Economics
NY Fed’s Dudley calls on Puerto Rico to improve financial reporting
‘Unique status’ means troubled Caribbean economy is not regularly surveyed by public agency like the US Census Bureau or the IMF
Revisions to output gap estimates can skew fiscal stabilisers, IMF says
Working paper proposes a ‘rule of thumb' to take into account the likelihood of revisions to estimates of potential GDP when activating fiscal stabilisers
Goodman, Goodman, Goodman and Goodman break new ground on coauthorship
Four economists sharing the surname Goodman - including Sarena Goodman of the Federal Reserve Board - explore coauthorship by economists with the same surname
Borio: current account is a ‘badly inadequate' measure of financial risk
BIS director says still not enough attention is paid to capital account but adds build-up of vulnerabilities also requires looking directly at balance sheets of cross-border institutions
Bank of Portugal shifts research focus after Gaspar review
Portuguese central bank sets new research priorities following a strategic review; internal commission places emphasis on quarterly publication and career development
Irish inflation is domestically determined, central bank economists find
Paper by Central Bank of Ireland deputy governor Gerlach and colleagues challenges traditional view that Irish inflation dynamics are determined abroad
Inflation targeting and fiscal rules work best together
IMF working paper finds fiscal rules and IT regimes are both more effective when they are used together; they also work best where the fiscal rule is brought in first
Banxico deputy says free trade deals will boost medium-term growth
Javier Guzman says Mexico has 'tariff-free access to a potential market of more than a billion consumers and 60% of world GDP'
Lagarde warns Arab world of ‘lost' generation
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde says Arab countries must build economies on participation, not privilege, to cash in their demographic dividend
Big eurozone economies dragged each other down during eurozone crisis
Sovereign CDS in Spain and Italy showed ‘notable co-dependence' in 2009–12 and also explained much of the widening in Germany's spreads, IMF paper says
Structural reforms could get eurozone out of recession, paper shows
Bank of Portugal working paper finds structural economic reforms could get the eurozone out of recession and away from the zero lower bound if designed correctly
Korean research analyses transmission of exchange rate movements to domestic prices
Korean working paper finds imported inputs play ‘major role’ in transmitting exchange rate fluctuations to the domestic price level
Chile paper finds increased pass-through from international to local inflation in OECD
Analysing pass-through in 31 OECD countries, working paper also finds 'heterogeneity in size and statistical significance - especially important at the core level'
Gulf statistics centre to promote transparency by working ‘hand-in-hand' with IMF
GCC-Stat, a joint effort by the Gulf states to improve collation of national data, hailed by IMF as an ‘important boost' that will harmonise implementation of international standards
Supply chain integration drives closer price co-movement, BIS paper finds
Headline inflation rates and producer prices move more closely together between Asian economies that trade more with one another, BIS paper shows
Bonnici says Malta's economy weathering European storm
Central Bank of Malta governor says economy has been performing well despite the difficulties posed by eurozone weakness, with a strong banking sector and above-average profit for the central bank
Massive stimulus saved China from ‘great recession'
The rest of the world could have avoided recession too, had other governments dared implement such a ‘bold and powerful' stimulus package, St. Louis Fed paper suggests
Czech National Bank calls for research on 'priority topics'
Topics include potential improvements to inflation targeting framework and the issues related to euro adoption; Bank of Estonia also launches research award
French paper constructs credit risk indicators for eurozone
Working paper published by Banque de France builds credit risk indicators that are ‘highly robust’ leading indicators for economic activity and the growth of bank lending
IMF says real interest rates have fallen sharply since 1980s
Rise in emerging market savings rates, increase in demand for safe assets and recent fall in yields in advanced countries are the major contributors to real rate decline since the 1990s
Fannie and Freddie served as 'disciplining device' in sub-prime market
US mortgages eligible to be bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis had 'similar ex ante risk characteristics' to other mortgages, but performed better during crisis
Underemployment's impact on spare capacity smaller than thought, says Weale
Bank of England's Martin Weale says impact of underemployment on UK spare capacity is 'smaller than might appear at first sight'; productivity of extra 1% employment likely lower than average
Evaluation of Luxembourg paper produces ‘encouraging’ results
Research published by the Central Bank of Luxembourg finds the monthly indicator it uses to forecast GDP delivered a 'satisfactory' performance between 2007 and 2013
ECB paper sees merits in fiscal activism at ZLB
Research calls for a policy-maker who cares more about stabilising inflation, relative to government spending, than the private sector when nominal interest rates are at zero lower bound