The 'saving for a rainy day' hypothesis implies that households' saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...

Does a "one model fits all" approach apply to the econometric modeling of regional house price determination? To answer this question, we utilize a panel of 100 US Metropolitan Statistical Areas over the period 1980q1-2010q2. For each area we estimate a separate cointegrated VAR model, focusing...

We investigate whether there is a case for asset prices in interest rates rules within a small econometric model of the Norwegian economy, modeling the interdependence of the real economy, credit and three classes of assets prices: housing prices, equity prices and the nominal exchange rate. We...

We investigate empirically whether a central bank can promote financial stability by stabilising inflation and output, and whether additional stabilisation of asset prices and credit growth would enhance financial stability, in particular. We employ an econometric model of the Norwegian economy...

We evaluate two main views on pursuing financial stability within a flexible inflation targeting regime. It appears that potential gains from an activist or precautionary approach to promoting financial stability are highly shock dependent. We find support for the conventional view that concern...

In this paper the e ects on aggregate consumption of changes in the age distribution of the population are analysed empirically. Economic theories predict that age influences individuals’ saving and consumption behaviour. Despite this, age structure e ects are rarely controlled for in...

We characterise the behaviour of Norwegian output, the real exchange rate and real money balances over a period of almost two centuries. The empirical analysis is based on a new annual data set that has recently been compiled and covers the period 1830-2003. We apply multivariate linear and...

The time-varying natural rate of interest and output and the implied mediumterm inflation target for the US economy are estimated over the period 1983-2005. The estimation is conducted within the New-Keynesian framework using Bayesian and Kalman-filter estimation techniques. With the...

We investigate the macroeconomic consequences of .uctuations in the effectiveness of the labor-market matching process with a focus on the Great Recession. We conduct our analysis in the context of an estimated medium-scale DSGE model with sticky prices and equilibrium search unemployment that...

A large decline in the e¢ ciency of the U.S. labor market in matching unemployed workers and vacant jobs has been documented during the Great Recession. We use a simple New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions in the labor market to study the propagation of matching e¢ ciency...