We study the determination of Irish inflation between 1935 and 2012 using a Phillips curve approach. We find that a simple backward-looking Phillips Curve that incorporates import prices is stable over the sample period and passes a number of diagnostic tests. We also consider the importance of...

This paper presents an analysis of labour market dynamics, in particular of flows in the labour market and how they interact and affect the evolution of unemployment rates and participation rates, the two main indicators of labour market performance. Our analysis has two special features. First,...

Greater financial integration between core and peripheral EMU members had an effect on both sets of countries. Lower interest rates allowed peripheral countries to run bigger deficits, which inflated their economies by allowing credit booms. Core EMU countries took on extra foreign leverage to...

Pricing policy for any experience good faces a key tradeoff. On one hand, a price reduction increases immediate demand and hence more people learn about the product. On the other hand, lower prices may serve as price anchors and, through a comparison effect, decrease subsequent demand. This...

This paper derives optimal trade and domestic taxes for a small open economy containing a monopolistically competitive (MC) sector in which firms may have heterogeneous productivity levels. Domestic protection brings gains from expanding the number of product varieties on offer, but these gains...

The purpose of this study is to test for the effects of trade promotion via the foreign service. We develop a Melitz-based model where firms are heterogeneous with respect to productivity and must pay a beachhead cost to enter a foreign market, which can be reduced by government spending on...

Over the Great Recession real wages stagnated and unemployment increased. Concurrently, food prices rose sharply, outstripping growth in food expenditure, and leading to a reduction in calories purchased. This has led to concern about rising food poverty. We study British households to assess...

We examine the importance of geographical proximity to coal as a factor underpinning comparative European economic development during the Industrial Revolution. Our analysis exploits geographical variation in city and coalfield locations, alongside temporal variation in the availability of...

In the U.S., 15 percent of households move in a given year. This result is based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics on gross flows within and between the two segments of the housing market - renter-occupied properties and owner-occupied properties. The gross flows between these two...

We identify government spending news and surprise shocks using a novel identification based on the Survey of Professional Forecasters. News shocks lead to an increase of the interest rate, a real appreciation of US dollar and a worsening of the trade balance. The opposite is found for the...