A stable net external position requires that the trade balance responds negatively to changes in the net external position. If financial integration makes financing external imbalances less costly, we expect slower external adjustment in more integrated economies. The study estimates...

In this paper we examine the sustainability of euro area public finances against the backdrop of population ageing. We critically assess the widely used projections of the Working Group on Ageing Populations (AWG) of the EU's Economic Policy Committee and argue that ageing costs may be higher...

This study presents a GDP per capita level and growth comparison across 17 main advanced countries and over the 1890-2013 long period. It proposes also a comparison of the level and growth of the main components of GDP per capita through an accounting breakdown and runs Philips-Sul (2007)...

Governments and central banks need to have an accurate and timely assessment of Gross Domestic Product's (GDP) growth rate for the current quarter, as this is essential for providing a reliable and early analysis of the current economic situation. This paper presents a series of models conceived...

This paper presents a revised version of the model OPTIM, proposed by Irac and Sédillot (2002), used at the Banque de France in order to predict French GDP quarterly growth rate, for the current and next quarters. The model is designed to be used on a monthly basis by integrating monthly...

In this paper we focus on cycles and trends of some macroeconomic and housing market variables representative of the French economy. In a first part, we empirically show that cycles in the housing sector, measured by housing prices, housing starts, building permits, sales or residential...

The quantitative and dynamic consequence of a social VAT reform, i.e. a fiscal reform consisting in substituting VAT for social contributions, is assessed using two general equilibrium models. The first one is a Walrasian model with no other frictions than distortionary taxation of labor and...

The purpose of this paper is to cast a new light on the present state of global current account imbalances. As a first step, we compute the world distribution of current account balances, in order to highlight its historically-unprecedented pattern, both in terms of the size of imbalances, its...

This paper shows how interbank market fragmentation disrupts monetary policy implementation. Fragmentation is defined as the situation where some banks are cut from the interbank loan market. The paper incorporates fragmentation in an otherwise standard theoretical model of monetary policy...

This paper investigates the sources of current account imbalances accumulated within the European Monetary Union before the Great Recession. First, it documents that starting in 1996, before the actual introduction of the euro, countries in the euro area periphery experienced increasing current...