This paper measures the full extent of downward stickiness in credit card interest rates by testing for the amount and adjustment asymmetries. We found that lenders behave asymmetrically in response to changes in the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) cash rate. The RBA's rate rises are passed on to borrowers much faster than rate cuts and the aggregate credit card interest rate showed a very resilient degree of downward rigidity. Overall, based on the estimated short-run dynamic model, banks immediately pass on 112% of any RBA's rate rises, but only 53.7% of any rate cut. In other words, the short-run effects of rate cuts were not only less than half of the rate rises but also were delayed on average by two months. As far as changes in the credit card interest rate are concerned, an expansionary monetary policy is thus less effective than a contractionary policy.

Purpose - The main purpose of this paper is to provide more accurate estimates of Iran's time varying non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) than what already exists in the literature. Design/methodology/approach - Using the Kalman filter approach and annual time series data spanning from 1959 to 2008, the paper presents two estimates of the NAIRU for Iran. Findings - The estimated two measures appear to be robust and consistent in terms of their magnitude and pattern, having a more logical upper limit of 11.1 per cent. Irrespective of which of the two models are considered, the results clearly indicate that overall Iran's NAIRU has been on the rise since the 1960s and whenever the unemployment rate lies below the NAIRU, the rate of inflation has exhibited an explosive behaviour. Such a phenomenon was observed in both 1995-1996 and the post 2006 era. Originality/value - In the context of Iran, all previous studies have consistently over-estimated the maximum value of the time varying NAIRU. In these studies, the NAIRU's upper limit ranges from 14 to 20.7 per cent. The paper concludes that such implausible high rates are as a result of the overestimation associated with misspecification errors in their model.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the usefulness of the yield spread for forecasting growth in the Australian economy since 1969. Design/methodology/approach - This paper applies time series analysis to evaluate the in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting power of the spread-growth nexus in Australia for the period spanning from 1969 to 2014. Findings - This paper concludes that the spread serves as a useful predictor of growth in output, private dwellings, private fixed capital formation, and inventories in Australia, both in-sample and out-of-sample. Its predictive content is not sensitive to the inclusion of monetary policy variables or the switch to the inflation-targeting regime by the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 1990s. Originality/value - This paper provides significant evidence to policy makers and market participants on the usefulness of the spread in forecasting output growth for up to eight quarters ahead.