The International Monetary Fund was created to promote financial stability, global monetary cooperation, high employment, international trade and sustainable economic growth. Together with the World Bank, IMF has a "monopoly" on offering loan programs for countries in deep crises or for development projects. In this thesis, we examine the effect of IMF, i.e. loan size and quotas, on the economic growth and inflation rate, by applying a dynamic panel regression on our dataset. In addition, we look at how the IMF Quotas influence the size of the loans. Our empirical results display significant evidence that IMF loans influence the GDP growth in a positive manner, in the medium term. Both Control of Corruption and Voice & Accountability have a negative influence on the economic growth. In other words, less corruption and stronger civil rights will halt the growth level of the economy. We also determined that IMF Quotas is not a robust indicator of the loan size. It is only driven by the past loan levels. Regarding Inflation determinants, IMF loans are not affecting the Inflation in a significant manner, while FDI and Control of Corruption - do. FDI exercises a positive influence on the CPI, while perception of less corruption has a negative effect on Inflation rate. JEL Classification D73, E31, F12,...

M.Com. (Economics) / The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the contribution of the world economy to instability in the South African economy via inflation. Double digit inflation in the South African economy remains the most important and' sole major problem influencing stabilization policy in the country. This study concentrated on the instability of the economic growth path in South Africa since the recession period of 1976. From a multiplier-accelerator model the conclusion is reached that two of the main endogenous variables in the economy, namely private consumption and total investment have adapted to behaviour patterns since 1977, in such a way that an economic growth path which deviates monotonically from the equilibrium paths has been guaranteed. The. reason for this is found in the values of two main coefficients namely the propensity to consume and the propensity to invest. The openness of the South African economy is an exogenous threat to stability in the South African economy if a high inflation rate persists.

M.Comm. / The aim of this study is to discuss, analyse and forecast market volatility. Financial liberalisation and technological innovation have taken place during the past twenty-five years, producing a highly integrated and competitive world financial system in which trillions of dollars are traded every day (Murray, van Norden & Vigfusson, 1996:1). These developments have been positive, but there are concerns about the problems that such unregulated capital flows might pose for the efficient pricing of financial assets and the stability of domestic and international financial markets. Speculation has increased and greater competition, information technology and new securities lead to excessive price volatility. Stocks, bonds and foreign exchange are more sensitive to sudden shocks and trade at prices that appear inconsistent with market fundamentals. It is important to point out the causes of market volatility in order to determine if any precautions can be taken to prevent the enormous impact of market volatility on economic performance. The study could be useful for investors and dealers. It might enable them to forecast volatility and use it as a risk management instrument.

M.Comm. / The aim of this dissertation is to undertake an empirical study of the determinants of the Phillips curve for South Africa (SA). The work will be concentrated on the relationship between inflation (or wage inflation) and unemployment in SA from 1980 to 1998 with a particular focus on the behaviour of the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). Given the importance of the NAIRU in formulating monetary policy, it will be therfore be appropriate to analysed this parameter. The NAIRU tends to perform differently in the face of price and wage inflation and therefore it has been found wise to divide the model into two categories. Price/unemployment model. Wage/unemployment model. The first model will be referred to as the Price-Phillips curve where as the second will usually be referred to as the Wage-Phillips curve. Models of Price-Phillips curve and Wage-Phillips curve are valuable tools for policy makers for a number of different purposes. In its original form the wage (or price) — unemployment relationship presents politicians with a list of different trade — offs to choose between inflation and unemployment. The trade-off seems to suggest that policy makers could choose a specific inflation-unemployment combination by controlling aggregate demand. This clearly points out that the trade-off postulated in the Phillips curve can be an usefull tool for monetary policy.

The main thesis of this paper is to identify and describe the common and different aspects of the monetary policies of Austria and Czechoslovakia in the years 1918-1929, as one of the possible determinants of post-war economic development of both countries. As the successor states to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy both countries faced the same currency problems, although Czechoslovakia was on the winning side and Austria on the losing side, which determined the economic conditions in both countries in their beginnings. To address monetary issues each country had a different approach, while for example Austria experienced post-war hyperinflation Czechoslovakia executed the first wave of deflation. Despite the successes of the Czechoslovak economy in the period under review, only by comparing them to Austria showed that against all odds the economic performance of Austria was better. One of the possible causes was a different implementation of monetary policy, which is the central theme of this paper. Although the two countries are once again "reunited" in the European Union, their mutual relations are still impeded by specific problems whose origins can also be traced to the interwar period.

This diploma thesis is focused on the description of Inflation Targeting regime in the Czech Republic. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part deals with inflation and its targeting and with the economical circumstances that led to the launch of this monetary policy regime in the Czech Republic. The next part concerns the central bank reaction function, transmission channels, evaluation of the inflation target sets and the description of prognostic models that the central bank uses for forecasting. Then main stress is laid on the new structural dynamic model "g3". The last part describes my own inflation prognosis, which is based on the time series analysis.

The thesis "Inflation targeting in circumstances of low interest rates" describes the monetary policy of the Czech National Bank with main aim on its current problems. The target of the thesis is to analytically prove the disruption of a section of the transmission mechanism when the repo rate should determine the interest rates on the czech interbank market. This disruption should have been caused by the recent financial crisis.

The main goal of this thesis has been a study of alternative policy rules in a small structural model calibrated to capture the Czech economy. After the overview of the historic development of economic theory and structural modeling we have specified a small open economy model that has served as a main technical tool for the analysis. The model represents a framework, where forward-looking model-consistent expectations are formed with respect to the development of the exchange rate and interest rates. Inflation expectations are forward looking too with some nominal rigidities in inflation dynamics. The model's structure is relatively simple. The IS curve captures the dynamics of real GDP, that exhibits real rigidity, motivated by habit formation or investment adjustment costs. In our specification the real GDP is a function of (the deviation of) real XR, real IR and foreign demand (from corresponding equilibrium levels). The Phillips-curve is based on the F-M type wage setting behavior, therefore it enables to consider domestic prices, that are modeled as mark-ups over wages. CPI inflation then consists of domestic, imported and administered inflation, including the effect of any indirect taxes changes. The exchange rate is modeled by the UIP arbitrage condition. Exchange rate expectations are forward-looking, but with some inertia in expectation formation. Interest rates with one year maturity are also modeled as an arbitrage condition on the money market, they are fully model-consistently forward looking. The model is closed by a Taylor-type forward-looking policy rule. The interest rate exhibits some inertia and feeds back from deviation of inflation from target and output from its equilibrium. The specification (parameterization) of the rule is general enough to examine CPI and domestic inflation targeting. The model specification has been followed by empirical work leading towards the implementation of the previously specified model on Czech data. Based on the sources of the Czech Statistical Office, Czech National Bank, Consensus Economics Inc., we first processed the data by executing seasonal adjustment and other transformations necessary for being consistent with the definition of model variables. The database has been created by an automatic MATLAB based routine, therefore the calculations were relatively easy to update. The database being completed, we have set up a Kalman-filter for determining equilibrium values for the real interest rate, exchange rate and output. At the same time through Kalman filtering we identified all model residuals. We paid special attention to the decomposition of the output gap and discussing In order to assess the overall dynamic properties of the model and judge how well the model fits the data, we conducted several exercises. First we decomposed some of the important endogenous variables of the model to shocks to see, whether the identified shocks are in line with our intuition and episodes of the recent Czech economic history. We found, that the shocks are not in contrast with some of the clearly distinguishable episodes. After the shock decomposition we run in-sample simulations to see, how well the model is able to fit the reality two years ahead. We found the overall results quite encouraging. We were able to fit quite well the output gap as well as MP inflation. Domestic inflation has been slightly more inertial in model simulations than in reality, but even in this case the results were acceptable. The model was not able to fit the 2001-2 appreciation of the nominal XR footnote{Understandably it neither forecasted well the fast fall in inflation after the appreciation period.}, which is not a big surprise. The model calibration part of the thesis concludes, that the model fits the data and economic story reasonably well.

Trots minusränta, kvantitativa lättnader och positiv BNP-tillväxt är inflationen i Sverige 2012 till 2016 närmast obefintlig. Liknande mönster visar sig i stora delar av världen där inflationen under återhämtningen efter den globala finanskrisen 2008 inte beter sig som förväntat. En anledning till den låga inflationen anses bland annat vara att ökad import från låglöneländer, med betydligt lägre prisnivåer än Sveriges, håller tillbaka den svenska inflationen. På global nivå visar forskning att inflationsdynamiken ändras efter den globala finanskrisen och att inflationens känslighet för olika förklaringsvariabler, inklusive importpriserna, ändrar sig. I vissa studier uppvisar importpriserna till och med ett negativt samband med inflationen efter finanskrisen. Syftet med uppsatsen är därför att undersöka hur importpriserna påverkar inflationen och om importprisernas effekt på inflationen ändras efter finanskrisen. För att utreda huruvida importpriser faktiskt påverkar inflationen och i vilken grad detta sker ställer vi med hjälp av månadsdata över förväntad inflation och arbetslöshetsgap upp en modell baserad på Phillipssambandet som vi utökar med importpriser. Vi kommer fram till att importpriserna har en effekt på inflationen och att sambandet är positivt under hela mätperioden. Våra resultat visar att importpriserna är en viktig del av inflationen; under perioden 2017 till 2018 består inflationen till en tredjedel av ökningen i importpriserna. För att undersöka om sambandet förändras i återhämtningsfasen efter finanskrisen introduceras en indikatorvariabel för finanskrisen och en för år 2012 och framåt. Trots tidigare studier som visar på en förändrad effekt av importpriserna efter den globala finanskrisen så finner vi ingen förändring av effekten i och med, eller efter, finanskrisen.

Thesis (M.Com. (Development Theory and Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2015. / Food price inflation has been an important subject of debate internationally since 2008. This sharp increase in food prices experienced during 2008 lead to intense research into the causes, dynamics and responses to this particular instance of food price inflation. The international literature attributed food price inflation to such factors as climate change, increases in energy costs and speculative activity in financial markets for agricultural commodities. This research report undertakes a review of the measurement of food price inflation in South Africa, broadly assessing how it is to be linked to the poor in South Africa. The research report focuses on the work of institutions concerned with the measurement of food price inflation in South Africa. Different methodologies of identifying foods as food staples are looked at. Food prices and trends are analysed using CPI data from January 2008 until October 2008, using selected consumer price index series from Statistics South Africa. The research report finds that the institutions studied show evidence of that higher food price inflation is correlated with demographic markers of poverty, although the traditional measure, the CPI, does not suggests that this is very extensive. This, it is argued, is due to the calculation methodologies used in the published CPI, and the data period. The research report then ends with an overview of the political economy of food in South Africa, thereby makes recommendations as to why the measurement of food price inflation is important for the poor.