Estimates of the output gap ought to be a useful guide for macroeconomic policy, both for assessing inflationary pressures and fiscal sustainability, but their reliability has been called into question by the large revisions which they are often subject to, particularly around turning points....

We discuss the evolution in macroeconomic thought on the monetary policy transmission mechanism and present related empirical evidence. The core channels of policy transmission — the neoclassical links between short-term policy interest rates, other asset prices such as long-term interest...

Certain growth-promoting policies can have negative side-effects by increasing the vulnerability of economies to financial crises. Typical examples are greater openness to financial flows or more liberalised financial markets. This paper investigates whether the growth benefits of policy reforms...

We provide an overview of the recent developments of the literature on the determinants of long-term capital flows, global imbalances, and valuation effects. We present the main stylized facts of the new international financial landscape in which external balance sheets of countries have grown...

This paper addresses the question of whether and how monetary policy ease may lead to excesses in financial and real asset markets and ultimately result in financial dislocation. It presents evidence suggesting that periods when short-term interest rates have been persistently and significantly...

Over-borrowing and financial stress has recently become an important issue in macroeconomic and policy discussions in the US as well as in the EU. In this paper the authors study two regimes of financial stress. In a regime of high financial stress, stress shocks can have large and persistent...

The recent financial crises pointed out the central role of public and private debt in modern economies. However, even if debt is a recurring topic in discussions about the current economic situation, economic modeling does not take into account debt as one of the crucial determinants of...

The BoltzmannGibbs distribution is currently widely used in economic modeling. One of the applications is integrated with the DSGE (Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium) model. However, a question that arises concerns whether the BoltzmannGibbs distribution can be directly applied, without...

From 2000 to 2007, Estonia was one of the fastest growing emerging market economies. A housing boom, fuelled by capital inflows and credit, resulted in skyrocketing house prices and an over-expanded construction sector. However, the currency board limited the Bank of Estonia’s ability to curb...