From the Editor Vol. 51 (3)

ConnCensus Vol. 51 No. 3

IMF Staff Papers vol. 51, no. 3

The “conservative central banker” has come under attack recently. Explicitly modeling the interaction of a trade union with monetary policy, it has been argued that the standard solution to the inflationary bias in monetary policy might actually be welfare-reducing if the trade union has an exogenous preference against inflation. We reframe this discussion in a standard trade union model. We sh...

IMF Staff Papers vol. 51, no. 3

This paper presents a framework for quantitatively evaluating the macroeconomic effects of corporate restructuring and applies that framework to Japan. Using firmlevel financial statement data, this paper estimates total factor productivity of individual Japanese firms. Given the estimated distribution of productivity across firms, this paper simulates the effect of optimal restructuring, that ...

IMF Staff Papers vol. 51, no. 3

We examine empirically whether asset prices and exchange rates may be admitted into a standard interest rate rule, using data for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan since 1979. Asset prices and exchange rates can be employed as information variables for a standard “Taylor-type” rule or as arguments in an augmented interest rate rule. Our empirical evidence, based on measures of th...

IMF Staff Papers vol. 51, no. 3

Government-linked companies (GLCs) have a significant presence in Singapore’s corporate sector. Unlike parastatals in many other countries, these companies are run on a competitive, commercial basis, ostensibly without government privileges. Based on data from publicly listed GLCs and non-GLCs, we indeed find no evidence that GLCs have easier access to credit. However, we do find that being a G...