In the empirical literature, monetary policy shocks are commonly measured as an innovation to a short-term nominal interest rate. In contrast, the majority of monetary business cycle models treats a broad monetary aggregate as the central bank's policy measure. We try overcome this disparity and...

In the empirical literature, monetary policy shocks are commonly measured as an innovation to a short-term nominal interest rate. In contrast, the majority of monetary business cycle models treats a broad monetary aggregate as the central bank's policy measure. We try overcome this disparity and...

This paper presents a business cycle analysis of monetary policy shocks measured by disturbances to open market operations, i.e. the ratio of open market papers to non-borrowed reserves. We find empirical evidence for the usefulness of this policy measure, as it predicts significant declines in...

This dissertation comprises three distinct economic stduies. The first deals with the origin of business cycle fluctuations and the other two with the measurement of financial constraints and the identification of the respective treatment effect.