The 'financial accelerator' model when applied to households states that shocks to household balance sheets (primarily changes in house prices) amplify fluctuations in consumer spending by tightening or relaxing collateral constraints on borrowing. We construct an alternative model where...

Despite the many benefits associated with structural reforms, the literature has thus far failed to establish a positive significant effect of reforms on growth. Using data from 43 econometric studies, we show that one third of the coefficients (of reform on growth) are positive and significant,...

Using an ad-hoc survey at the firm level, we investigate the determinants of wage and price-setting practices in Czech firms, the presence and sources of wage rigidity, and reactions of firms to hypothetical shocks. Although the evidence of downward wage rigidity is not widespread, we find...

The paper analyzes the stabilization objectives of optimal monetary policy and the trade-offs facing the central bank in a two-sector small open economy model obtained as a limiting case of a two-country DSGE framework. We introduce a more complicated economic structure, namely, multiple...

Market views on EMU enlargement are measured by a new indicator based on the short-term dynamics of forward spreads. Conceptually, this indicator stems from the notion of uncertainty averse agents and equilibrium indeterminacy. The method was applied on data from central European countries,...

The aim of this paper is to shed some light on what fiscal sustainability actually means. In doing so, it looks in the literature for a definition of fiscal sustainability that not only is theoretically sound, but can also be used for setting fiscal targets in practice. Sustainability is defined...

This paper estimates the medium-term determinants of the bilateral exchange rate variability and exchange rate pressures for 20 developed countries in the 1990s. The results suggest that the optimum currency area criteria explain the dynamics of bilateral exchange rate variability and pressures...

With this work, we aim to enrich the knowledge about the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the Czech Republic with empirical evidence on the impact of monetary policy on bank lending. Using a panel of quarterly time series for Czech commercial banks for the period 1996-2001, we study the...

In this paper, we apply the aggregate production function to approximate the path of potential output. We use a time-varying NAIRU to derive the amount of potential labour and a newly developed measure of capital services to account for the productive impact of capital. In addition, trend total...

This paper presents a new numerical algorithm for solving the Sylvester equation involved in higher-order perturbation methods developed for solving stochastic dynamic general equilibrium models. The new algorithm surpasses other methods used so far (including the very popular doubling...