We study optimal government spending in a business cycle model with frictional unemployment. The Ramsey optimal policy is contrasted with a reference policy which would be first best in a frictionless economy. Results are: the Ramsey policy i) implies a higher steady state ratio of government...

We study optimal government spending in a business cycle model with frictional unemployment. The Ramsey optimal policy is contrasted with a reference policy which would be first best in a frictionless economy. Results are: the Ramsey policy i) implies a higher steady state ratio of government...

In this paper we use a medium-scale DSGE model to quantitatively assess the macroeconomic stabilisation properties of a supranational unemployment insurance scheme. The model is calibrated to the euro area's core and periphery and features a rich fiscal sector, sovereign risk premia and labour...

This paper attempts to gauge the effects of various fiscal and monetary policy rules on macroeconomic outcomes in the euro area. It consists of two major parts – a historical assessment and an assessment based on an extended scenario until 2030 – and it builds on the ECB-BASE –a...

This paper proposes a central fiscal capacity for the euro area that generates transfers in response to euro area, country, and region-specific shocks. The main novelty of this fiscal capacity is that it allows a joint response to these three types of shocks within a single scheme. Based on...

Recent debate has focused on the introduction of a central stabilisation capacity as a completing element of the Economic and Monetary Union. Its main objective would be to contribute cushioning country-specific economic shocks, especially when national fiscal stabilisers are run down. There are...

In most euro area countries, the monetary/fiscal policy mix is responsible for the changing history of debt and inflation facts. Using a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model with Markov-switching policy rules, we identify three distinct monetary/fiscal regimes in France and Italy: a...

We propose a novel identification design to estimate the causal effects of systematic monetary policy on the propagation of macroeconomic shocks. The design combines (i) a time-varying measure of systematic monetary policy based on the historical composition of hawks and doves in the Federal...

We evaluate the effects of permanently reducing labour tax rates in the euro area (EA) by simulating a large-scale open economy dynamic general equilibrium model. The model features the EA as a monetary union, split in two regions (Home and the rest of the EA - REA), the US, and the rest of the...

We present a structural framework for the evaluation of public policies intended to increase job search intensity. Most of the literature defines search intensity as a scalar that influences the arrival rate of job offers; here we treat it as the number of job applications that workers send out....