We model a reinsurance mechanism for the national unemployment insurance programs of euro area member states. The risk-sharing scheme we analyze is designed to smooth country-level unemployment risk and expenditures around each country's median level, so that participation and contributions...

This paper formulates a back of the envelope approach to study the effects of monetary policy on household consumption expenditures. We analyze several transmission mechanisms operating through direct, partial equilibrium channels--intertemporal substitution and net interest rate exposure--and...

The possibility that the euro area might break up was being raised even before the single currency existed. These scenarios were then lent new life five or six years on, when appreciation of the euro and problems of slow growth in various member states led politicians to blame the European...

We evaluate the effects of three ECB policies (the Securities Markets Programme, the Outright Monetary Transactions, and the Long-Term Refinancing Operations) on government bond yields. We use a novel Kalman-filter augmented event-study approach and yields on euro-denominated sovereign bonds,...

We show that a fiscal expansion by the core economies of the euro area would have a large and positive impact on periphery GDP assuming that policy rates remain low for a prolonged period. Under our preferred model specification, an expansion of core government spending equal to one percent of...

The European Central Bank is unique in setting monetary policy for several sovereign states with heterogeneous debt levels and different maturity structures. The monetary-fiscal nexus is central to the functioning of the euro area. We focus on one particular aspect of that nexus, the effect the...

This paper studies the economic impacts of carbon pricing. Exploiting institutional features of the European carbon market and high-frequency data, I document that a tighter carbon pricing regime leads to higher energy prices, lower emissions and more green innovation. This comes at the cost of...

This paper investigates the impact of carbon pricing on the economy, with a focus on European carbon taxes and the carbon market. Our analysis reveals three key findings. First, while both policies have successfully reduced emissions, the economic costs of the European carbon market are larger...

An impulse response is the dynamic average effect of an intervention across horizons. We use the well-known Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to explore a response's heterogeneity over time and over states of the economy. This can be implemented with a simple extension to the usual local...

Fiscal support measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic varied in their targeted beneficiaries. Relying on variability across 10 large economies, we study differences in the inflationary effects of fiscal support measures targeting consumers or businesses. Because conventional measures of...