What drives the recent inflation surge? To answer this question, one must decompose inflation fluctuations into the contribution of structural shocks. We document how whimsical such a historical shock decomposition can be in standard vector autoregressive (VAR) models. We show that the...

In this paper we extend the standard Blanchard-Quah decomposition to enable fluctuations in aggregate demand to have a long-run impact on the productive capacity of the economy through hysteresis effects. These demand shocks are found to be quantitatively important in the US, in particular if...

The neutral real rate of interest (r*) is a key variable for assessing the tightness of monetary policy. The neutral real interest rate has by all accounts fallen substantially over the past three decades, amid slowing productivity growth, an ageing population, increased inequality and increased...