Making use of considerably improved measures of infrastructure, we assess the impact of infrastructure on bilateral trade for a panel of 37 developed and emerging economies during the period 1995-2011. We find significant and non-linear effects of overall infrastructure and infrastructure in...

We hypothesize that North-South trade is associated with knowledge spillovers that create labor productivity gains depending on various determinants of Southern absorptive capacity. We use the novel World Input-Output Database (WIOD) that provides bilateral and bisectoral panel data for 39...

We analyze the determinants of average individual inflation uncertainty and disagreement based on data from the European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters. We empirically confirm the implication from a theoretical decomposition of inflation uncertainty that disagreement is an...

Although survey-based point predictions have been found to outperform successful forecasting models, corresponding variance forecasts are frequently diagnosed as heavily distorted. Professional forecasters who report inconspicuously low ex ante variances often produce squared forecast errors...

Based on a new survey of German households, we investigate the role of information channels and lifetime experience for households' inflation expectations. We show that the types of information channels that households use to inform themselves about monetary policy are closely related to their...

Based on a new survey of German households, we investigate the role of information channels and lifetime experience for households' inflation expectations. We show that the types of information channels that households use to inform themselves about monetary policy are closely related to their...

Using novel data on speeches held by members of the European Central Bank's Executive Board, we investigate whether monetary policy transparency has increased over time. With respect to the general public as the target audience, our findings suggest that the European Central Bank successfully...

We analyze the effectiveness of the German tax reduction on fuel prices ('Tankrabatt') that was introduced for three months, starting on 1 June 2022. Using the synthetic control method to compare actual prices of gasoline and diesel to those in a counterfactual situation without the tax...

We propose to treat survey-based density expectations as compositional data when testing either for heterogeneity in density forecasts across different groups of agents or for changes over time. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed test has more power relative to both a bootstrap...

We propose to treat survey-based density expectations as compositional data when testing either for heterogeneity in density forecasts across different groups of agents or for changes over time. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed test has more power relative to both a bootstrap...