Most analyses of the U.S. Great Moderation have been based on structural VAR methods, and have consistently pointed towards good luck as the main explanation for the greater macroeconomic stability of recent years. Based on an estimated New-Keynesian model in which the only source of change is...

To what extent does the availability of credit depend on monetary policy? And, does this relationship vary with bank characteristics? Based on a common source of balance sheet data for the four largest economies of the euro area over the period 1999-2011, we uncover three main regularities....

This paper presents a survey of the so-called 'New Economic Geography' (NEG) approach to International Trade, giving particular emphasis to the impact of labour mobility on the spatial distribution of economic activities across integrated countries. The liberalisation of international trade...

Monetary policy in the US is characterized by a substantial degree of inertia. While in principle this may well be the outcome of an optimizing central bank behavior, the ability of any derived policy rule to match the data relies on so large weights for interest rate smoothing into policy...

The design of monetary policy depends upon the targeting strategy adopted by the central bank. This strategy describes a set of policy preferences, which are actually the structural parameters to analyse monetary policy making. Accordingly, we develop a novel calibration method to identify...

Economic activities are highly clustered. Why is geographic con-centrationbecoming a predominant feature of modern economies? Onthe basis of the empirical models developed by the 'new' theories ofinternational trade, our answer is that increasing returns are the driv-ingforce of economic...

This paper investigates the empirical relevance of a new framework for monetary policyanalysis in which decision makers are allowed to weight differently positive and negative deviations of inflation and output from the target values. The specification of the central bank objective is general...

This paper investigates the empirical relevance of a new framework for monetary policy analysis in which the decision-makers are allowed to weight differently positive and negative deviations of inflation and output from the target values. Reduced-form and structural estimates of the central...

This paper exploits the 2008–09 stamp duty holiday in the United Kingdom to estimate the incidence of a transaction tax on housing. The average reduction in the after-tax sale price is found to be around £900 against the backdrop of an average tax reduction of about £1500. While we estimate...

Using a dynamic factor model, we uncover four main empirical regularities on international comovements in a long-run panel of real and nominal variables. First, the contribution of world comovements to domestic output growth has decreased over the post-WWII period. The contribution of regional...