Macroeconomic data suggest that the New Keynesian Phillips curve is quite flat - despite microeconomic evidence implying frequent price adjustments. While real rigidities may help to account for the conflicting evidence, we propose an alternative explanation: if price markup/cost-push shocks are...

Using vector autoregressions on U.S. time series for 1957-1979 and 1983-2004, we find government spending shocks to have stronger effects on output, consumption, and wages in the earlier sample. We try to account for this observation within a DSGE model featuring price rigidities and limited...

We confront the notion that flexible rates insulate a country from external disturbances with new evidence on spillovers from euro-area shocks to neighboring countries. We find that in response to euro-area shocks, spillovers are not smaller, and currency movements not significantly larger, in...

How does global risk impact the world economy? In taking up this question, we focus on the dollar’s role in the international adjustment mechanism. First, we rely on high-frequency surprises in the price of gold to identify the effects of global risk shocks in a Bayesian Proxy VAR model. They...

We assess how firm expectations about future production impact current production and pricing decisions. Our analysis is based on a large survey of firms in the German manufacturing sector. To identify the causal effect of expectations, we rely on the timing of survey responses and match firms...

Renewed interest in fiscal policy has increased the use of quantitative models to evaluate policy. Because of modelling uncertainty, it is essential that policy evaluations be robust to alternative assumptions. We find that models currently being used in practice to evaluate fiscal policy...

The global financial crisis has lead to a renewed interest in discretionary fiscal stimulus. Advocates of discretionary measures emphasize that government spending can stimulate additional private spending — the Keynesian multiplier effect. Thus, we investigate whether the spending package...

We assess how firm expectations about future production impact current production and pricing decisions. Our analysis is based on a large survey of firms in the German manufacturing sector. To identify the causal effect of expectations, we rely on the timing of survey responses and match firms...

How does global risk impact the world economy? In taking up this question, we focus on the dollar's role in the international adjustment mechanism. First, we rely on high-frequency surprises in the price of gold to identify the effects of global risk shocks in a Bayesian Proxy VAR model. They...

We confront the notion that flexible rates insulate a country from external disturbances with new evidence on spillovers from euro-area shocks to neighboring countries. We find that in response to euro-area shocks, spillovers are not smaller, and currency movements not significantly larger, in...