This study extends a thick modelling tool for aggregated euro area real private consumption of de Bondt et al. (2019) to the four largest euro area countries. The suite of error correction models performs well in and out of sample. The ranges and averages of estimated elasticities are, however,...

This paper investigates how the monetary policy transmission channels change once the economy is in a low interest rate environment. We estimate a nonlinear model for the euro area and its five largest countries over the period 1999q2-2019q1 and allow for the effects of monetary policy shocks to...

In this paper I develop a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model which features three different types of representative agents (THRANK): the poor hand-to- mouth, the wealthy hand-to-mouth and the non-hand-to mouth households. Compared to a full-scale HANK model, this model is...

This paper employs an aggregate representation of an overlapping generation (OLG) model quantifying a decrease of the natural real interest rate in the range of -1.7 and -0.4 percentage points in the euro area between 1990 and 2030 due to demographics alone. Two channels contribute to this...

Households face earnings risk which is non-normal and varies by age and over the income distribution. We show that allowing for these rich features of earnings dynamics, in the context of a structurally estimated life-cycle portfolio choice model, helps to rationalize the limited participation...

This paper derives forecasts for euro area real GDP growth based on a bottom up approach from the production side. That is, GDP is forecast via the forecasts of value added across the different branches of activity, which is quite new in the literature. Linear regression models in the form of...

Distributional accounts for households enable measurement, study developments and identify drivers of inequality. Distributional information on households' wealth is available from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey only for three points in time (2009 - 2018), while aggregates are...

We show that financial variables contribute to the forecast of GDP growth during the Great Recession, providing additional insights on both first and higher moments of the GDP growth distribution. If a recession is due to an unforeseen shock (such as the Covid-19 recession), financial variables...

We propose an empirical framework to measure the degree of weakness of the global economy in real-time. It relies on nonlinear factor models designed to infer recessionary episodes of heterogeneous deepness, and fitted to the largest advanced economies (U.S., Euro Area, Japan, U.K., Canada and...

In this paper, we consider whether differences in the forecast performance of ECB SPF respondents reflect ability or chance. Although differences in performance metrics sometimes appear substantial, it is challenging to determine whether they reflect ex ante skill or other factors impacting ex...