We argue that in an economy with downward nominal wage rigidity, the output gap is negative on average. Because it is more difficult to cut wages than to increase them, firms reduce employment more during downturns than they increase employment during expansions. This is demonstrated in a simple...

We study the properties of the IMF-WEO estimates of real-time output gaps for countries in the euro area as well as the determinants of their revisions over 1994-2017. The analysis shows that staff typically saw economies as operating below their potential. In real time, output gaps tend to have...

We explore the long-term impact of economic booms on labor market outcomes using a novel approach based on revisions to professional forecasts over the past 30 years for 34 advanced economies. We find that when employment rises unexpectedly, forecasters typically raise their long-term forecasts...

This paper employs several econometric techniques to estimate the Armenian output gap. The findings indicate that the output gap is significantly positive in 2007 and 2008 and decreased dramatically in 2009. The paper uses these results to estimate a New Keynesian Phillips curve for Armenia,...

This paper uses the Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal Model (GIMF), a New Keynesian open-economy general equilibrium model suitable for an integrated evaluation of monetary and fiscal policies, to analyze monetary policy challenges facing the Czech Republic. In the context of the recent...

Real wages are a key determinant of marginal costs. The latter themselves are a driving force of inflation. We ask how wages and labor market shocks feed into the inflation process. We model search and matching frictions in the labour market in an otherwise standard New-Keynesian closed economy...

Having the high unemployment in Germany in mind, this book discusses how macroeconomic theory has evolved over the past forty years. It shows that in recent years a convergence has taken place, with modern models embodying a Keynesian transmission mechanism, monetarist policy implication, and...

Exploiting results from the literature on non-parametric identification, we make three methodological contributions to the empirical literature estimating the matching function, commonly used to map unemployment and vacancies into hires. First, we show how to non-parametrically identify the...

Labor market theories allowing for search frictions make marked predictions on the effect of the degree of frictions on wages. Often, the effect is predicted to be negative. Despite the popularity of these theories, this has never been tested. We perform tests with matched worker-firm data. The...