E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
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Terms-of-Trade and House Price Fluctuations: A Cross-Country Study
Terms-of-trade shocks are known to be key drivers of business cycles in open economies. This paper argues that terms-of-trade shocks were also important for house price fluctuations in a panel of developed countries over the 1994–2015 period. -
Firm-Specific Shocks and Aggregate Fluctuations
In order to understand what drives aggregate fluctuations, many macroeconomic models point to aggregate shocks and discount the contribution of firm-specific shocks. Recent research from other developed countries, however, has found that aggregate fluctuations are in part driven by idiosyncratic shocks to large firms. -
Monetary Policy Tradeoffs Between Financial Stability and Price Stability
We analyze the impact of interest rate policy on financial stability in an environment where banks can experience runs on their short-term liabilities, forcing them to sell assets at fire-sale prices. -
Business Cycles in Small, Open Economies: Evidence from Panel Data Between 1900 and 2013
Using a novel data set for 17 countries dating from 1900 to 2013, we characterize business cycles in both small developed and developing countries in a model with financial frictions and a common shock structure. We estimate the model jointly for these 17 countries using Bayesian methods. -
Fragility of Resale Markets for Securitized Assets and Policy of Asset Purchases
Markets for securitized assets were characterized by high liquidity prior to the recent financial crisis and by a sudden market dry-up at the onset of the crisis. A general equilibrium model with heterogeneous investment opportunities and information frictions predicts that, in boom periods or mild recessions, the degree of adverse selection in resale markets for securitized assets is limited because of the reputation-based guarantees by asset originators. -
Interpreting Volatility Shocks as Preference Shocks
This paper examines the relationship between volatility shocks and preference shocks in an analytically tractable endogenous growth model with recursive preferences and stochastic volatility. I show that there exists an explicit mapping between volatility shocks and preference shocks, and a rise in volatility generates the same impulse responses of macroeconomic aggregates as a negative preference shock. -
The Paul Storer Memorial Lecture—Cross-Border Trade Integration and Monetary Policy
In this paper we explore the nexus between cross-border trade integration and monetary policy. We first review the evidence that trade liberalization has increased the degree of integration in North America and conclude that, while robust structural inferences remain elusive, there is sufficient supporting evidence for central banks to treat the issue seriously. -
On What States Do Prices Depend? Answers from Ecuador
In this paper, we argue that differences in the cost structures across sectors play an important role in firms’ decisions to adjust their prices. We develop a menu-cost model of pricing in which retail firms intermediate trade between producers and consumers. -
The Global Benefits of Low Oil Prices: More Than Meets the Eye
Between mid-2014 and early 2016, oil prices fell by roughly 65 per cent. This note documents the channels through which this oil price decline is expected to affect the global economy. One important and immediate channel is through higher expenditures, especially in net oil-importing countries.