Using the standard real business cycle model with lump-sum taxes, we analyze the impact of fiscal policy when agents form expectations using adaptive learning rather than rational expectations (RE). The output multipliers for government purchases are significantly higher under learning, and fall...

In this paper we use a New Keynesian model to explain why volatility transfer from high frequency to low frequency cycles can and did occur during the period commonly referred to as the "great moderation". The model suggests that an increase in inflation aversion and/or a reduction to a...

We investigate the causes of the Finnish Great Depression, 1990-1993. We find that the collapse of the overheated financial and banking sectors starting in 1989 was the trigger of the economic crisis. Foreign shocks, which include the collapse of trade with USSR in 1991, can account for at most...

This paper studies the implications of labour taxation in determining the sensitivity of an economy to macroeconomic shocks. We construct a New Keynesian business cycle model with matching frictions of the labour market, where sluggish employment adjustment implies a key role for labour markets...

Using recent advances in time-varying spectral methods, this research analyses the growth cycles of the core of the euro area in terms of frequency content and phasing of cycles. The methodology uses the con-tinuous wavelet transform (CWT) and also Hilbert wavelet pairs in the setting of a...

In this paper the relationship between the growth of real GDP components is explored in the frequency domain using both static and dynamic wavelet analysis. This analysis is carried out separately for the US and UK using quarterly data, and the results are found to be substantially different for...

While it is painfully clear that the ’ever closer’ monetary and financial union in the EU has run into serious trouble there has been very little study of the degree to which the countries have become similar or different in their economic growth dynamics. This paper therefore goes beyond...

In his celebrated 1966 Econometrica article, Granger first hypothesized that there is a ‘typical’ spectral shape for an economic variable. This ‘typical’ shape implies decreasing levels of energy as frequency increases, which in turn implies an extremely long cycle in economic...

Optimal currency area theory suggests that business cycle co-movement is a sufficient condition for monetary union, particularly if there are low levels of labour mobility between potential members of the monetary union. Previous studies of co-movement of business cycle variables found that...

The Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) was developed late last century but has still to be introduced to the vast majority of economists. The HHT transform is a way of extracting the frequency mode features of cycles embedded in any time series using an adaptive data method that can be applied...