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Abstract This paper studies the impact of exchange rate regimes on monetary autonomy, by applying a propensity score matching (PSM) model for 174 countries over the period 1970–2017. The PSM technique, that we used here to account for self-selection bias and endogeneity, reveals that the average treatment effect of flexible exchange rates on monetary autonomy is statistically significant, providing support for the impossible trinity. We also find that the effect of flexible exchange rates on monetary autonomy is more prominent in advanced economies than in emerging and developing ones. Furthermore, we show that the global financial recession (GFC) affects the monetary autonomy responses to flexible exchange rates. In particular, the GFC causes an increase in the level of monetary autonomy in countries adopting flexible exchange rates during the post-crisis period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the ECB helped mitigate the euro crisis in the aftermath of Lehman, it has stretched its monetary mandate and moved into fiscal territory. This text describes and summarizes the crucial role played by the ECB in the intervention spiral resulting from its bid to manage the crisis. It also outlines ongoing competitiveness problems in southern Europe, discusses the so-called austerity policy of the Troika, comments on QE and presents two alternative paths for the future development of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines real wage effects of monetary policy in Japan, particularly during the past two decades of monetary easing. The literature generally attributes real wage trends to structural factors that influence the nominal wage components, such as the disappearance of downward nominal wage rigidity. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it offers a theoretical framework for the transmission of monetary policy shocks to real wages, emphasizing the responsiveness of labor productivity growth to monetary expansion. Secondly, it alludes to the significance of real wage effects of monetary policy for optimal policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically addresses the questions 'is money supply in Sri Lanka endogenous or exogenous and how much control does the Central Bank have over the money supply?' Thus the paper also examines the viability of the current monetary targeting policy regime. Two complementary approaches are used. The first is the monetarist approach and tests whether money supply is exogenously determined by testing the stability of the broad money multiplier and by testing for a long-run relationship between monetary base and broad money supply. The second approach tests the Post-Keynesian contention that the money supply is endogenous with the financial system as a whole causing changes to the money supply through bank lending creating monetary liabilities. The findings indicate the broad money multiplier is not stable and the tests of the endogenous money theory shed light on why it is unstable. The overall results cast doubt the effectiveness of the current monetary targeting policy regime in Sri Lanka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the introduction of the euro in the EU-12 countries influenced the short-term volatility of output, measured by the volatility of industrial production growth. It assesses whether more favorable criteria of optimum currency areas keep the volatility of industrial production growth constant. Finally, it investigates the impact of the global financial crisis on the volatility of industrial production growth and on the characteristics of the optimum currency areas of the EU-12 countries. This paper uses the Chow breakpoint test and the Quandt-Andrews test to check for structural breaks in the volatility obtained from ARMA (p,q) and AR(p)-EGARCH(1,1) models. The results suggest that after the introduction of the euro, the volatility of industrial production growth has not significantly changed in Austria, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain. However, the volatility of industrial production growth did increase in Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Portugal after the adoption of the common currency. In Germany and Greece the volatility of industrial production increased after 2002 and 1997 respectively. This observation cannot be connected directly to the introduction of the euro. After the beginning of the financial crisis, the volatility of industrial production growth increased in all EU-12 countries except France and Greece. Criteria for optimum currency areas fail to explain why the volatility of some EU-12 countries remained unchanged after the introduction of the euro and after the start of the financial crisis. Those countries, where the volatility of industrial production has not changed significantly after the introduction of the euro, had a long history of fixed or pegged exchange rate regimes. This group of countries recovered faster after the financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies previously unknown, fundamental constraints on the effectiveness of economic policy instruments. The constraints arise from unstable zero dynamics , which occur commonly in macroeconomic models, and require (in the linear, time-invariant case) that infinite sums of discounted future values of certain endogenous variables necessarily equal zero, irrespective of policy. Unstable zero dynamics potentially explain the “price puzzle,” and are exemplified by classic explanations of the effect of changes in the rate of money creation on interest rates. They furnish a mathematical formulation of elements of Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis. In the multivariable case, they give rise to constraints involving multiple endogenous variables, which relate to the Phillips curve and Okun’s Law, and provide a system-theoretic paradigm for phenomena such as stagflation and stagnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through its quantitative easing programme the Bank of England has looked to manage the supply of nominal UK government securities in order to lower interest rates. In doing so it has removed more than 25 per cent of the overall supply of those securities from the publicly accessible market. The benchmark New Keynesian model suggests this should only have an impact on interest rates insofar as it affects expectations of future policy rates, whilst alternative theoretical frameworks imply a direct effect of changes in supply onto yields. Our aim is to test for the existence of these potential transmission mechanisms. We find empirical evidence to support the existence of both channels. Our analysis suggests the Bank's quantitative easing programme reduced yields by around 25 basis points through the supply channel alone. Importantly, we find that such supply effects have remained significant in recent years, suggesting that as quantitative easing is unwound the increase in publicly available supply will put upward pressure on interest rates. Lastly we highlight the monetary-fiscal interaction inherent in our result and discuss some of the issues it raises for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate to foster both full employment and price stability. Most often these two goals are in alignment, so policies that support one objective generally support the other. However, at times the two aims can be at odds. When that happens, policies that target one goal may lead to misses on the other one. This article argues that taking a balanced approach between competing choices provides a solution that is in agreement with mainstream monetary policy rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]