The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether fiscal policies can alleviate the effects of the zero lower bound (ZLB) on interest rates and if they should be coordinated internationally. The analysis is carried out using EAGLE, a DSGE model of the global economy. We consider that the fiscal...

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether fiscal policies can alleviate the effects of the zero lower bound (ZLB) on interest rates and if they should be coordinated internationally. The analysis is carried out using EAGLE, a DSGE model of the global economy. We consider that the fiscal...

We evaluate the effects of permanently reducing labour tax rates in the euro area (EA) by simulating a large-scale open economy dynamic general equilibrium model. The model features the EA as a monetary union, split in two regions (Home and the rest of the EA - REA), the US, and the rest of the...

We evaluate the ECB's monetary policy strategy against the underlying economic structure of the euro area economy, in normal times and in times of severe financial dislocations. We show that in the years preceding the financial crisis that started in 2007 the strategy was successful at ensuring...

This paper studies the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in promoting central bank independence (CBI). While anecdotal evidence suggests that the IMF has been playing a vital role for CBI, the underlying mechanisms of this influence are not well understood. We argue that the IMF has...

The curse of dimensionality, a problem associated with analyzing the interaction of a relatively large number of endogenous macroeconomic variables, is a prevailing issue in the open economy macro literature. The most common practise to mitigate this problem is to apply the so-called Small Open...

What are the drivers of business cycle fluctuations? And how many are there? By documenting strong and predictable co-movement of real variables during the business cycle in a sample of advanced economies, we argue that most business cycle fluctuations are driven by one major factor. The...

We propose a model for analyzing euro area trade based on the interaction between macroeconomic and trade variables. First, we show that macroeconomic variables are necessary to generate accurate short-term trade forecasts; this result can be explained by the high correlation between trade and...