What is the main limitation of much modern macro-economic theory, among the failings pointed out by William R. White at the 2010 Mayekawa Lecture? We argue that the main deficiency is a failure to incorporate the possibility of default, including that of banks, into the core of the analysis....

We develop a generalised impulse response function (GIRF) approach to explore the different impacts of aggregate and sectoral shocks within a VAR-GARCH-M model. Using the outout of our GIRF analysis, we explore the behaviour of three European countries(Gremany, Spain and the UK). We analyse the...

Macroeconomics, or the science of fluctuations in aggregate activity, has always been portrayed as a field composed of competing schools of thought and in a somewhat recurrent state of disarray. Nowadays, macroeconomists are proud to announce that a new synthesis characterizes their field: no...

This paper presents the results of a survey among Dutch firms on price setting behaviour in the Netherlands. It aims to identify how sticky prices are, which prices are sticky and why they are sticky. It is part of the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network (IPN). The most distinctive feature...

This study investigates the pricing behaviour of firms in the euro area on the basis of surveys conducted by nine Eurosystem national central banks, covering more than 11,000 firms. The results, robust across countries, show that firms operate in monopolistically competitive markets, where...

I find that the Eurosystem can stimulate the economy beyond the policy rate by increasing the size of its balance sheet or the monetary base, that is so-called quantitative easing. The transmission mechanism turns out to be different compared to traditional interest rate innovations: (i) whilst...

We characterize the dynamics of relative house prices, housing sales, construction rates and population growth in response to city-specific income shocks for 106 US cities. We then develop a dynamic search model of the housing market in which construction, the entry of buyers, house prices and...

While national and international statistical agencies spend much resource on calculating purchasing power parity (PPP) between countries, relatively little attention is given to PPP calculations within countries. Yet, for large and heterogeneous countries, such as the US and India, intra country...

The aim of this paper is to present and evaluate the theory and principles of economic policy applied before the 2008-2009 crisis1. Against this backdrop we will attempt to describe the evolution of targets and tools of economic policy in view of the experiences of recent years and the...

Presented is an evolutionary model of consumer non-durable markets, which is an extension of a previously published paper on consumer durables. The model suggests that the repurchase process is governed by preferential growth. Applying statistical methods it can be shown that in a competitive...