This paper reviews the key economic issues concerning the welfare costs of inflation and deflation, with a view to shedding light on the desirable properties of the inflation process. Our review of the evidence on the overall costs of inflation and deflation indicates that such costs could be...

This paper investigates the performance of optimised interest rate rules when there is uncertainty about a key determinant of the monetary transmission mechanism, namely the degree of persistence characterising the inflation process. The paper focuses on the euro area and utilises two variants of...

This paper summarises the results of a quantitative study of the possible impact of downward nominal wage rigidity on the determination of inflation and output in the euro area and the existence of a non-vertical long-run Phillips curve. The study was undertaken in the context of the review of...

The presence of a lower bound of zero on nominal interest rates has important implications for the conduct of optimal monetary policy. Standard rational expectations models can have alternative steady states as well as non-unique laws of motion, i.e. there can be possible sunspot equilibria....

In the context of a stylised game theoretical framework of capital tax competition, we show that when repeated policy interactions are associated to a systematic punishment of the deviating policymaker, a co-ordinated outcome can be the solution to the non co-operative tax game. This result...

In Poland policy relating to people with disabilities does not differentiate between different groups – all groups are treated equally. There are no policies or programmes that particularly promote the participation of young people with disabilities in the open labour market. As in many other...

In Spain disability is officially recognised when the competent evaluation services assess a person as having a minimum 33% disability level. This evaluation is carried out by regional governments and there are differences among regions, which can result in a person obtaining a disability...

Denmark is a welfare society. The current aspiration of Danish disability policy is equal treatment for all, regardless of physical or mental capacity. This objective is the result of an evolutionary process, the effect of which is that people with disabilities are increasingly integrated into...

As in many other countries in Europe, the number of young people not in employment, education or training in the UK has risen in recent years. Information collected by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) provides a picture of increasing reliance on benefits by these young people. The...

In 2010, young people aged 16–24 and 25–39 years made up 9.1% and 18.2% respectively of the total population of severely disabled people aged 16–61 years in Slovakia. [...] The most popular measure to support the employment of young people with health problems or disabilities is a public...