This paper aims to evaluate if frictions in credit markets are important for business cycles in the U.S. and the Euro area. For this purpose, I modify the DSGE financial accelerator model developed by Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999) by adding frictions such as price indexation to past...

This paper formulates a dynamic Random Coefficient Model (RCM) to consider a set of popular determinants of public deficits in the EU-15 over the period 1971-2006, both at a country-specific level and from a population-wide perspective. Although the extent of government deficits and debt has...

In this paper we review the methodology of forecasting with log-linearised DSGE models using Bayesian methods. We focus on the estimation of their predictive distributions, with special attention being paid to the mean and the covariance matrix of h-step ahead forecasts. In the empirical...

We compare real-time density forecasts for the euro area using three DSGE models. The benchmark is the Smets-Wouters model and its forecasts of real GDP growth and inflation are compared with those from two extensions. The first adds financial frictions and expands the observables to include a...

This paper traces the euro zone's inadequate macroeconomic performance in recent years back to the predominance of a restrictive macroeconomic policy mix based on a 'new monetarist' approach to economic policy. An approach based on a (post-)Keynesian analysis is presented as a growth and...

Macroeconomic adjustment in the euro area periphery was more recessionary than pre-crisis imbalances would have warranted. To make this claim, this paper uses a Propensity Score Matching Model to produce counterfactuals for the Eurozone crisis countries (Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus, Spain)...

The current Covid-19 Crisis 2020 has hit the Eurozone in a highly fragile situation, with a weak and asymmetric recovery from the Great Financial Crisis, the Great Recession and the following Eurozone Crisis. These crises have also revealed the weaknesses of the macroeconomic policy institutions...

The European Union has reached a critical juncture in dealing with the fallout from the 2008 financial meltdown that started in the USA and spread to engulf banks and the financial markets of Europe. The ensuing recession or stagnation in many member countries was compounded by austerity...

The New View on fiscal policy (as coined by Furman 2016) represents a rethinking of the main-stream consensus on the optimal macroeconomic policy mix. It focuses on a reassessment of the relative effectiveness of fiscal policy and its ability to stabilise the economy when monetary policy reaches...

Empirically, the macroeconomic institutions and the macroeconomic policy approach in the Eurozone have failed badly, both in terms of preventing the global financial and economic cri-sis from becoming a euro crisis and in generating a rapid recovery from the crisis, in particular. In this paper...