This dissertation examines the delegation of monetary policy through optimal central banker contracts and the effects of central bank behavior on fiscal policy discipline in a monetary union. First, we examine whether central banker contracts are an optimal form of monetary policy delegation...

Recent theoretical developments and practical monetary policy concerns have revived interest on the concept of a “natural” equilibrium real interest rate. The natural real interest rate is potentially an important concept for monetary policy makers. The observable market real interest rate...

J. Costas Karfakis and Demetrios M. Moschos (1990) examine the interest rate linkages within the European Monetary System (EMS), concluding that the German interest rate plays a dominate role within the EMS. The authors reexamine the interest rate linkages within the EMS with the addition of the...

Publication of indexes measuring changes in prices of retail, wholesale, export, and import items is an important part of many governmental statistics programs. One form of price index that is often used is the fixed-base Laspeyres, in which a fixed market basket of goods is priced over time....

We develop a Bayesian Vector Autoregressive Model (BVAR) to forecast home sales in Connecticut. In addition to home prices and mortgage interest rates, we also include measures of current and future economic conditions to see if these variables provide useful information with which to forecast...