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...

During the first two years of monetary union, the euro's weakness surprised most market participants. Explanations proliferated ranging from fundamentals such as differences in growth prospects to psychological factors such as herd behaviour, but no single story fully accounts for the observed...

This paper addresses the question of whether and how long-term financial trends may have modified the transmission mechanism from monetary policy decisions to economic activity. The focus is on longterm changes, abstracting from the disruptions created by the 2007-08 financial turmoil which are...

How far to go – and to remain – in the direction of highly expansionary monetary policy hinges on the balance of marginal benefits and costs of additional monetary easing and its expected evolution over time. This paper sketches a framework for assessing this balance and applies it to four...

The estimated medium-term impact of Basel III implementation on GDP growth is in the range of -0.05 to -0.15 percentage point per annum. Economic output is mainly affected by an increase in bank lending spreads as banks pass a rise in bank funding costs, due to higher capital requirements, to...

Turkey recovered swiftly from the global financial crisis but sizeable macroeconomic imbalances arose in the process. High consumer price inflation and a wide current account deficit are sources of vulnerability. Even though below-potential growth helps rebalancing and disinflation, these...

Effective macroeconomic and structural policies helped Turkey bounce back quickly and strongly from the global crisis, with annual growth averaging close to 9% over 2010-11. However, the current account deficit widened to around 10% of GDP in 2011 and consumer price inflation rose to over 10%....

Housing markets have played a prominent role in macroeconomic developments over recent years. For a great part of the 2000s, buoyant housing markets have contributed to sustained economic activity in most OECD countries. But many markets overheated and the collapse of the US subprime mortgage...

This paper describes developments in real long-term interest rates in the main OECD economies and surveys their various determinants. Real long-term government bond yields declined from the 1980s to very low levels in the recent period, though they have not reached the historical lows of the...

Long-term bond yields have been low in recent years both in nominal and real terms, and . especially in the United States - they have reacted differently to shifts in monetary and fiscal stances relative to previous cycles. This article examines various possible explanations for this behaviour,...