Some authors have argued that multiplicative uncertainty may benefit society as the cautionary motive reduces the inflation bias. However, when there are non-atomistic wage setters, higher multiplicative uncertainty may raise the wage premium and unemployment and thus reduce welfare....

The objective of this paper is to assess whether the levels of unionization and the rigidity of exchange rates represent a constraint for the monetary policy in South-Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with a particular focus on the recent economic crisis. Toward that...

The objective of this paper is to assess whether the level of unionization and the rigidity of the exchange rate affected wages and monetary policy in SEE and CIS during the ongoing economic crisis. Towards that end, a New Keynesian model with price and wage rigidities is used. The model is...

Sufficiently flexible labour markets are considered an important precondition for countries to benefit from membership in the monetary union. Economic policy coordination within the European Community is extensive and includes issues related to labour market structures. In this paper we study...

We use a two-country monetary model with unionized labor markets and open-economy spillovers to study the macroeconomic consequences of the formation of a monetary union. It is shown that the monetary regime affects the trade-off between real consumer wages and employment faced by the unions....

In the recent economic literature the independence of the central bank is often considered to be one of the most effective guarantees to achieve price stability. A strong theoretical basis of this proposition is that the monetary policy delegation given to an independent central bank is an...

The objective of this paper is to assess how the level of unionisation and the rigidity of the exchange rate affects wages and monetary policy in South-East Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with a particular focus on the recent economic crisis. Towards that end, a New Keynesian...

Price versus productivity indexing is considered in a model of monetary policy with wage bargaining. The wage-indexing rule is negotiated in a first stage of the game between government, union and firm.

We use Swedish administrative individual-level data to document five facts about the distributional income effects of monetary policy. (i) The effects of monetary policy shocks are U-shaped with respect to the income distribution-i.e., expansionary shocks increase the incomes of high- and...

This paper uses a simple model based on the board game Monopoly to analyze the drivers of house prices and wealth inequality. Simulations show that inequality generally builds up fast even if players have equal starting conditions and house prices are stable; rising house prices imply more...