We argue that in an economy with downward nominal wage rigidity, the output gap is negative on average. Because it is more difficult to cut wages than to increase them, firms reduce employment more during downturns than they increase employment during expansions. This is demonstrated in a simple...

We study the properties of the IMF-WEO estimates of real-time output gaps for countries in the euro area as well as the determinants of their revisions over 1994-2017. The analysis shows that staff typically saw economies as operating below their potential. In real time, output gaps tend to have...

Estimates of output gaps continue to play a key role in assessments of the stance of business cycles. This paper uses three approaches to examine the historical record of output gap measurements and their use in surveillance within the IMF. Firstly, the historical record of global output gap...

All types of recessions, on average, not just those associated with financial and political crises (as in Cerra and Saxena, AER 2008), lead to permanent output losses. These findings have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. A new paradigm of the business cycle needs to account for...

The financial crisis showed, once again, that neglecting real estate booms can have disastrous consequences. In this paper, we spell out the circumstances under which a more active policy agenda on this front would be justified. Then, we offer tentative insights on the pros and cons as well as...

The recent recovery in Latin America has been impressive but also raises the question whether this represents a fundamental break with the region''s history of boom-bust cycles. The paper traces how this history of macroeconomic volatility and financial crisis over the past century has adversely...

This paper analyzes the impact of strained government finances on macroeconomic stability and the transmission of fiscal policy. Using a variant of the model by Curdia and Woodford (2009), we study a ""sovereign risk channel"" through which sovereign default risk raises funding costs in the...