We use a general equilibrium model of a monetary economy to understand the economics behind the correlation between in nation and oil futures returns. Oil is used as both, an input to the production of capital and as a consumption good. We estimate our model using maximum likelihood with the...

Sharp fluctuations in cyclical conditions observed in industrial and developing countries alike have renewed the debate on the scope and the effectiveness of stabilization policies. Traditionally it has been argued that developing countries are unable to adopt counter-cyclical monetary and...

Concentrating on the period of quantitative easing in Japan, this paper reexamines the correlation between the asymmetry of sectoral relative-price changes and the aggregate inflation rate. This correlation is widely interpreted as evidence that short-run inflation is determined by supply-side...

We use a standard quantitative business cycle model with nominal price and wage rigidities to estimate two measures of economic inefficiency in recent U.S. data: the output gap---the gap between the actual and efficient levels of output---and the labor wedge---the wedge between households'...

We analyze non-stationary time series that do not only trend together in the long run, but restore the equilibrium immediately in the period following a deviation. While this represents a common serial correlation feature, the framework is extended to codependence, allowing for delayed...

Why do some states default on their debt more often than others? We argue that sovereign default is the outcome of a political struggle among different groups of citizens. It is more likely to happen if: (i) domestic debt-holders are relatively weak; (ii) the the political costs of the financial...

This paper offers a comprehensive comparison of the structure of banking and financial markets in the euro area. Based on this, several hypotheses about the role of banks in monetary policy transmission are developed. Many of the predictions that have been proposed for the U.S. are deemed...

This paper proposes an index of core inflation for the euro area which exploits information from a large panel of time series on disaggregated prices, industrial production, labor market indicators, financial and monetary variables. The index is the result of a smoothing operation at both the...

The dramatic increase in securitisation activity has modified the functioning of credit markets by reducing the fundamental role of liquidity transformation performed by financial intermediaries. We claim that the changing role of banks from �originate and hold� to �originate,...

This paper examines the velocity and asymmetry in the response of bank interest rates to monetary policy shocks. Using an Asymmetric Vector Error Correction Model (AVECM), it analyses the pass-through of changes in the money market rates to retail bank interest rates in Italy in the period...