The fall in US labor force participation during the Great Recession stands in sharp contrast with its parallel increase in the euro area. In addition to structural forces, cyclical factors are shown to account for this phenomenon, with the participation rate being procyclical in the US from the...

We use a general equilibrium model to show that a decrease in workers’ bargaining power amplifies the relative contribution to the output gap of adjustments along the extensive margin of labour utilization. This mechanism reduces the cyclical movements of marginal cost (and inflation) relative...

The flattening of the Phillips curve observed in the industrial countries has been attributed to globalisation, while the traditional explanation centres on monetary policy credibility. The empirical literature is not conclusive, since macroeconomic data are affected by substantial...

In the monetary policy literature it is commonly assumed that trend inflation is zero, despite overwhelming evidence that zero inflation is neither empirically relevant nor a practical objective for central bank policy. We therefore extend the standard New Keynesian model to allow for positive...

The aim of the paper is to estimate a reliable quarterly time-series of potential output for the Italian economy, exploiting four alternative approaches: a Bayesian unobserved component method, a univariate time-varying autoregressive model, a production function approach and a structural VAR....

This paper studies the effect of competitive pressures on inflation dynamics. To this end it derives and estimates a New Keynesian Phillips curve in a model with endogenous firm entry. The number of active firms is inversely related to their market power. By taking into account the number of...

Empirical studies show that successful disinflations entail a period of output contraction. Using a medium-scale New Keynesian model, we compare the effects of disinflations of different speed and timing, implemented through either a money supply or an interest rate rule. In terms of...

A standard model-based trend-cycle decomposition of Italian GDP yields a likelihood function that is relatively flat and has two local maxima. A Bayesian estimation of the model identifies output gap and trend components that match the features of the Italian business cycle well. In a bivariate...

Macroeconomic conditions are among the key determinants of the inflation outlook. This paper studies how business cycles affect the conditional distribution of euro-area inflation forecasts. Using a quantile regression approach, I estimate the conditional distribution of inflation to assess the...

Long-term inflation expectations in the euro area reached historically low levels at the end of 2019, suggesting a possible de-anchoring from the European Central Bank’s “below, but close to, 2 per cent” inflation aim. The decline in long-term inflation expectations exerted a downward...