This note sheds new light on the dynamic properties of maintenance and repair and examines the behavior of an additional form of capital spending-that of improvements. The analysis examines a unique long-run data set on Swiss road spending.

One simple test of the long-run viability of an exchange-rate peg, which complements tests based on market expectations, is to ask whether the implicit inflation target ofthe pegging country is the same as that of the anchor country. If the implicit inflation targets of the two countries are...

This paper proposes a new procedure for shock identification of macroeconomic forecasts based on factor analysis. Our identification scheme for information shocks relies on data reduction techniques for daily panels and the recognition that macroeconomic releases exhibit a high level of...

This paper analyzes the pass-through from import prices to consumer price index (CPI) inflation in real time. Our strategy follows an event-study approach that compares inflation forecasts before and after import price releases. Inflation forecasts are modeled using a dynamic factor procedure...

To the surprise of many market watchers, Thailand’s exchange rate peg to the dollar collapsed in July 1997, leading to similar rounds of currency devaluations in other East Asian countries. This study seeks to determine whether there were identifiable contrasts in implementation between...

If price stability is to be sustained, monetary policy actions will inevitably resemble - in the long run - the prescriptions from nominal feedback rules, which are designed to achieve price stability. This property means that monetary policy might be well described by a nominal feedback rule in...

Survey information on Swiss exporters is used to test the hypothesis that firm-specific factors, in particular firm size, are important determinants of pricing--to-market (PTM). The survey asked exporters whether they set different prices across markets and, if so, whether price segmentation...

In this paper, we examine external, monetary, and structural determinants of cross-country variation in reserve volatility for 30 emerging market economies from 1973 to 2000. We find that reserve holdings and openess to be the most important determinants of reserve volatility. These results are...