We propose an exchange rate model that can explain both the observed volatility and the persistence of real and nominal exchange rate movements and thus in some measure resolves Rogoff’s (1996) purchasing power parity puzzle. Our analysis reconciles the well-known difficulties in beating the...

Tests of the null hypothesis of stationarity against the unit root alternative play an increasingly important role in empirical work in macroeconomics and in international finance. We show that the use of conventional asymptotic critical values for stationarity tests may cause extreme size...

The half-life of deviations from purchasing power parity (PPP) plays a central role in the ongoing debate about the ability of macroeconomic models to account for the time series behaviour of the real exchange rate. The main contribution of this paper is a general framework in which alternative...

U.S. retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in U.S. biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by U.S. farmers...

Shocks to the real price of oil may reflect oil supply shocks, shocks to the global demand for all industrial commodities, or demand shocks that are specific to the crude oil market. Each shock has different effects on the real price of oil and on US macroeconomic aggregates. Changes in the...

One of the central questions in recent macroeconomic history is to what extent monetary policy as opposed to oil price shocks contributed to the stagflation of the 1970s. Understanding what went wrong in the 1970s is the key to learning from the past. One explanation explored in Barsky and...

U.S. retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in U.S. biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by U.S. farmers...

Since Bernanke, Gertler and Watson (1997), a common view in the literature has been that systematic monetary policy responses to the inflation triggered by oil price shocks are an important source of aggregate fluctuations in the U.S. economy. We show that there is no evidence of systematic...