The EMU accession countries are obliged to fulfill the Maastricht convergence criteria prior to entering the EMU. What should be the optimal monetary policy satisfying these criteria? To answer this question, the paper proposes a DSGE model of a two-sector small open economy. First, I derive the...

A unifying theme in the literature on organizations such as public bureaucracies and private non-profits is the importance of missions, as opposed to profit, as an organizational goal. Such mission-oriented organizations are frequently staffed by motivated agents who subscribe to the mission....

The paper discusses some fundamental problems in monetary economics associated with the determination and role of the numéraire. The issues are introduced by formalising a proposal, attributed to Eisler, to remove the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates by unbundling the numéraire and...

An increase over time in the proportion of young people obtaining a degree is likely to impact on the relative ability compositions (i) of graduates and non-graduates and (ii) across graduates with different classes of degree award. In a signalling framework, we examine the implications of this...

Within an asymmetric information set-up in which individuals di¤er in terms of their risk aversion and can choose whether or not to take preventative action, we illustrate in a uni…ed framework the equilibrium possibilities with stand-alone long-term care insurance and annuity contracts. With...

Performance related pay has been extended to practically the whole of the Civil Service over the last few years, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently announced the Government's intention to enlarge its role even further. Almost no serious work on seems to have been published on whether...

We consider the problem of targeting benefits when the incomes of families are not accurately observable by the public authorities. By income uncertainty it is meant that the decision-maker cannot ascertain an applicant's income, but that he can assign probabilities with respect to the level of...

A reduction in income tax rates generates substantial dynamic responses within the framework of the standard neoclassical growth model. The short-run revenue loss after an income tax cut is partly - or, depending on parameter values, even completely - offset by growth in the long-run, due to the...

We estimate semiparametric Engel curves for rural Pakistan using a large household survey. This allows us to obtain consistent estimates of the effects of household size and composition on consumption patterns even when these demographic variables are correlated with an unknown function of...

In the first of three related, and consecutive, papers we showed that forecasts for short-term policy interest rates in NZ and UK deteriorated over the first six months to a point when they became useless, after the first two quarters. Moreover they were expost biased, underestimating future...