We use a structural VAR with sign restrictions to jointly identify the impact of monetary policy, private absorption, technology and oil price shocks on current account fluctuations in the U.S.. We derive the sign restrictions from theoretical impulse response functions of a DSGE model with oil,...

In the context of a stylised game theoretical framework of capital tax competition, we show that when repeated policy interactions are associated to a systematic punishment of the deviating policymaker, a co-ordinated outcome can be the solution to the non co-operative tax game. This result...

This paper uses disaggregated CPI time series to show that a break in the mean of French inflation occurred in the mid-eighties and that the 1983 monetary policy shift mostly accounted for it. CPI average yearly growth declined from nearly 11% before the break date (May 1985) to 2.1% after. No...

We study identiÞcation in a class of three-equation monetary models. We argue that these models are typically not identiÞed. For any given exactly identiÞed model, we provide an algorithm that generates a class of equivalent models that have the same reduced form. We use our algorithm to...

This paper reviews the literature on what the zero bound to nominal interest rates implies for the conduct of monetary policy. The aim is to evaluate the risks of hitting the zero bound; and to evaluate policies that are said to be able to reduce that risk, or policies that are proposed as means...

We study the convergence of European bond markets and the anchoring of inflation expectations in euro area countries using high-frequency bond yield data for France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We find that Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has led to substantial convergence in euro area sovereign...

While up to the late 1990s Japanese foreign exchange intervention was fully sterilized, Japanese monetary authorities left foreign exchange intervention unsterilized when Japan entered the liquidity trap in 1999. According to previous research on foreign exchange intervention, unsterilized...

This paper examines the welfare implications of a country joining a currency union as opposed to operating in a flexible exchange rate regime. At the country level, the suboptimal response to domestic and foreign shocks and the inability of setting inflation at the desired level may be offset by...

We propose a measure of core inflation which is derived from a Markov switching ARFIMA model. The Markov switching ARFIMA model generalises the standard ARFIMA model allowing mean reversion to take place with respect to a changing unconditional mean. By imposing a coswitching restriction for...

The aim of the paper is to analyse the factors behind the rapid trade integration of the Central and Eastern European countries with the euro area in the past ten years and to gauge the potential for further integration. We use as benchmark an enhanced gravity model estimated with a large sample...