This paper examines the future evolution of the Asian currency arrangements from broader perspectives, including the optimal currency area theory and the experience with the European Currency Unit (ECU). Most academic literature on this topic concurs that the optimal currency area conditions...

We argue the prospects of an Asian currency unit and an Asian currency union with a comprehensive survey of the literature, an empirical analysis and a study of the European Currency Unit's (ECU) experience. Asian countries may meet optimal currency area conditions. However, many other factors...

The empirical study of technology shocks is intensively conducted to evaluate plausibility of the technology-driven real business cycle hypothesis. A popular method is to identify technology shocks by the long-run restriction that those solely have permanent effects on labor productivity in the...

This paper studies supply and demand factors that explain the recent decline in bank lending growth in the U.S. and Europe. During 2008, bank lending growth in the U.S. and Europe declined while lending rates remained relatively constant. This phenomenon was also observed in Japan during the...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the determinants of inflation in the United States, Japan, the euro area and the United Kingdom, focusing on the role of resource utilisation, inflation expectations, inflation persistence and imported inflation. It also includes a cross-sectional...

In the wake of the Great Recession, a massive monetary policy stimulus was provided in the main OECD economies. It helped to stabilise financial markets and avoid deflation. Nonetheless, GDP growth has been sluggish and in some countries lower than expected given the measures taken, and...

How far to go – and to remain – in the direction of highly expansionary monetary policy hinges on the balance of marginal benefits and costs of additional monetary easing and its expected evolution over time. This paper sketches a framework for assessing this balance and applies it to four...