The 'saving for a rainy day' hypothesis implies that households' saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...

We give an appraisal of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPC) as an empirical model of European inflation. We show that existing evidence reported in favour of the NPC on Euro-area and country data is due to a corroborative research strategy. In particular, goodness-of-fit is a weak criterion,...

Estimates of the NAIRU are usually derived either from a Phillips curve or from a wage curve. This paper investigates the correspondence between the operational NAIRU-concepts and the steady state of a dynamic wage-price model. We derive the parameter restrictions that secure that...

We investigate the importance of employing a valid model for monetary policy analysis. Specifically, we investigate the economic significance of differences in specification and empirical validity of models. We consider three alternative econometric models of wage and price inflation in Norway....

In this paper the e ects on aggregate consumption of changes in the age distribution of the population are analysed empirically. Economic theories predict that age influences individuals’ saving and consumption behaviour. Despite this, age structure e ects are rarely controlled for in...