Nominal Wage Inertia in General Equilibrium Models

This paper argues that nominal wage inertia is a structural feature in low-inflation economies. Using a quarterly data set for six G7 countries we show that, unlike price inflation, nominal wage inflation responds sluggishly to both monetary and technology shocks. Accounting for this inertial behavior of nominal wages is a necessary condition for a model to capture the business cycle properties of nominal variables. We present several variants of the Calvo wage model that are able to mimic those properties in a general equilibrium framework. In contrast, models that focus on real wage rigidities or sticky prices fail to match the data.

A Flexible View on Prices

This paper argues that the flexible price paradigm is superior to the sticky price paradigm in the context of general equilibrium models. Based on a quarterly data set for six G7 economies, the paper presents two types of evidence showing that prices respond significantly to their underlying fundamentals. First, prices respond contemporaneously and significantly to technology shocks in all countries. Second, the cyclical correlation between prices and unit labor costs is highest contemporaneously and around 0.8 in all cases. This behavior is only consistent with a model where most firms set prices flexibly.

The Distribution of Liquidity in a Monetary Union with Different Portfolio Rigidities

This paper analyses the monetary transmission mechanism in a monetary union with a segmented financial market. Differences in the households' information sets imply that a money supply shock yields permanently heterogeneous allocations across households. The distribution of liquidity is fundamental to this equilibrium. This distribution is also important to understand the response of the macroeconomic variables to a technology shock. In this case, a money supply rule yields heterogenous allocations between households, while an interest rate peg undoes the portfolio friction, yielding the same allocation across agents.

Is the euro area M3 abandoning us?

This paper reassesses the role of the M3 aggregate for monetary policy purposes in the euro area. Using data until 2006Q4 it is shown that the M3 aggregate ceased to display the empirical properties that supported its prominent role in the ECB’s monetary policy strategy. On the one hand, when the most recent data are used in the analysis there is strong evidence of cointegration breakdown in the M3 money demand models as well as in the "two-pillar Phillips curves" with filtered data. On the other hand, the leading indicator properties of M3 for inflation in the area have also deteriorated markedly in the most recent years. This is supported by evidence both in the time and frequency domains.

The role of Riesz potentials in the weak-strong uniqueness for the Euler-Poisson system

In this article, the weak-strong uniqueness principle is proved for the Euler-Poisson system in the whole space, with initial data so that the strong solution exists, and allowing for the density to assume vacuum states. Some results on Riesz potentials are used to justify the considered weak formulation. Then, one follows the relative energy methodology and, in order to handle the solution of Poisson's equation, employs the theory of Riesz potentials