We ask whether uncertainty about interest rates is important for economic activity. Effects of interest rate uncertainty on the economy are examined through the lens of a small VAR where the assumption that uncertainty can affect real activity contemporaneously but not vice versa is indeed in...

Using a semi-structural approach, we jointly estimate time-varying national natural real rates of interest for the four largest economies of the euro area over 1999-2016 and discuss the associated challenges for the single monetary policy. We find evidence of an increased dispersion of real...

This paper uses a risk-averse formulation of the uncovered interest rate parity to determine exchange rates through interest rate differentials, and ultimately extract currency risk premia. The method proposed consists of developing an affine Arbitrage-Free class of dynamic Nelson-Siegel term...

We use several U.S. and euro-area surveys of professional forecasters to estimate a dynamic factor model of inflation with time-varying uncertainty. We obtain survey-consistent distributions of future inflation at any horizon, both in the United States and in the euro area. Our methodology...

We define a disastrous default as the default of a systemic entity. Such an event is expected to have a negative effect on the economy and to be contagious. Bringing macroeconomic structure to a noarbitrage asset-pricing framework, we exploit prices of disaster-exposed assets (credit and equity...

We study the debt-stabilizing properties of indexing debt to GDP using a consumption-based macrofinance model. Three results stand out. First, GDP-linked bond prices would embed sizeable and timevarying risk premiums of about 40 basis points. Second, for a fixed budget surplus, issuing GDPlinked...

Narrative records in US newspapers reveal that about 70 percent of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members who served during the last 55 years are perceived to have had persistent policy preferences over time, as either inflation-fighting hawks or growth-promoting doves. The rest are...

I construct a novel measure of policy preferences of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) as perceived in public. This measure is based on newspaper and financial media coverage of 130 FOMC members serving during 1960-2015. Narratives reveal that about 70 percent of these FOMC members are...

This paper investigates whether uncertainty about economic policy plays a role in shaping the credibility and reputation of the central bank in the eyes of the public. In particular, we look at the effect of policy uncertainty for the dynamics of citizens' opinion, being trust, satisfaction or...

This paper studies the informational content of publicly given speeches of FOMC members with a focus on financial stability, from 1997 to 2018. We document that presidents of Federal Reserve Banks spoke more than Board members around and after the financial crisis, and exhibit more variation in...