In this paper we contribute to the literature on the identification of macroeconomic shocks by proposing a Bayesian SVAR with timevarying volatility of innovations that depend on a hidden Markov process, referred to as an MS-SVAR. With sufficient statistical information in the data, the distinct...

This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic volatility on growth in a panel of 121 countries over the period 1980 to 2010. We confirm the Ramey and Ramey (1995) result that macroeconomic volatility is negatively related to economic growth using a different empirical methodology and a...

This paper presents an estimated open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for Estonia. The model is designed to highlight the main driving forces behind the Estonian business cycle and to understand how euro area economic shocks and its monetary policy affect the small open...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the inflation process in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania within the framework of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) model of Galí and Gertler (1999) and Galí et al. (2001). An open economy extension by Leith and Malley (2003) and a NKPC model...

This paper ascertains the determinants of household saving in Estonia based on a microeconometric analysis of household budget surveys from 2002 to 2005. Higher income leads to more saving, but the effect is largest for unanticipated income shocks. Ownership of real estate does not affect...

The Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) entails that consumption reacts more strongly to persistent than to temporary income shocks. This prediction is tested using data from the Estonian Household Budget Surveys for 2002-2007. The dataset contains questions which make it possible to distinguish...

In this paper we aim to analyse the level of sustainability of external debt and, more importantly, how it has changed for a number of European economies. Given the severity of the crisis since 2008, we argue that the path of external debt burdens may have changed since the start of the crisis,...

The paper investigates the interdependence of household financial liabilities and assets, with special focus on the impact of liabilities on households’ holdings of financial assets. The paper uses the new ECB Household Finance and Consumption Survey from 2009–2010 covering euro area...

Estonia changed over from the kroon to the euro in January 2011. This paper analyses the inflationary effect of this event. The analysis is based on the Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices. The difference-in-differences method is employed where the treated group is Estonia and the control...

This paper studies euro changeover-related inflation using disaggregated price level data. The difference-in-differences approach is used and the control group for the treatment country, Estonia, is built from 12 euro area countries. The Nielsen Company disaggregated price data are employed at...