This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the EU's legitimation status through the lens of a realist account of legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of liberal legitimacy, and use it to make sense of the widely perceived legitimation crisis of the EU. In Williams'...

Abstract The notion that an independent central bank reduces a country’s inflation is a controversial hypothesis. To date, it has not been possible to satisfactorily answer this question because the complex macroeconomic structure that gives rise to the data has not been adequately...

We develop and apply a procedure to test the welfare implications of a beauty and non-beauty contest based on survey forecasts of interest rates and yields in a large country sample over an extended period of time. In most countries, interest rate forecasts are unbiased and consistent with both...

In a large sample of countries across different geographic regions and over a long period of time, we find limited country- and variable-specific effects of central bank transparency on forecast accuracy and their dispersion among a large set of professional forecasts of financial and...

In December 1999 the Swiss National Bank (SNB) abandoned monetary targeting and introduced a new monetary policy strategy. The cornerstones of the new framework are an explicit definition of what the SNB considers to be price stability, a forecast of inflation over a three-year horizon, and a...

Multivariate filters based on the Hodrick-Prescott filter are appealing because they combine the advantages of the Hodrick-Prescott filter with economic relationships. Recently, a new multivariate filter has been put forward by Hirose and Kamada (2003). In this article we apply this new filter...

In this paper we analyze high-frequency movements in Swiss financial markets in reaction to real-time communication by the Swiss National Bank. Our analysis of central bank communication encompasses official speeches and interviews, not only monetary policy announcements. We examine the...

Multivariate filters based on the Hodrick-Prescott filter are appealing because they combine the advantages of the Hodrick-Prescott filter with economic relationships. Recently, a new multivariate filter has been put forward by Hirose and Kamada (2003). In this article we apply this new filter...