An Independent Central Bank is often associated with being able to achieve low inflation and greater output stability than government run policies. In this paper we examine whether, and under what circumstances, an independent Central Bank can achieve both these targets with only one policy...

DEMERTZIS M. and HUGHES HALLETT A. (1996) Regional inequalities and the business cycle: an explanation of the rise in European unemployment, Reg. Studies 30, 15-29. The introduction of a system of fixed exchange rates in Europe has succeeded in inducing price convergence amongst its...

This paper investigates the impact of increasing globalization on labor markets, in terms of wage inflation and the distribution of activity across regions. Specifically, we study the effects of aggregation in the labor markets on the distribution of employment and inflationary pressures, where...

We study the effects of Central Bank transparency on inflation and the output gap. We thus first identify a small analytical model which concludes that transparency affects the variability of inflation and output and not their average levels. Then we examine whether this conjecture holds...

In this paper we examine the consequences of having a Central Bank whose preferences are state contingent. This has variously been identified in the literature as a Central Bank that is "rationally inattentive", "risk averse", or "constructively ambiguous". The new feature in this paper is that...

Most of the literature on the independence of the Central Bank assumes only one policy instrument is available: monetary policy. If we introduce fiscal policy as well, when preferences may differ among policy-makers, the situation is radically different. In this case fiscal policy will weaken...