South Africa’s macroeconomic framework has served the economy well, but should be strengthened to make the economy more resilient to external shocks. Enhancing the credibility of the inflation target would provide the monetary authorities with more space for flexibility in the face of...

We present a detailed survey of changes in the reserve requirement system in Brazil and analyze the system's main functions and goals during the period from 1994 to 2012. We identify four different subperiods with respect to the use of this policy tool. In the first subperiod, from july 1994 to...

Central banks have responded with exceptional vigour to the crisis by using their traditional interest-rate tools to their limits and deploying a wide range of unconventional measures. This paper documents these responses in a systematic way, reviews the evidence about their impact, and...

In contrast to the once prevailing norm of secrecy and opaqueness, transparency has now become one of the main features characterising the conduct of monetary policy. Detailed analysis of eleven OECD central banks shows that communication practices have converged markedly in the direction of...

We present a detailed survey of changes in the reserve requirement system in Brazil and analyze the system's main functions and goals during the period from 1994 to 2012. We identify four different subperiods with respect to the use of this policy tool. In the first subperiod, from july 1994 to...

Theoretical models point at various channels of the impact of inflation on corporate investment. This article attempts to answer the question what are the direction and strength of this possible impact examining the relationship between corporate investment and inflation on the sample of 21 OECD...

Using survey data of inflation expectations across a 36 developed and developing countries, this paper examines whether the adoption of inflation targeting has helped to anchor inflation expectations. We examine the response of inflation expectations following a shock to inflation, inflation...

A New Consensus in Macroeconomics (NCM) has emerged over the past couple of decades or so, which has become highly influential in terms of current thinking on the macroeconomy and of economic policy, especially monetary policy. Its main implication for economic policy has been the implementation...

This working paper examines monetary aggregates as means of explaining economic activity. Comparative analysis of the Great Depression and the years 2007-11 is used to test the explanatory power of monetary aggregates in accordance with their use in monetarist explanations of the Great...

Does time-varying business volatility affect the price setting of firms and thus the transmission of monetary policy into the real economy? To address this question, we estimate from the firm-level micro data of the German IFO Business Climate Survey the impact of idiosyncratic volatility on the...