The role that the price of oil plays in economic analysis in central banks as well as in financial markets has evolved over time. Oil is not seen anymore just as a input to production but also as a barometer of global economic activity as well as a financial asset. A high frequency structural...

We analyze the evolution and drivers of inflation during the pandemic and the likely trajectory of inflation in the near-term using an event study of inflation around global recessions and a factor-augmented vector auto-regression (FAVAR) model. We report three main results. First, the decline...

This paper examines the global drivers of inflation in 55 countries over the 1970-2022 period. We estimate a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression model for each country and assess the importance of several global (demand, supply, and oil price) and domestic shocks. We report three main...

This paper examines the drivers of fluctuations in global inflation, defined as a common factor across monthly headline consumer price index (CPI) inflation in G7 countries, over the past half-century. We estimate a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression model where a wide range of shocks,...

Should the central bank seek to identify the underlying causes of oil price hikes in determining appropriate policy responses to them? Most likely not. Within a calibrated new-Keynesian model of Oil-Importing and Oil-Producing Countries, I derive the Ramsey policy and analyze optimal monetary...

This paper investigates the global macroeconomic consequences of country-specific oil-supply shocks. Our contribution is both theoretical and empirical. On the theoretical side, we develop a model for the global oil market and integrate this within a compact quarterly model of the global economy...

We explore the effect of oil import price shocks on political outcomes using a worldwide dataset on elections of chief executives. Oil import price shocks cause a reduction in the odds of reelection of incumbents, an increase in media chatter about fuel prices, and an increase in non-violent...

Traditional approaches to structural vector autoregressions can be viewed as special cases of Bayesian inference arising from very strong prior beliefs. These methods can be generalized with a less restrictive formulation that incorporates uncertainty about the identifying assumptions...

Commodity price fluctuations in recent years have led to wide swings in inflationary pressures across Asian emerging market economies and have revived the discussion on how monetary policy should best react. We argue that the conventional wisdom for emerging market economies of treating...