We reconsider the optimal central banker contract derived in Walsh (1995). We show that if the government's objective function places weight (value) on the cost of the contract, then the optimal inflation contract does not completely neutralize the inflation bias. That is, a fraction of the...

This paper considers the contacting approach to central banking in the context of a simple common agency model. The recent literature on optimal contracts suggests that the political principal of the central bank can design the appropriate incentive schemes that remedy for time-inconsistency...

We reconsider the optimal central banker contract derived in Walsh (1995). We show that if the government's objective function places weight (value) on the cost of the contract, then the optimal inflation contract does not completely neutralize the inflation bias. Furthermore, the more concerned...

We examine the effects of the terms of trade and the expected real interest rate differential on the real exchange rate in small, open, developed economies. We employ cointegration analysis to search for long-term linkages. We find that while both the terms of trade and the expected real...

We investigate how public opinion along with the electoral process affect the strength of environmental fiscal policies in the European Union (EU). Our analysis accounts for a set of economic, institutional, and political factors that can affect environmental taxes and expenditures. We pursue a...

The lengthy half-lives of real exchange rates in the presence of high degree of exchange rate volatility has been considered as one of the most puzzling empirical regularities in international macroeconomics. This paper suggests that the measure of half-life used in the literature might be...

TSince the mid-1990s the banking sector in the Latin American emerging markets has experienced profound changes due to financial liberalisation, a significant increase in foreign investments and greater mergers activities often occurring following financial crises. The wave of consolidation and...

We consider whether openness is related to the aggregate technical efficiency in the OECD countries. We obtain efficiency measures using Data Envelopment Analysis and we find that our measure of openness is positively related to the technical efficiency scores.

This paper examines the evidence for two of the relationships that underpin (explicitly or implicitly) much of international macroeconomics. The first is purchasing power parity (PPP), or the hypothesis that there exists a constant long-run equilibrium real exchange rate. The second establishes...