Inflation in the euro area has been falling since mid-2013, turned negative at the end of 2014 and remained below target thereafter. This paper employs a Bayesian VAR to quantify the contribution of a set of structural shocks, identified by means of sign restrictions, to inflation and economic...

In recent years, inflation in the euro area has failed to decelerate decisively while cyclical slack built up in the economy. Is this phenomenon more than a peculiarity in recent data? Is it related to structural policy settings? Econometric analysis conducted on two decades of quarterly data...

Using a small Bayesian dynamic factor model of the euro area we estimate the deviations of output from its trend that are consistent with the behavior of inflation. We label these deviations the output gap. In order to pin-down the features of the model, we evaluate the accuracy of real-time...

We study how households adjust their medium-term inflation expectations under the new monetary policy strategy of the ECB. In a representative sample of 7,500 participants of the Bundesbank Online Panel Households, we find that survey respondents make little difference between the previous...

The paper investigates real-time output gap estimates for the euro area obtained from various unobserved components (UOC) models. Based on a state space modelling framework, three criteria are used to evaluate real-time estimates, i.e. standard errors, unbiasedness and conditional inflation...

We analyse the implications of asymmetric monetary policy rules by estimating Markov-switching DSGE models for the euro area (EA) and the US. The estimations show that until mid-2014 the ECB’s response to inflation was more forceful when inflation was above 2% than below 2%. Since then, the...

This paper highlights the international transmission of political uncertainty originated from a US partisan conflict shock, a newly identified shock that transmits a type of uncertainty beyond the economic policy uncertainty spillovers identified by Colombo (2013). Using the recently developed...

The paper analyses the role of monetary policy for cyclical movements of investment and asset markets in East Asia and Europe based on a Mises-Hayek overinvestment framework. It is shown how the gradual global decline of interest rates has triggered wandering overinvestment cycles in Japan,...

Theory as well as empirics suggest that both the level and the volatility of uncertainty impact important economic variables. There is a need to extend models of uncertainty to the volatility of uncertainty. We analyse the dynamics of the Economic Policy Uncertainty index developed by (Baker et...

This study extends the current New Keynesian modeling framework by changing one crucial aspect: it replaces the general equilibrium assumption by the arguably more realistic assumption of macroeconomic disequilibrium. As a result, more complex and less smooth macroeconomic adjustment dynamics...