Macroeconomists have traditionally ignored the behavior of temporary price markdowns ("sales") by retailers. Although sales are common in the micro price data, they are assumed to be unrelated to macroeconomic phenomena and generally filtered out. We challenge this view. First, using the 1996 -...

Consumers often purchase more than one differentiated product, assembling a portfolio, which might potentially affect substitution patterns of demand and, as a consequence, oligopolistic firms' pricing strategies. This paper studies such consumers' portfolio considerations by developing a...

This paper takes stock of the ECB's macroeconometric modelling strategy by focusing on the models and applications used in the Forecasting and Policy Modelling Division. We focus on the guiding principles underpinning the current portfolio of the main macroeconomic models and illustrate how they...

We examine the relative ability of simple inflation targeting (IT) and price level targeting (PLT) monetary policy rules to minimize both inflation variability and business cycle fluctuations in Canada for shocks that have important consequences for global commodity prices. We find that...

I study the welfare and price implications of consumer privacy. A consumer discloses information to a multi-product seller, which learns about the consumer's preferences, sets prices, and makes product recommendations. While the consumer benefits from accurate product recommendations, the seller...

The Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) countries share a common currency, the EC dollar, which has been pegged to the U.S. dollar at the same rate for more than three decades. This paper examines the influence of the peg on ECCU price stability, and analyzes whether absolute Purchasing...

This paper estimates an open-economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with Bayesian techniques to analyse the macroeconomic effects of the European Central Bank's (ECB’s) quantitative easing (QE) programme. Using data on government debt stocks and yields across maturities, we...

Financial stability risks have become topical in the wake of the global financial crisis and the subsequent extended period of very low interest rates. This paper investigates the significance of the mix of monetary and fiscal policies for financial stability through counterfactual simulations...

One view in the literature is that the East Asian economic model is superior to other models in the Global South (i.e. in the developing world), at least in terms of catch-up development and possibly even in innovations beyond the technological frontier. Unlike economic models in Latin America...