Inflation and Wage Behaviour in Europe
Inflation and Wage Behaviour in Europe

Author: Paul de Grauwe

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780198289869

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The Maastricht Treaty makes the convergence of inflation rates one of the preconditions of European Monetary Union (EMU). The purpose of this study is to shed light on the mechanism underlying the processes that lead to convergence or divergence in national inflation rates. It examinesinflation and wage bahaviour in the European Monetary System (EMS), their determinants, and their implications for the credibility and sustainability of the system's exchange rate mechanism (ERM). Although the focus is on the EMS period, eleven of the twelve studies also review the background of the1970s. The contributors examine issues of monetary control, stability of national and ERM-wide money-demand function, the monetary policy of Germany - the pivotal country in the EMS - and its influence on the stability of the system after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As well as explaining how theEMS worked, the book also offers reasons for its breakdown in 1992-3 under the blow of exogenous shocks and growing policy conflict between member countries.The study identifies several causes of inflation and persistent inflation differentials in the EMS. Among the 'real' causes, particular attention is devoted to sectoral productivity shocks. In some countries, import price shocks, exogenous wage pushes, taxes, and government expenditure are bound tobe important factors. Since theses kinds of shock hit the various economies of the region differently, inflation differntials can persist for several years. The different policies of governments and central banks, and the fact the monetary policies have not always been consistent with the long-runmaintenance of fixed exchange rates, have also played a considerable role in explaining the persistance of inflation differentials.

Business Cycles
Business Cycles

Author: Francis X. Diebold

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 0691219583

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This is the most sophisticated and up-to-date econometric analysis of business cycles now available. Francis Diebold and Glenn Rudebusch have long been acknowledged as leading experts on business cycles. And here they present a highly integrative collection of their most important essays on the subject, along with a detailed introduction that draws together the book's principal themes and findings. Diebold and Rudebusch use the latest quantitative methods to address five principal questions about the measurement, modeling, and forecasting of business cycles. They ask whether business cycles have become more moderate in the postwar period, concluding that recessions have, in fact, been shorter and shallower. They consider whether economic expansions and contractions tend to die of "old age." Contrary to popular wisdom, they find little evidence that expansions become more fragile the longer they last, although they do find that contractions are increasingly likely to end as they age. The authors discuss the defining characteristics of business cycles, focusing on how economic variables move together and on the timing of the slow alternation between expansions and contractions. They explore the difficulties of distinguishing between long-term trends in the economy and cyclical fluctuations. And they examine how business cycles can be forecast, looking in particular at how to predict turning points in cycles, rather than merely the level of future economic activity. They show here that the index of leading economic indicators is a poor predictor of future economic activity, and consider what we can learn from other indicators, such as financial variables. Throughout, the authors make use of a variety of advanced econometric techniques, including nonparametric analysis, fractional integration, and regime-switching models. Business Cycles is crucial reading for policymakers, bankers, and business executives.

Social and Structural Change
Social and Structural Change

Author: Karl Heinrich Oppenländer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-04

Total Pages: 647

ISBN-13: 0429796668

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First published in 1998, this wide-ranging and in-depth volume from specialists in economics and statistics examines leading indicators, the timing of cyclical turning points, firm behaviour, financial indicators, economic policy recommendations, transition economies and the service sector in relation to Finland’s bid for European Monetary Union membership.

Inflation Expectations
Inflation Expectations

Author: Peter J. N. Sinclair

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-12-16

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1135179778

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Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Inflation in China
Inflation in China

Author: Chengsi Zhang

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-08-13

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1000166201

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Inflation plays a central role in macroeconomic and financial policy regulation, and its dynamic formation has gradually become a popular research topic in this field. This book comprehensively studies the dynamic mechanism of inflation in China from the perspective of New Keynesian economics. By combining the dynamic trajectory of price changes since China's reform and opening-up under Deng Xiaoping as well as the underlying economic operating characteristics, the book deploys a multifaceted approach to understand the mechanism of inflation dynamics. The author explores the microfoundations of inflation dynamics, and underlines their importance in the context of modern monetary policy. In particular, he builds upon the traditional New Keynesian Phillips curve to include factors of globalization and financialization within the inflation formation regime of modern China. As the book explores the dynamic mechanism of China's inflation from different perspectives including inflation cycle theory, price index internal conduction, price index chain transmission, capital rotation, and industry inflation mechanisms, international readers will gain a full understanding of China's inflation, monetary policy, and economy.

Turning Point
Turning Point

Author: Robert Ayres

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-03-18

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1134179855

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This text discusses the current basis of economic growth, concluding that it is is failing to deliver, and is actually harming our prospects for future security. Further arguments propose a possible long-term strategy for economic revival - eco-restructuring. This strategy involves a shifting away from production of goods to production of services, closing material cycles and eliminating reliance on non-renewable resources.

The Great Inflation
The Great Inflation

Author: Michael D. Bordo

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-06-28

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0226066959

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Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.