Formation of the Euro area raises new questions about the coordination of monetary and fiscal policy. Using a New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS) model, we show that a common monetary policy, responding to area-wide aggregates, has asymmetric effects on countries within the union, depending on...

This paper disaggregates total household income into a complete set of components and studies the comparative cyclicality of these components to economic growth. Comparisons of the relative responsiveness to GNP growth of wages, hours of work, and total labor market income of heads and wives,...

Monetary policies in the U.S., Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom over the period 1973-1986 are compared and evaluated, with the aim of drawing lessons for monetary policy from the recent historical record. All four countries shifted during this period to money targeting, though with...

This paper shows that the EMU has not affected historical characteristics of member countries' business cycles and their cross-correlations. Member countries which had similar levels of GDP per-capita in the seventies have also experienced similar business cycles since then and no significant...

Monetary policy regimes encompass the constraints or limits imposed by custom, institutions and nature on the ability of the monetary authorities to influence the evolution of macroeconomic aggregates. This paper surveys the historical experience of both international and domestic (national)...

This paper documents some previously neglected features of sectoral shares at business cycle frequencies in OECD economies. In particular, we find that the nontraded sector share of output is as volatile as aggregate GDP, and that for most countries, the nontraded sector is distinctly...

We derive closed-form solutions and sufficient statistics for inflation and GDP dynamics in multi-sector New Keynesian economies with arbitrary input-output linkages. Analytically, we decompose how production linkages (1) amplify the persistence of inflation and GDP responses to monetary and...

In this paper we build on our earlier work on underemployment using data from the UK. In particular, we explore their well-being based on hours preferences rather than on involuntary part-time work used in the prior literature. We make use of five main measures of well-being: happiness; life...