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"Very large balance sheet policies by central banks followed the Great Financial Crisis which along with the associated expanded mandate, eroded the independence of central banks. This book argues for a return to the consensus role for independent central banks"--

AbstractWe examine the development ofde jureproperty rights to land by assessing how accurately governments recorded borders of property. We use surveys of farm parcels from two historical states, the Republic of the Orange Free State (OFS) and the South African Republic (ZAR), which are in modern-day South Africa, and employ a descriptive analysis to infer how accurately maps represent parcels of property. We argue that differences in state administrative capacity explains differences in map accuracy and therefore the provision ofde jureproperty rights to land. We find that maps of farms in the ZAR, which had lower administrative capacity, tend to be less accurate than maps of farms in the OFS. Comparisons with military maps compiled under a different administration provide evidence that the costs incurred from previous administrations can limit future attempts to accurately record property. The analysis shows how state administrative capacity can facilitate (or hinder) the provision of property rights to land.

In our earlier work, we argued, contra Searle, that institutional facts can be understood in terms of non-institutional facts about actions and incentives. Butchard and D'Amico claim that we have misinterpreted Searle, that our main argument against him ("the circularity objection") has no merit and that our positive view cannot account for institutional facts created via joint action. We deny all three charges.

AbstractWhat does being money consist in? We argue that something is money if, and only if, it is typically acquired in order to realise the reduction in transaction costs that accrues in virtue of agents coordinating on acquiring the same thing when deciding what thing to acquire in order to exchange. What kinds of things can be money? We argue against the common view that a variety of things (notes, coins, gold, cigarettes, etc.) can be money. All monetary systems are best interpreted as implementing the same basic protocol. Money, i.e. the thing that we coordinate on acquiring in order to lower our transaction costs, is, in all cases, a set of positions on an abstract mathematical object, namely a relative ratio scale. The things that we ordinarily call 'money' are merely records of positions on such a scale.

AbstractMeasures of core inflation convey critical information about an economy. They have a direct effect on the policymaking process, particularly in inflation‐targeting countries, and are utilised in forecasting and modelling exercises. In South Africa, the price indices on which inflation is based have been subject to important structural breaks following changes to the underlying basket of goods and the methodology for constructing price indices. This paper seeks to identify a consistent measure of core inflation for South Africa using trimmed means estimates, measures that exclude changes in food and energy prices, dynamic factor models, and wavelet decompositions. After considering the forecasting ability of these measures, which provide an indication of expected second‐round inflationary effects, traditional in‐sample criteria were used for further comparative purposes. The results suggest that wavelet decompositions provide a useful measure of this critical variable.