We document the presence of both small and large price changes in individual price records from the CPI in France and the US. After correcting for measurement error and cross-section heterogeneity we find that the size distribution of price changes has a positive excess kurtosis, with a shape...

This paper examines heterogeneity in price stickiness using a large, original, set of individual price data collected at the retail level for the computation of the French CPI. For that purpose, we estimate at a very high level of disaggregation competing-risks duration models that distinguish...

We examine the effect of the minimum wage on restaurant prices. For that purpose, we estimate a price rigidity model by exploiting a unique dataset of individual price quotes used to calculate the Consumer Price Index in France. We find a positive and significant impact of the minimum wage on...

Our answer: not so well. We reach that conclusion after reviewing recent research on the role of technology as a source of economic fluctuations. The bulk of the evidence suggests a limited role for aggregate technology shocks, pointing instead to demand factors as the main force behind the...

We construct a utility-based model of fluctuations, with nominal rigidities and unemployment, and draw its implications for the unemployment-inflation trade-off and for the conduct of monetary policy. We proceed in two steps. We first leave nominal rigidities aside. We show that, under a...

Recent evidence suggests that consumption rises in response to an increase in government spending. That finding cannot be easily reconciled with existing optimizing business cycle models. We extend the standard new Keynesian model to allow for the presence of rule-of-thumb consumers. We show how...

An analysis of the performance of GDP, employment and other labor market variables following the troughs in postwar U.S. business cycles points to much slower recoveries in the three most recent episodes, but does not reveal any significant change over time in the relation between GDP and...

We study the extent of macroeconomic convergence/divergence among euro area countries. Our analysis focuses on four variables (unemployment, inflation, relative prices and the current account), and seeks to uncover the role played by monetary union as a convergence factor by using non-euro...

We study the gains from increased wage flexibility and their dependence on exchange rate policy, using a small open economy model with staggered price and wage setting. Two results stand out: (i) the impact of wage adjustments on employment is smaller the more the central bank seeks to stabilize...

We estimate the response of stock prices to exogenous monetary policy shocks using a vector-autoregressive model with time-varying parameters. Our evidence points to protracted episodes in which stock prices end up increasing persistently in response to an exogenous tightening of monetary...