The Bank of England''s current ""quantitative easing"" strategy has given rise to a controversial debate about the effects and risks of unconventional monetary policy. The present paper makes two contributions to this debate. First, it provides a systematic overview of unconventional policy...

This paper studies inflation dynamics during 25 historical episodes in advanced economies where output remained well below potential for an extended period. We find that such episodes generally brought about significant disinflation, underpinned by weak labor markets, slowing wage growth, and,...

Financial frictions affect the way in which different components of GDP respond to a monetary policy shock. We embed the financial accelerator of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999) into a medium-scale Dynamic General Equilibrium model and evaluate the relative importance of financial...

This paper studies how the effects of government spending vary with the economic environment. Using a panel of OECD countries, we identify fiscal shocks as residuals from an estimated spending rule and trace their macroeconomic impact under different conditions regarding the exchange rate...

Sovereign risk premia in several euro area countries have risen markedly since 2008, driving up credit spreads in the private sector as well. We propose a New Keynesian model of a two-region monetary union that accounts for this “sovereign risk channel.” The model is calibrated to the euro...

This paper studies how the effects of government spending vary with the economic environment. Using a panel of OECD countries, we identify fiscal shocks as residuals from an estimated spending rule and trace their macroeconomic impact under different conditions regarding the exchange rate...

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...