This paper is a theoretical study of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in the presence of an endogenous role of bank capital. The basic framework is a standard Dynamic New Keynesian model with price stickiness modified so as firms as well as banks face endogenous financial frictions...

This paper presents a political economy model of inflation as a result of social conflict. Agents are heterogeneous in terms of income. Agents’ income levels determine their ability to hedge against the effects of inflation. The interaction of heterogeneous cash holdings and preferences over...

In its Monthly Bulletin of November 2002, the European Central Bank (ECB) stated that the monthly press conference held by its President represents one of its most important communication channels and that it provides a comprehensive summary of the policy relevant assessment of economic...

This paper presents new empirical evidence on the cyclical behavior of US unemployment that poses a challenge to standard search and matching models. The correlation between cyclical unemployment and the cyclical component of labor productivity switched sign at the beginning of the Great...

Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? We identify four possible reasons: (i) poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors; (ii) poor countries specialize in fewer sectors; (iii) poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks...

Shimer (2005a) claims that the Mortensen-Pissarides search model of unemployment lacks an ampiflication mechanism because it cannot generate the observed business cycle fluctuations in unemployment given labor productivity shocks of plausible magnitude. This paper argues that part of the problem...

This paper studies the variable impact of the global economic crisis on the post-communist countries of South East Europe and Turkey. The central question is whether the institutional reforms introduced in the former group of countries during the transition period have improved their ability to...

This paper models uctuations in regional disaggregates as a nonsta- tionary, dynamically evolving distribution. Doing so enables study of the dynamics of aggregate uctuations jointly with those of the rich cross-section of regional disaggregates. For the US, the leading state| regardless of...

We study the mechanics of transmission of fiscal shocks to labour markets. We characterize a set of robust implications following government consumption, investment and employment shocks in a RBC and a New- Keynesian model and use part of them to identify shocks in the data. In line with the...

Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? We identify four possible reasons: (i) poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors; (ii) poor countries specialize in fewer sectors; (iii) poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks...