This paper asks why the NAIRU rose in most OECD countries in the 1980s. I find that a central cause was the tight monetary policy used to reduce inflation. The evidence comes from a cross-country comparison: countries with larger decreases in inflation and longer disinflationary periods have...

This paper investigates the determinants of the "sacrifice ratio" for disinflation: the ratio of the loss in output to the fall in trend inflation. I develop a method for estimating the sacrifice ratio in individual disinflation episodes, and apply it to 65 episodes in moderate-inflation OECD...

This paper examines the distributional effects of fiscal austerity. Using episodes of fiscal consolidation measures for a sample of 17 OECD countries over the period 1978-2009, we find that fiscal consolidation episodes have typically led to a significant and long-lasting increase in inequality....