linearity of the link between...

This paper analyzes the relationship between the spot and futures prices of energy commodities from a new perspective. Taking data from the Dow Jones UBS Commodity Index, we first test for a long-run relationship between spot and futures prices. As a second step, smooth transition models are...