This paper shows that the explanation of the decline in the volatility of GDP growth since the mid-eighties is not the decline in the volatility of exogenous shocks but rather a change in their propagation mechanism.

Recently developed structural models of the global crude oil market imply that the surge in the real price of oil between mid-2003 and mid-2008 was driven by repeated positive shocks to the demand for all industrial commodities, reflecting unexpectedly high growth mainly in emerging Asia. This...

This Paper develops a framework for the analysis of the effects of institutions on economic performance in a monetary union in the presence of stabilization policy, unionized labour markets and monopolistically competitive price setting firms. Nominal wages are fixed contractually. In spite of...

This paper uses long-run restrictions on a three-variable system containing output growth, real wage growth and the differenced unemployment rate, to isolate three 'structural' shocks which drove business cycle fluctuations in Spain during 1970-94. These shocks are interpreted as aggregate...