Using a sample of about 160 countries over the last thirty years we test for the quantity theory relationship between money and inflation. When analysing the full sample of countries we find a strong positive relation between the long-run inflation and money growth rate. The relation is not,...

This paper investigates whether the quantity theory of money is still alive. We demonstrate three insights. First, for countries with low inflation, the raw relationship between average inflation and the growth rate of money is tenuous at best. Second, the fit markedly improves, when correcting...

Giffen reported that, in the late nineteenth century, English wheat consumption rose when its price increased – the first recorded “Giffen good”. Using Giffen’s data, I explain how he reached his conclusion. I then show that his analysis was faulty: price elasticity of demand appears...

We compare monetary union to flexible exchange rates in an asymmetric, three-country model with active monetary policy. Unlike Friedman's (1953) case for flexible rates, we find that countries with high degree of nominal wage rigidity are better off in a monetary union. Their benefits increase...

How does trade policy a affect technology adoption, total factor productivity (TFP henceforth), and per capita income? To study this question we construct a dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy in which a coalition of skilled workers chooses the technology. We obtain three...

In this Paper, we analyse the implications of price setting restrictions for the conduct of cyclical fiscal and monetary policy. We consider an environment with monopolistic competitive firms, a shopping time technology, prices set one period in advance, and government expenditures that must be...

In the past few years the view has commonly been expressed that central banks follow `Taylor Rules' (as first promulgated by Henderson and McKibbin (1993)). We show that the appearance of such an interest rate rule – a ‘pseudo-Taylor rule’ – can be created by a standard macro model in...

This paper documents the evolution of the legal independence of the Bank of Israel since its creation in 1954 to present times, provides an international comparison, and assesses the changes in the actual independence of the Bank on a yearly basis following the 1985 stabilization of inflation....

Why do we see nominal contracts in the presence of price level risk? To answer this question, this paper studies an overlapping generations model in which the equilibrium contract form is optimal, given the contracts elsewhere in the economy. Nominal contracts turn out to be optimal in the...

This Paper analyses the welfare effects of monetary policy rules in a quantitative business cycle model of a two-country world. The model features staggered price setting, and shocks to productivity and to the uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) condition. UIP shocks have a sizable negative...