Low interest rates in the United States have recently been accompanied by large fiscal stimulus. However, discussions of monetary policy have neglected this fiscal activism, leading to overestimates of the costs of the zero lower bound and, hence, of the appropriate inflation target. To rectify...

Global monetary conditions are often cited as a driver of commodity prices. This paper investigates the empirical relationship between U.S. monetary policy and commodity prices by means of a standard VAR system, commonly used in analyzing the effects of monetary policy shocks. The results...

We identify a crucial difference between the backwardlooking and forward-looking Phillips curve concerning the real output effects of monetary policy shocks. The backwardlooking Phillips curve predicts a strict intertemporal trade-off in the case of monetary shocks: a positive short-run response...

We estimate the real exchange rate impact of shocks to government spending for a panel of member countries of the euro area. Our key finding is that the impact differs across different types of government spending, with shocks to public investment generating larger and more persistent real...

This paper explores how discretionary fiscal policies on the revenue side of the government budget have reacted to economic fluctuations in European Union countries. For this purpose, it uses data on legislated revenue changes and structural indicators provided twice per year by national central...

This article focuses on macroeconomic impacts and welfare effects of a fiscal consolidation process in a small euro-area economy. Fiscal consolidation is defined as a permanent decline in the ratio of public debt to GDP. The analysis is based on PESSOA, a New Keynesian general equilibrium model...

This paper uses an estimated DSGE model to analyze the factors behind the buildup of imbalances in the Spanish economy. Shock decompositions suggest that external imbalances have been able to build up mainly due to the reduction in real interest rates and easier access to credit following the...

Recent evaluations of the fiscal stimulus packages enacted in 2009 in the United States and Europe such as Cogan et al. (2009) and Cwik and Wieland (2009) suggest that the GDP effects will be modest due to crowding out of private consumption and investment. Corsetti, Meier, and Müller (2009,...

This paper considers some of the main risks and opportunities currently facing the world economy. Against a baseline forecast of October 2009, it first discusses a number of policy mistakes or policy failures that could lead to even worse outcomes than currently envisaged. It then describes the...

The global recession of 2008–09 has revived interest in the international repercussions of domestic policy choices. This paper focuses on the case of fiscal stimulus, investigating cross-border spillovers from an increase in exhaustive government spending on the basis of a two-country...