The paper provides an empirical analysis of inflation persistence in one of the inflation targeting countries, the Czech Republic, using 412 detailed product-level consumer price indexes underlying the consumer basket over the period from 1994:M1 to 2005:M12. Subject to various sensitivity...

We evaluate proposals for an independent fiscal authority put forward as a solution to excessive public spending. Our main conclusion is that shifting the responsibility to set broad measures of fiscal policy from the hands of the government to an independent fiscal council is not necessarily...