This paper presents a model analyzing the potential for an International Court with powers to declare standstills to mitigate the coordination problem inherent to roll-overs in sovereign debt markets. It is shown that, regardless of the quality of the information handled by such an Institution,...

We present evidence about the loss of the so-called "plucking effect", that is, a high-growth phase of the cycle typically observed at the end of recessions. This result matches the belief, presented informally by different authors, that recession may have now permanent effects, or recession...

This paper analyzes if each European country presents business cycles that are similar enough to validate what some authors call the European cycle. Contrary to the majority of papers on business cycles, we concentrate on the appearance of the cycle, not on the synchronization. We provide a...

We propose a comprehensive methodology to characterize the business cycle comovements across European economies and some industrialized countries, always trying to leave the data speak. Out of this framework, we propose a novel method to show that there is no an Euro economy that acts as an...

This paper explores the dynamics of price-cost mark-ups using firm-level data, paying particular attention to the crisis period 2008-2011. To this end, we apply the econometric framework developed by Klette (1999) to a comprehensive sample of Spanish non-financial corporations in order to...

We test the Barro-Gordon model extended to allow for persistence in unemployment. First, we build an index of central bank independence and measures of persistence, and then we compare them with inflation performance in OECD countries. Our results show, as theory predicts, a robust negative...

Inflation-indexed bonds are fixed-income securities whose nominal cash flows are adjusted to an inflation index. In countries where these securities exist, inflation expectations are sometimes estimated as the spread between the nominal yield on a conventional bond and the real yield on an...

This paper reviews the existing empirical evidence on the short term impact on prices of fiscal variables and assesses it against new results from harmonised simulations, conducted with six well established econometric models used by the ECB and five national central banks (NCBs) of the...

This document contains the text of the 1998 Central Banking Lecture delivered at the London School of Economics and Political Science on June 4th. It starts by asking what factors have been behind the remarkable retreat of inflation that has taken place internationally since the mid-eighties,...

In this paper we propose a model for monthly inflation with stochastic trend, seasonal and transitory components with QGARCH disturbances. This model distinguishes whether the long-run or short-run components are heteroscedastic. Furthermore, the uncertainty associated with these components may...