The house price-to-income ratio (PIR) is widely used as an affordability indicator. This paper complements the cross-sectionally focused literature by proposing a tractable model for the PIR dynamics. Our model predicts that the PIR is very persistent and is correlated to the lagged aggregate...

In most European countries, money wages are given in collective agreements or individual employment contracts, and the employer cannot unilaterally cut wages, even after the expiration of a collective agreement. Ceteris paribus, workers have a stronger bargaining position when they try to...

This paper takes a first step in analysing how a monetary union performs in the presence of labour market asymmetries. Differences in wage flexibility, market power and country sizes are allowed for in a setting with both country-specific and aggregate shocks. The implications of asymmetries for...