Using publicly available data for a group of 20 OECD countries, we find that the cyclical volatility of the unemployment rate exhibits substantial cross-country and time variation. We then investigate empirically whether labour market institutions can account for this observed heterogeneity and...

This paper analyses the conduct of monetary policy in an environment where households’ desire to amass precautionary savings is influenced by fluctuations in the volatilities of disturbances that hit the economy. It uses a simple New Keynesian model with external habit formation that is...

This paper analyses the conduct of monetary policy in an environment in which cyclical swings in risk appetite affect households’ propensity to save. It uses a New Keynesian model featuring external habit formation to show that taking note of precautionary saving motives justifies an...

This paper estimates the effects of monetary policy on the UK economy based on a new, extensive real-time forecast data set. Employing the Romer–Romer identification approach we first construct a new measure of monetary policy innovations for the UK economy. We find that a 1 percentage point...

This paper examines the role of macroprudential capital requirements in preventing inefficient credit booms in a model with reputational externalities. Unprofitable banks have strong incentives to invest in risky assets and generate inefficient credit booms when macroeconomic fundamentals are...

The behaviour of labour productivity in the United Kingdom since the onset of the recession in early 2008 constitutes a puzzle. Over four years after the recession began labour productivity is still below its previous peak level. This paper considers the hypothesis that economic capacity can be...

This paper revisits the size of the fiscal multiplier. The experiment is a fiscal expansion under the assumption of a pegged nominal rate of interest in linearised sticky price model. We demonstrate that a quantitatively important issue is the articulation of the exit from the policy experiment....

We extend the standard textbook search and matching model by introducing deep habits in consumption. The cyclical fluctuations of vacancies and unemployment in our model can replicate those observed in the US data, with labour market tightness being 20 times more volatile than consumption....

This paper develops a DSGE model which explains variation in the nominal and real term structure along with inflation surveys and four macro variables in the UK economy. The model is estimated based on a third-order approximation to allow for time-varying term premia. We find a fall in nominal...

Labour productivity in the United Kingdom has been exceptionally weak since the 2007/08 financial crisis. This paper uses firm-level data from the Office for National Statistics Annual Business Survey and the Inter-Departmental Business Register to better understand the nature of this weakness....