Periods of economic and financial stress traditionally give rise to profound changes in economic theory and in the way policy decisions are taken. Motivated by the recent interest in renewing macroeconomics after the global financial crisis, we collected the views of senior central bank staff in...

This paper uses the EAGLE, a multi-country dynamic general equilibrium model, to illustrate dynamic adjustments in a small open economy undergoing real convergence. We consider the effects of productivity catch-up and misperceptions about future productivity developments. Our results indicate...

This paper develops a small-scale DSGE model which embeds a demographic structure within a monetary policy framework. We extend the tractable, though non-monetary overlapping-generations model of Gertler (1999) and present a small synthesis model which combines the set-up of Gertler with a...

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models have recently become standard tools for policy-oriented analyses. Nevertheless, their forecasting properties are still barely explored. We fill this gap by comparing the quality of real-time forecasts from a richly-specified DSGE model to those from...

Dieses Grünbuch möchte als Katalysator wirken, um auf allen Ebenen der europäischen Gesellschaft – sei es auf EU-Gemeinschaftsebene, sei es auf einzelstaatlicher, regionaler oder kommunaler Ebene – auf eine erneuerte Energieeffizienz-Initiative hinzuwirken. ... Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und...

In this paper, we assess whether and to what extent financial activity in the oil futures markets has contributed to destabilize oil prices in recent years. We define a destabilizing financial shock as a shift in oil prices that is not related to current and expected fundamentals, and thereby...

This guide shows how a life cycle approach can be used to identify and reduce the environmental and health impacts of the products we use. It underlines the importance of considering these issues across the entire life cycle of a product and sets them within the context of policy development,...

This Country Focus studies the development of private consumption in France during the decade before the crisis. Are French consumers greater spendthrifts than their European fellows? In this paper, we estimate a consumption function to show that strong growth of private consumption in France...

In Germany private consumption virtually stagnated for nearly a decade and clearly lagged behind GDP growth. This Country Focus uses the estimation of a consumption function to show that the drop in employment is the most important factor behind the reluctance to consume in the first half of...

This report reveals that Central and Eastern European countries are using at least twice the energy used by the previous 15 EU member states for each unit of economic output. Along with six other non-governmental organisations, WWF, the global conservation organisation, has launched a report...