While consumption habits have been utilised as a means of generating a hump shapedoutput response to monetary policy shocks in sticky-price New Keynesian economies,there is relatively little analysis of the impact of habits (particularly, external habits) onoptimal policy. In this paper we...

We calibrate an incomplete markets large scale OLG model to the US income and wealth distribution and examine the effects of alternative government debt levels and adjustment policies on macroeconomic aggregates and welfare. We find that the government should hold negative debt. Due to the high...

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment inEuropean firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collectedthrough a firm-level survey conducted in a broad range of countries and covering varioussectors. Several conclusions are drawn...

This paper assesses the degree of wage flexibility in Luxembourg using anadministrative data set on individual base wages covering the entire economy over theperiod 2001-2006 with monthly frequency. We find that the wage flexibility at thediscretion of the firm is rather low once we limit...

This paper incorporates search and matching frictions in the labor market into a New Keynesian model. In contrast to the literature, the labor market activity takes place in the (Calvo-staggered) price-setting sector. Matching frictions lead price-setting firms to negotiate wage rates with their...

I describe insights into wage dynamics and downward wage rigidity obtained from more than two hundred interviews with businesspeople, labor leaders, and various labor market intermediaries and made in the early 1990s in the Northeast of the United States. I explain the morale explanation for...