After a decade of expansion, the US economy entered recession in March 2001. What characterizes the latest recession more than anything else is the fact that corporate sector demand, as represented by capital investment, is undergoing a deeper correction than seen in past recessions, while...

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), excluding fresh food, had been declining at around 0.8 percent on a year-on-year basis until early 2003. However, the rate of decline diminished steadily thereafter. Recently, in October, it marked an increase of 0.1 percent for the first time in five and a half...

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) estimates the output gap and the potential growth rate, and uses these in judging economic and price conditions. The output gap and potential growth rate have been recently re-estimated in light of the benchmark revision of the GDP statistics at the end of 2005. At the...

This paper investigates the factors that shape governments’ capacity to collect revenue. To do so, it analyses how tax revenue responds to tax rates using evidence from a panel of 34 OECD countries over 1978-2014. The estimations show that the response of revenue to rates weakens as rates...