! Average inflation below target in Sweden 1997-2011 ! Average inflation expectations (Prospera) close to target 1997-2011 Questions to be answered: ! If inflation expectations stuck at target when average inflation deviates from target, non-vertical long-run Phillips curve? ! If lower average inflation, higher average unemployment? ! If estimates of sustainable unemployment rate based on histo...

Why the need for such a radical shift? Because in the past decade, employers’ health care costs have increased more than four times the inflation rate. The average U.S. household spends $15,300 a year for a family of four on health care. And, as a nation, we spend nearly 18 percent of the gross domestic product on health care. If we stay this course, the percentage of health care spending will ...

This explanation has been articulated in a number of recent papers. See, for example, Azariadis and Smith (forthcoming), Boyd and Smith (forthcoming), and Schreft and Smith (forthcoming and 1994). A consensus among economists seems to be that high rates of inflation cause " problems, " not just for some individuals, but for aggregate economic performance. There is much less agreement about what...

This article seeks to check the nonlinearity of the Phillips curve in Tunisia for the 1993–2012 period, relying on a hybrid new Keynesian Phillips curve modeled via a Logistic Smooth Transition Regression (LSTR) model with endogenous variables. We estimate this model using the nonlinear instrumental variables. The empirical results corroborate the new Keynesian assumption ofprice rigidity and s...

This paper uses a structurally estimated macroeconometric model, denoted the MC model, to evaluate inflation targeting in the United States. Various interest rate rules are tried with differing weights on inflation and output, and various optimal control problems are solved using differing weights on inflation and output targets. Price-level targeting is also considered. The results show that 1...

We consider inflation and debt dynamics under a global interest rate rule when private agents forecast using adaptive learning. Given the zero lower bound on interest rates, active interest rate rules are known to imply the existence of a second, low-inflation steady state. Under learning the economy can slip below this low-inflation steady state and be driven to an even lower inflation floor s...

This paper examines the performance of Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI), a universal health insurance program, implemented in 1995, that covers comprehensive services. The authors address two key questions: Did the NHI cause Taiwanese health spending to escalate to an "unaffordable" level? What are the benefits of the NHI? They find that Taiwan's single-payer NHI system enabled Taiwan t...

developing countries, including iran, have a high degree of volatility of macroeconomic variables. fluctuations inex change rate, bank interest rate and inflation rate can create insecure environment for in vestorsin iran. hence, this study examined the impact of macroeconomic variables on the tobin’s q index for the sugar companies of tehran stock exchange (tse) during the period between1380-1...