How effective make-up strategies are depends heavily on how forward-looking agents are. Workhorse monetary models, which are much forward-looking, find them so effective that they run into the so-called 'forward-guidance puzzle'. Models that discount the future further find them much less...

This paper introduces a Regime-Switching Model-Based Sustainability test allowing for periodic (or local) violations of Bohn (1998, QJE)'s sustainability condition. We assume a Markov-switching fiscal policy rule whose parameters stochastically switch between sustainable and unsustainable...

The dynamic IS curve of New-Keynesian models captures the dependence of aggregate demand on future interest rates, but only in the case where there is no investment and the interest rate channel only originates in the savings decisions of households. The paper derives the dynamic IS curve...

In this paper we examine the sustainability of euro area public finances against the backdrop of population ageing. We critically assess the widely used projections of the Working Group on Ageing Populations (AWG) of the EU's Economic Policy Committee and argue that ageing costs may be higher...

The aim of this paper is to complement the MDE-SVAR approach when the weighting matrix is not optimal. In empirical studies, this choice is motivated by stochastic singularity or collinearity problems associated with the covariance matrix of Impulse Response Functions. Consequently, the...

Euro area countries as a whole have experienced a marked downward trend over the 1980s. Over this period, the unemployment rate has increased and economic activity has been sluggish. Changes in the implicit inflation target, viewed as low frequency movements of inflation, might possibly explain...

The present paper investigates the dynamic effects of disinflation shocks for a number of real macroeconomic variables in the euro area. Using structural VARs, we identify disinflation shocks as the only shocks that can exert a long-run effect on inflation as well as other nominal variables...

In response to the 2008-2009 crisis, faced with distressed financial intermediaries, the ECB embarked in long-term refinancing operations (LTROs). Using an estimated DSGE model with a frictional banking sector, we find that such liquidity injections can have large macroeconomic effects, with...

A number of central banks in advanced countries use ranges, or bands, around their inflationtarget to formulate their monetary policy strategy. The adoption of such ranges has beenproposed by some policymakers in the context of the Fed and the ECB reviews of theirstrategies. Using a standard New...

We address this question using an estimated New Keynesian DSGE model of the Euro Areawith trend inflation, imperfect indexation, and a lower bound on the nominal interest rate. Inthis setup, a decrease in the steady-state real interest rate, r*, increases the probability ofhitting the lower...