How the P* Model Rationalizes Monetary Targeting: A Comment on Svensson

In this comment, we answer the question posed in Svensson’s (2000) paper ‘Does the P* Model Provide any Rationale for Monetary Targeting?’– in contrast to him ‐‐ in the affirmative. We argue that a strategy of monetary targeting can be rationalized within the P* framework. Furthermore, we demonstrate that money growth targeting is a special form of inflation forecast targeting based on a ‘limited’ information set. In contrast to ‘full information’ inflation forecast targeting, monetary growth targeting is likely to be more robust under changing conditions of the real world.     

A Bootstrap Method To Test If Study Dropouts Are Missing Randomly

Withdrawing from a longitudinal investigation is a common problem in epidemiological research. This paper describes a nonparametric method, based on a bootstrap approach, for assessing whether dropouts are missed at random. The basic idea is to compare scores of dropouts and non-dropouts at different assessments using a weighted nonparametric test statistic.A Monte Carlo investigation evaluates the comparative power of the test to violations from populations normality, using three commonly occurring distributions. The test proposed here is more powerful than the parametric counterpart under distributions with extreme skews.The method is applied to a longitudinal community-based study investigating mental disorders. It is found that dropouts did not differ from the other subjects with respect to two psychological variables, although chi-square tests gave some other impressions.     

The EU Commission's proposals for reform of the CAP

Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy continues to be one of the major challenges facing the EU. In its mid-term review of the Agenda 2000 the European Commission has presented a number of proposals which are discussed by the contributors to this Forum.     

Environmental determinants of banking efficiency in Austria

The great majority of Austrian banks operate on a regional or local basis and only a few banks provide their services on a national or even international scale. Obviously, the market environments regional or local banks face are different from that of nationwide operating banks. Casual evidence suggests that local markets condition is a very important external determinant of banking efficiency. Thus, not controlling for market conditions may substantially bias the measurement of managerial efficiency particularly of locally operating banks. In this paper we assess the internal technical efficiency (or X-efficiency) of the Austrian banking sector with the focus on environmental and non-controllable factors critical to banking markets. Analytically, we apply a multiple-stage approach based on a slacks-based DEA model (SBM) and a censored regression model, respectively. In order to cope with the inherent dependency problem of DEA-based efficiency analysis when incorporated into regression analysis we apply a Bootstrap estimator. In so doing we attempt to overcome the dependency problem which plagues the power of standard regression analysis based on DEA processed data. The empirical analysis is based on an unbalanced panel of data covering more than 800 Austrian banks ranging over 1995–2002.

Die operative Umsetzung der Geldpolitik: Eurosystem, Fed und Bank of England

Bei der operativen Umsetzung der Geldpolitik hat es in den letzten Jahren einige ?nderungen gegeben. Welche Entwicklungen sind festzustellen? Welche geldpolitischen Instrumente stehen den Zentralbanken grunds?tzlich zur Verfügung? Was ist der zentrale geldpolitische Ansatzpunkt der EZB, des Fed und der Bank of England? Wie setzen diese Zentralbanken ihre Zinspolitik um?     

EU-China Partenariat 2006:Tailor-made Opportunities for SMEs of EU and China

2006 EU-China Partenariat 2006, the large-scale business-to-business event which will link almost one thousand European and Chinese companies is indeed a highly appropriate way to further enhance the already excellent relations between the EU and China moreover as this is the very year that we are celebrating 30 years of EU-China diplomatic ties.     

Economic history and history of economics

Trust, along with other influential norms of cooperation, has been traditionally viewed as an important coordination mechanism stabilizing expectations of the participants in the informal economic exchanges. Drawing on the example of the informal value transfer system called hawala, this paper, however, shows that the role of safeguard against opportunism in the informal monetary settings is much more reliably performed by the instruments of social control. Norms of control embedded in community beliefs and common social practices among the hawala members entirely replace trusting attitudes, rendering them superfluous for the purpose of protecting financial interests of clients and intermediaries in this informal system of monetary exchanges.     

Money,a Substitute for Confidence?

A bstract . From Rice Vaughan, 1675: "The first Invention of Money was for a Pledge and instead of a Surety" to John Maynard Keynes, 1937: "Our desire to hold money as a store of wealth is a barometer of the degree of our distrust" there is a tradition of monetary theory linking the demand for money with the state of confidence. In the early nineteenth century, Henry Thornton and Thomas Attwood analyzed the shifts in precautionary demand for money and their implications for money supply, production, employment, and the balance of payments. The tradition was interrupted during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was subsequently revived by Keynes's General Theory .