This paper presents a model featuring variable utilization rates across firms due to production inflexibilities and idiosyncratic demand uncertainty. Within a New Keynesian framework, we show how the corresponding bottlenecks and stock-outs generate asymmetries in the transmission mechanism of...

This paper presents a new version of the Spanish quarterly macroeconometric model. The previous version [see Willman and Estrada (2002)] evidenced a number of shortcomings, some of which are redressed here. In particular, the model now uses seasonally and working days adjusted time series; it...

This paper presents the Spanish country block (ES-MCM) of the ESCB Multi-Country Model for the euro area, which has been built in a close co-operation with the ECB and the Banco de España. The theoretical structure of the ES-MCM block is in line with most current mainstream macro models, i.e....

Economic theory predicts that the consumption path of unconstrained homeowners responds to the interest rate, while the consumption path of credit constrained homeowners is determined by the size and timing of payments (mortgage maturity). We exploit the rapid expansion of mortgage markets...

Public deficit figures are subject to revisions, as most macroeconomic aggregates are. Nevertheless, in the case of Europe, the latter could be particularly worrisome given the role of fiscal data in the functioning of EU’s multilateral surveillance rules. Adherence to such rules is judged...

One of the most salient feature of the Spanish housing market, compared to other European economies, is its relatively low rental share. This may be partly attributed to the existence of fiscal distortions in Spain favoring ownership. In this paper, we simulate the potential efects of different...

By how much do employed households reduce their consumption when the aggregate unemployment rate rises? In Spain during the Great Recession a 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate was related to a strong drop in household consumption of more than 0.7% per equivalent adult. This...

Household debt in many advanced economies has increased significantly since the 1980s and accelerated in the years prior to the Great Recession, resulting in an aggregate reduction of saving rates in the developed economies. Some of those economies are now deleveraging, which may be affecting...

In this paper we provide an overview of the growth model in China and its prospects, taking a medium-run to long-run perspective. Our main conclusions are as follows. First, the still prevailing producer-biased model of managed capitalism in China tends to engender, as an inherent byproduct,...

We study how estimators used to impute consumption in survey data are inconsistent due to measurement error in consumption. Previous research suggests instrumenting consumption to overcome this problem. We show that, if additional regressors are present, then instrumenting consumption may still...