In this paper we present an empirical analysis of the "credit-cost channel" (CCC) of monetary policy transmission. This model combines bank credit supply, as a means whereby monetary policy affects economic activity ("credit channel"), and interest rates on loans as a cost to firms ("cost...

The current consensus in macroeconomics, as represented by the New Neoclassical Synthesis, is to work within frameworks that combine intertemporal optimization, imperfect competition and sticky prices. We contrast this “NNS triangle” with a model in the spirit of Wicksell and Keynes that...

The recent revision (March 2005) of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) has confirmed the 3% deficit/GDP ratio as the pillar of the excessive deficits procedure envisaged by the Maastricht Treaty for member countries of the EMU. Since the deficit/GDP ceiling is still in place, research on its...

This paper considers recent proposals of introductory-level macroeconomic models that drop the LM apparatus in favour of the straightforward use of the Taylor rule as a means to determine the nominal interest rate and to link the monetary block with the real block of the economy. Whilst one can...

The unprecedented sovereign debt crisis across the European Monetary Union has prompted a new generation of models with "self-fulfilling" attacks to public debt. The key idea is that governments may be forced to default even though initial fundamental fiscal variables are sound. The model...

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This paper examines the new SGP rules that should govern fiscal policies of the EMU member countries by means of dynamic models of the debt/GDP ratio. The focus is on factors of heterogeneity and interdependence in the three key variables that may affect the debt/GDP evolution in a multi-country...

Why did some countries in the Euro Zone between 2010 and 2012 - until the European Central Bank stepped in - experience a dramatic vicious circle between hard austerity plans and rising default risk premia? Were such plans too small, and hence non credible, or too large, and hence non...