This paper evaluates the welfare cost of business cycles and the effects of monetary policies in a DSGE model tailored to a small open emerging economy. The model generates rich business cycle fluctuations, features labor market idiosyncratic risks and accounts for imperfect financial and...

This paper uses scanner data from a large euro area retailer. We extend Deaton and Muellbauer's Almost Ideal Demand System to estimate the price elasticity and curvature of demand for a wide range of products. Our results support the introduction of a kinked (concave) demand curve in general...

How do the complex institutions involved in wage setting affect wage changes? The International Wage Flexibility Project provides new microeconomic evidence on how wages change for continuing workers. We analyze individuals’ earnings in 31 different data sets from sixteen countries, from which...

This paper estimates a DSGE model with many types of shocks and frictions for both the US and the euro area economy over a common sample period (1974-2002). The structural estimation methodology allows us to investigate whether differences in business cycle behaviour are due to differences in...

In this paper the vision of the "Young" and "Elder" Lamfalussy on the origins of instability in capitalist economies will be contrasted. The young Lamfalussy found the origins of instability in medium-term cumulative processes in the real sector of the economy, very much inspired by the vicious...

We analyze the similarities and the differences in the fragility of the European Monetary System (EMS) and the Eurozone. We test the hypothesis that in the EMS the fragility arose from the absence of a credible lender of last resort in the foreign exchange markets while in the Eurozone it was...

In this paper I outline - from a practitioner's as well as from a researcher's perspective - several of the key developments that took place during the last century in monetary policy. In particular, I describe how the monetary system evolved from gold standard, prevailing throughout most of the...

Using a Bayesian likelihood approach, we estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the US economy using seven macro-economic time series. The model incorporates many types of real and nominal frictions and seven types of structural shocks. We show that this model is able to...

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with sticky prices and wages for the euro area. The model incorporates various other features such as habit formation, costs of adjustment in capital accumulation and variable capacity utilisation. It is...

In monetary policy strategies geared towards maintaining price stability conditional and unconditional forecasts of inflation and output play an important role. In this paper we illustrate how modern sticky-price dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models, estimated using Bayesian...