The distributive trades, consisting of wholesaling and retailing, are a key sector of the economy. As the main interface between producers and consumers, the sector is particularly important from a monetary policy point of view: this is where most consumer goods prices are ultimately set....

Over the last 15 years the Greek economy has made significant progress towards macroeconomic stability with a remarkable degree of inflation containment both in levels and volatility. These changes in inflation dynamics have implications for the short term forecasting of inflation. This paper...

This study evaluates oil price forecasts based on their economic significance for macroeconomic predictions. More specifically, we first use the current state-of-the-art frameworks to forecast monthly oil prices and subsequently we use these forecasts, as oil price assumptions, to predict...

The onset of the financial crisis in 2008 has highlighted the problems of diverging external imbalances within Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the role of persistent losses in competitiveness. This paper starts by investigating some of the competitiveness factors which contributed to...

This report aims to analyse euro area energy markets and the impact of energy price changes on the macroeconomy from a monetary policy perspective. The core task of the report is to analyse the impact of energy price developments on output and consumer prices. Nevertheless, understanding the...

The main purpose of this paper was to achieve a judicious blend and an effective conjunction of purely judgmental forecasts and mechanical projections which take into account the determinants of inflation. The empirical results of the paper suggest that, for the current as well as for the...

The main purpose of this paper is to present the main changes of national accounts due to the new methodology of ESA 2010 and to highlight the implications of this new framework for the Greek economy. The findings suggest that the implementation of the new framework had virtually no impact on...

This paper summarises the findings of the Eurosystem’s Expert Group on Inflation Expectations (EGIE), which was one of the 13 work streams conducting analysis that fed into the ECB’s monetary policy strategy review. The EGIE was tasked with (i) reviewing the nature and behaviour of inflation...