A large literature has documented statistically significant effects of monetary policy on economic activity. The central explanation for how monetary policy transmits to the real economy relies critically on nominal rigidities, which form the basis of the New Keynesian (NK) framework. This paper...

We estimate the impulse response of key US macro series to the monetary policy shocks identified by Romer and Romer (2004), allowing the response to depend flexibly on the state of the business cycle. We find strong evidence that the effects of monetary policy on real and nominal variables are...

The difference in the price you pay for the same house in the summer and in the winter is huge, according to Rachel Ngai and Silvana Tenreyro.

Joao Santos Silva and Silvana Tenreyro investigate whether the new currency has delivered the promised growth in trade between member countries

A vast empirical literature has documented delayed and persistent effects of monetary policy shocks on output. We show that this finding results from the aggregation of output impulse responses that differ sharply depending on the timing of the shock: when the monetary policy shock takes place...

Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? We identify four possible reasons: (i) poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors; (ii) poor countries specialize in fewer sectors; (iii) poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks...

We critically review the recent literature on currency unions, and discuss the methodological challenges posed by the empirical assessment of their costs and benefits. In the process, we provide evidence on the economic effects of the euro. In particular, and in contrast with estimates of the...

We extend the simulation results given in Santos-Silva and Tenreyro (2006, 'The Log of Gravity', The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88, pp.641-658) by considering data generated as a finite mixture of gamma variates. Data generated in this way can naturally have a large proportion of zeros...

Helpman, Melitz, and Rubinstein (2008)-HMR-present a rich theoretical model to study the determinants of bilateral trade flows across countries. The model is then empirically implemented through a two-stage estimation procedure. This note seeks to clarify some econometric aspects of the...

Every year during the second and thirdquarters (the "hot season") housing markets in the UK and the US experience systematic above-trend increases in both prices and transactions. During the fourth and first quarters (the "cold season"), house prices and transactions fall below trend. We propose...