The objective of this study is to investigate whether remittances in Macedonia affect poverty and inequality. Using two household surveys, one conducted in 2008, one in 2012, we find that remittances reduce both poverty and inequality. The inequality-reducing effect has been particularly present...

Any attempt to model monetary policy in China has to take into account two ‘specifics’ of the Chinese monetary policy: the reliance on several operational instruments, both quantitative (open market operations, discount rate, reserve requirement) and qualitative (selective credit allowances,...

The objective of this paper is to shed some light on the role of the qualitative instruments for monetary policy conduct in China. The unobservable qualitative instruments are calculated by Kalman filtering and then are used in a Taylor rule regression, to estimate if and how they react to...

The objective of this paper is to assess whether the levels of unionization and the rigidity of exchange rates represent a constraint for the monetary policy in South-Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with a particular focus on the recent economic crisis. Toward that...

This paper empirically applies the New Keynesian model for monetary policy analysis in a small open economy with a fixed exchange rate. Official reserves are included in the interest rate rule to account for the constraint that these impose on monetary policy when the exchange rate is fixed....

The objective of this paper is to assess whether the level of unionization and the rigidity of the exchange rate affected wages and monetary policy in SEE and CIS during the ongoing economic crisis. Towards that end, a New Keynesian model with price and wage rigidities is used. The model is...

The recent financial and economic crisis has triggered bold and diverse policy responses to prevent further, sharper and prolonged adverse effects to the financial and the real sector. The measures for alleviating the cycle were a feature both of the advanced and the emerging and developing...

The real exchange rate is a macroeconomic variable of a crucial importance, since it determines relative price of goods and services home and abroad, and influences economic agents’ decisions. The real exchange rate needs to be on the right level, as it can result in wrong signals and economic...

In this paper we construct a hedonic house price index for Macedonia, for the period 2000-2008. Then we investigate whether house prices in Macedonia are in line with the fundamentals, finding a positive answer.

We compare the government investment and government consumption multipliers in the advanced economies during the recent ?scal consolidation, folloeing the Blanchard and Leigh (2013) approach. We find that, in the highly-indebted countries, the investment multplier is likely to be much higher...