Price dispersion of US imports are investigated across US districts of entry. Markups explain about 31% of price dispersion, while marginal costs of production explain about 69%; effects of trade costs, for which we have actual data, are almost none.

This paper investigates the sources of output volatility by decomposing the international shocks into finance and trade shocks. Through structural Bayesian estimations of an open-economy DSGE model on 16 countries, on average, international shocks explain around 70% of output fluctuations.

This paper tests the bilateral price-level convergence among 52 U.S. cities at the good level by using a new econometric approach. The estimated median half lives are far below the half lives found in the corresponding studies for the U.S.

We analyze the influence of US monetary policy on commodity price volatility. Expected target rate changes and communications decrease volatility, whereas target rate surprises and unorthodox measures increase it. The “calming” effect of communication is reduced during the financial crisis.

We examine the effects of U.S. target rate changes and FOMC communications on European and Pacific equity market returns and find that both have a significant impact. European markets are influenced by a greater variety of communications than Pacific markets.