Previous assessments of nominal exchange rate determination have focused upon a narrow set of models typically of the 1970's vintage, including monetary and portfolio balance models. In this paper we re-assess the in-sample fit and out-of-sample prediction of a wider set of models that have been...

This paper studies the reaction of the mean and volatility of the euro-dollar exchange rate to statements of ECB officials during the first years of EMU. We focus on statements on monetary policy and the (potential) strength of the euro. We find that the Bundesbank has dominated the news...

In this paper we study the link between elections, fiscal policy and economic growth/fluctuations. The set-up is a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of growth and endogenously chosen fiscal policy, in which two political parties can alternate in power. The party in office chooses...

We demonstrate how endogenous information acquisition in venture capital markets creates investment cycles when competing financiers undertake their screening decisions in an uncoordinated way, thereby highlighting the role of intertemporal screening externalities induced by competition among...

In this paper we develop a multi-sector model of firms' pricing behaviour under imperfect competition. We allow for the fact that some goods sold will be for final consumption, while others will be used as intermediate goods in further production. We assume that price setters are constrained by...

This paper provides a new test for whether different-currency assets are imperfect substitutes. The test exploits that under floating rates, changing public currency demand has no direct effect on monetary fundamentals, current or future. Price effects from imperfect substitutability are clearly...

We present new empirical evidence for the US economy that inflation reduces the inequality of the earnings distribution. The main mechanism emphasized in this paper is the tax income bracket effect. Governments only adjust the nominal income tax brackets slowly to a rise in prices, typically...

The cyclicality of real wages has important implications for the validity of competing business cycle theories. However, the empirical evidence on the aggregate level is inconclusive. Using a threshold vector autoregressive model for the US and Germany to condition the relationship between real...

We consider VAR models for variables exhibiting cointegration and comon cyclical features. While the presence of cointegration reduces the rank of the long-run multiplier matrix, other types of common features lead to rank reduction of the short-run dynamics. We distinguish between strong and...