The article examines recent developments in international housing markets and makes an assessment of the current situation. The first section demonstrates that the last upward movement in house prices in advanced economies, that started during the mid-1990s, differed from previous upward phases...

The first part of this article outlines the monetary policy transmission process. It pinpoints some special features of the Belgian economy, such as its high degree of openness, especially in relation to euro area partners, the high level of household financial assets, relatively weak dependence...

Ce document donne un apercu de debat actuel sur la prise en compte des prix des actifs par la politique monetaire, se concentrant sur l'evolution des cours des actions aux Etats-Unis. Il passe d'abord en revue les principales causes et consequences de cette evolution, puis resume les arguments...

The present article deals with the issue of optimal degree of exchange rate flexibility. It departs from the current literature on the subject as it does not introduce nominal rigidities nor address the question of international monetary cooperation. Instead, the argument hinges on the economic...

It is now well known that in models with imperfect competition the choice of the normalization rule may have real effects. The scope and the reason of this result are investigated. I first show that a clear distinction must be made between imperfect competition based on quantity versus nominal...

This paper examplifies in a simple general equilibrium model the important role played by the monetary policy when there are strategic interactions bearing on nominal variables. It shows that the common notion of money neutrality is misleading in this context. Indeed, linear homogeneity in the...

The aim of the present article is to highlight the importance role played by the incentive constraints flowing from the presence of asymmetric agents in the wage centralization context. I propose an asymmetric model that includes the model of Calmfors and Driffill (1988) and the two country...

This working paper gives an overview of the current debate on monetary policy reactions to asset prices, focusing on the developments on equity markets in the United States. It first describes the main causes and consequences of these developments and then surveys the pros and cons of a monetary...