We develop an alternative test of the `German view' - that a reduction in government consumption may lead to an immediate private consumption boom - derived from an open-economy permanent income model. In our empirical study we find, in accordance with the `German view', that an anticipated...

We suggest that the real exchange rate between the major currencies in the post-Bretton Woods period can be described by a stationary, two state Markov switching AR(1) model. Based on the forecast performance, both in-sample and out-of-sample, we find that this model out-performs two competing...

This paper contrasts the effects of balanced-budget reductions in government consumption on private consumption in the permanent income model and a model allowing for precautionary savings. We compare impulse responses of private consumption to temporary and permanent shocks to government...

This study evaluates the individual roles of monetary and productivity shocks in real exchange rate fluctuations under the current float. Using a cointegration model of exchange rates and relative prices, the innovations are decomposed into transitory and common-trend parts. Both transitory and...

This paper examines the characteristics of business cycles in and across Sweden and Finland during the postwar period. We find that output fluctuations in Sweden and Finland are highly correlated to two measures of the international business cycle, a European and a non--European common business...

In this paper, we focus on how European economic integration has affected the synchronization and the magnitude of business cycles among participating countries. We measure, based on bandpass filtered data, the characteristics of European business cycles analyzing to what extent they have become...

Crises are a major driving force behind cooperation in the European Union. This holds also for monetary and fiscal policy. During severe crises, cooperation has been enlarged and intensified. The recent covid-19 pandemic is a clear example of this pattern. The pandemic has had huge impact on the...

When Sweden left the gold standard on September 27, 1931, the Swedish government declared that the aim of monetary policy should be to stabilize the domestic purchasing power of the Swedish currency, the krona. With this step, price level targeting officially became for the first time the goal...

The COVID-19 pandemic had disastrous effects on health and economic activity worldwide, including in the Euro Area. The application of mandatory lockdowns contributed to a sharp fall in production and a rise in unemployment, inducing an expansionary fiscal and monetary response. Using a uniquely...

After World War II and prior to the financial deregulation of the 1980s, monetary policy in Sweden as well as in other western European countries rested chiefly on a system of far-reaching non-market-oriented controls of credit flows and interest rates. How was monetary policy conducted in such...