In this paper we analyze the pass-through of a commodity price shock along the food price chain in the euro area. Departing from the existing literature, which focuses on food commodity prices as quoted in international markets, we use a novel database that accounts for the role of the Common...

In a recent paper, Galí, López-Salido, and Vallées (2003) examined the Federal Reserve’s response to VAR-identified technology shocks. They found that during the Martin-Burns- Miller era, the Federal Reserve responded to technology shocks by overstabilizing output, while in the...

This paper introduces a new indicator of core inflation for New Zealand, estimated using a dynamic factor model and disaggregate consumer price data. Using disaggregate consumer price data, we can directly compare the predictive performance of our core indicator with a wide range of other 'core...

We explore the macroeconomic effects of a compression in the long-term bond yield spread within the context of the Great Recession of 2007–09 via a time-varying parameter structural VAR model. We identify a “pure” spread shock defined as a shock that leaves the policy rate unchanged, which...

Monetary policy is modeled as being governed by a known rule, except for a time-varying target rate of inflation. The variable target can be thought of either as standing in for discretionary deviations from the rule or as the outcome of a policymaking committee that is unable to arrive at a...

DSGE models have now reached a point where they can and do serve an important role in the monetary policy process. From the standpoint of real-world policymaking, however, there remain important areas of omission and coarse approximation in these models. I argue that macroeconomics should follow...

The data across time and countries suggest the level and variance of inflation are highly correlated. This paper examines the effect of trend inflation on the ability of the monetary authority to ensure a determinate equilibrium and inflation stability in a sticky-price model. Trend inflation...

Standard GMM estimates of the New Phillips curve on euro-area data yield degrees of nominal rigidity that are not in accordance with recent microeconomic evidence. This paper studies whether similar conclusions are reached in a richer model where price setters face firm-specific capital and/or...

Using Bayesian likelihood methods, this paper estimates a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with Taylor contracts and firm-specific factors in the goods market on euro-area data. The paper shows how the introduction of firmspecific factors improves the empirical fit of the model and...

A comprehensive measure of financial friction is the difference between the return businesses earn from capital—plant and equipment—and the market cost of capital. The latter is the amount that investors earn from holding financial claims. I measure this friction as the difference between...