Estimating Central Bank preferences in a small open economy: Sweden 1995-2009

Interest Rate rules are often estimated as simple reaction functions linking the policy interest rate to variables such as (forecasted) inflation and the output gap; however, the coefficients estimated with this approach are convolutions of structural and preference parameters. I propose an approach to estimate Central Bank preferences starting from the Central Bank's optimization problem within a small open economy. When we consider open economies in a regime of Inflation Targeting, the issue of the role of the exchange rate in the Monetary Policy rule becomes relevant. The empirical analysis is conducted on Sweden, to verify whether the recent stabilization of the Krona/Euro exchange rate was due to “Fear of Floating”; the results show that the exchange rate might not have played a role in monetary policy, suggesting that the stabilization probably occurred as a result of increased economic integration and business cycle convergence.Interest Rate Rules, Inflation Targeting, Central Bank Preferences, Fear of Floating.

Estimating Central Bank preferences in a small open economy: Sweden 1995-2009

Interest Rate rules are often estimated as simple reaction functions linking the policy interest rate to variables such as (forecasted) inflation and the output gap; however, the coefficients estimated with this approach are convolutions of structural and preference parameters. I propose an approach to estimate Central Bank preferences starting from the Central Bank's optimization problem within a small open economy. When we consider open economies in a regime of Inflation Targeting, the issue of the role of the exchange rate in the Monetary Policy rule becomes relevant. The empirical analysis is conducted on Sweden, to verify whether the recent stabilization of the Krona/Euro exchange rate was due to “Fear of Floating”; the results show that the exchange rate might not have played a role in monetary policy, suggesting that the stabilization probably occurred as a result of increased economic integration and business cycle convergence

Estimating Central Bank preferences in a small open economy: Sweden 1995-2009

Interest Rate rules are often estimated as simple reaction functions linking the policy interest rate to variables such as (forecasted) inflation and the output gap; however, the coefficients estimated with this approach are convolutions of structural and preference parameters. I propose an approach to estimate Central Bank preferences starting from the Central Bank's optimization problem within a small open economy. When we consider open economies in a regime of Inflation Targeting, the issue of the role of the exchange rate in the Monetary Policy rule becomes relevant. The empirical analysis is conducted on Sweden, to verify whether the recent stabilization of the Krona/Euro exchange rate was due to “Fear of Floating”; the results show that the exchange rate might not have played a role in monetary policy, suggesting that the stabilization probably occurred as a result of increased economic integration and business cycle convergence

The role of Institutions in explaining wage determination in the Euro Area: a panel cointegration approach

Over the last 15 years, the evolution of labor costs has been very diverse across EMU countries. Since wages have important second-round effects on prices and competitiveness, and EMU countries do not have the tool of the nominal exchange rate to correct for such imbalances, understanding the determinants of the wage is a matter of increasing concern and debate. We estimate the equilibrium wage equation for the Euro Area over the period 1995-2011 using panel cointegration techniques that allow for cross-section dependence and structural breaks. The results show that the equilibrium wage has a positive relation with productivity and negative relation with unemployment, as expected. We also include institutional variables in our analysis, showing that a more flexible labor market is consistent with long-run wage moderation. Allowing for a regime break, we find that, since 2004, possibly due to increased international competition, wage determination was more strictly related to productivity, and real wage appreciation triggers a drop in the real wage. Furthermore, results point to a wage-moderating role of government intervention and concertation in wage bargaining.The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from MINECO project ECO2014-58991-C3-2-R, Generalitat Valenciana Prometeo action 2009/098 and the European Commission (Lifelong Learning Program-Jean Monnet Action references 542457-LLP-1-2013-1-ES-AJM-CL and 542434-LLP-1-2013-1-ES-AJM-CL)

Wage spillovers across sectors in Eastern Europe

This paper studies the interactions between wages in the public sector, the traded private sector and the sheltered private sector in ten EU Transition Countries and its relationship to international competitiveness during the decade 2000-2010. The theoretical literature on wage spillovers suggests that the internationally traded sector should be the leader in wage setting, with sheltered and public sector wages adjusting. Using a Cointegrated VAR approach we show that a large heterogeneity across countries is present, and non-traded and public sector wages are often leaders in wage determination or at least affect traded sector wages in the short run. In some countries, public sector wages are weakly exogenous, with the private sectors adjusting. This result is relevant from a policy perspective since wage spillovers, leading to costs growing faster than productivity, may affect the international cost competitiveness of the traded sector

Wage spillovers across sectors in Eastern Europe

This paper studies the interactions between wages in the public sector, the traded private sector and the sheltered private sector in ten EU Transition Countries and its relationship to international competitiveness during the decade 2000-2010. The theoretical literature on wage spillovers suggests that the internationally traded sector should be the leader in wage setting, with sheltered and public sector wages adjusting. Using a Cointegrated VAR approach we show that a large heterogeneity across countries is present, and non-traded and public sector wages are often leaders in wage determination or at least affect traded sector wages in the short run. In some countries, public sector wages are weakly exogenous, with the private sectors adjusting. This result is relevant from a policy perspective since wage spillovers, leading to costs growing faster than productivity, may affect the international cost competitiveness of the traded sector

Measuring exchange rate flexibility in Europe

In official terms, European countries that are not in the EMU have been showing a polarization of monetary policy regimes in the last fifteen years: either Inflation Targeting or fixed exchange rates. I apply several methods recently developed by the literature to measure exchange rate flexibility to these European countries, in order to see whether such polarization has indeed occurred from a de facto point of view. Using these approaches, I find that the move to Inflation Targeting did bring about higher exchange rate flexibility, but only up to a level that is not comparable to that of the non-European benchmark floaters. Inflation Targeters in Europe also seem to have put some weight on stabilization of the exchange rate vis à vis the euro, after its introduction; fixed exchange rate arrangements, instead, apart from official policy changes, remained mostly stable throughout the last decade

The role of the exchange rate regime in the process of real and nominal convergence

The Balassa\u2013Samuelson (B\u2013S) hypothesis suggests that, in catching-up countries, inflation will be comparatively higher, as prices of non-traded goods \u201ccatch up\u201d with the growth of productivity in the tradable goods sector; as a result, these countries will experience real appreciation. However, a general result of the literature is that the B\u2013S effect can only explain part of the excess inflation observed in European catching-up countries. One feature of these studies is their neglect of the role of the exchange rate regime in affecting price convergence. In this paper, instead, we argue that the choice of the exchange rate regime may affect nominal convergence. To show this, we first model the regime choice and, in a second stage, estimate a B\u2013S type of regression for each regime. Our results show that, for countries that pegged to or adopted the euro, the effect of an increase in dual productivity growth (the difference in productivity growth between the traded and non-traded sectors) on the dual inflation differential is twice as large as that in \u201cflexible\u201d countries. We conclude that, in catching-up countries, too early adoption of the euro may foster excess inflation, beyond what would be implied by B\u2013S convergence only

Differences in wage determination in the Eurozone: A challenge to the resilience of the common currency

Different developments in wages and unit labor costs across countries can reduce the synchronization of business cycles within a currency area and therefore be a potential source of asymmetric shocks and/or asymmetric response to a common shock. In this paper, we use novel econometric methods to identify differences and similarities in wage determination across Eurozone countries. Results show that wages have different determinants across euro area countries, among which two relatively distinct groups can be identified. In particular, wages in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland behave more similarly, are less sticky and respond more to macroeconomic conditions than those in the group composed of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Ireland. Moreover, the equilibrium wage has been affected by a structural change contemporaneous to the international financial crisis. Finally, structural reforms since the euro crisis have contributed to make labor market structures in Eurozone countries more similar, which contributed to improve the resilience of the Eurozone, but the job is not completed yet

The role of Institutions in explaining wage determination in the Euro Area: a panel cointegration approach

Over the last 15 years, the evolution of labor costs has been very diverse across EMU countries. Since wages have important second-round effects on prices and competitiveness, and EMU countries do not have the tool of the nominal exchange rate to correct for such imbalances, understanding the determinants of the wage is a matter of increasing concern and debate. We estimate the equilibrium wage equation for the Euro Area over the period 1995-2011 using panel cointegration techniques that allow for cross-section dependence and structural breaks. The results show that the equilibrium wage has a positive relation with productivity and negative relation with unemployment, as expected. We also include institutional variables in our analysis, showing that a more flexible labor market is consistent with long-run wage moderation. Allowing for a regime break, we find that, since 2004, possibly due to increased international competition, wage determination was more strictly related to productivity, and real wage appreciation triggers a drop in the real wage. Furthermore, results point to a wage-moderating role of government intervention and concertation in wage bargaining.The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from MINECO project ECO2014-58991-C3-2-R, Generalitat Valenciana Prometeo action 2009/098 and the European Commission (Lifelong Learning Program-Jean Monnet Action references 542457-LLP-1-2013-1-ES-AJM-CL and 542434-LLP-1-2013-1-ES-AJM-CL)