This paper documents a new "stylized fact" regarding commodity prices using alternative datasets covering the period from 1880 to 1996: The volatility of real commodity prices, defined as nominal commodity prices deflated by the manufacturing unit value index, is higher under flexible-exchange...

We build a two country asymmetric DSGE model with two features: (i) endogenous and slow diffusion of technologies from the developed to the developing country, and (ii) adjustment costs to investment flows. We calibrate the model to match the Mexico-U.S. trade and FDI flows. The model is able to...

This paper studies dynamics of endogenous business cycles and exchange rate volatility in a small open economy. Without market imperfections, domestic price and wage adjustments respond sluggishly to disequilibrium situations on real domestic markets while prices on international capital markets...

With positive trend inflation, the Taylor principle is not enough to guarantee a determinate equilibrium. We provide new theoretical results on restoring determinacy in New Keynesian models with positive trend inflation and combine these with new empirical findings on the Federal Reserve’s...

We reexamine the effect of the U.S./Canadian border on integration of markets. The paper updates work from our earlier paper, Engel and Rogers (1996). We consider alternative measures of deviations from the law of one price. We pay special attention to the effect of the U.S.-Canada free trade...

Why is inflation so much lower and at the same time more stable in developed economies in the 1990s, compared with the 1970s? This paper suggests that the United Kingdom, United States and other countries may have escaped from a volatile inflation equilibrium. Our argument builds on the story...

Economic instability in emerging countries has often been attributed to countercyclical fiscal policy. The problem is further exacerbated by income volatility caused by international commodity price fluctuations, while directional hedging, as a favourite policy response, has been both costly and...

This paper studies a novel approach for managing macroeconomic volatility in commodity exporting countries. As part of this study, we develop a sovereign risk management model in the context of an Asset-Liability Management (ALM) framework. Our first contribution is an extension of the...

What is the role of macroeconomic fluctuations and of oil supply shocks for oil prices, volatilities, and risk premia? I analyze this question within a general equilibrium asset pricing framework with an oil sector. The benchmark calibration shows that short-run macroeconomic growth shocks and...