Circadian rhythms and hormonal homeostasis: Pathophysiological implications

Over recent years, a deeper comprehension of the molecular mechanisms that control biological clocks and circadian rhythms has been achieved. In fact, many studies have contributed to unravelling the importance of the molecular clock for the regulation of our physiology, including hormonal and metabolic homeostasis. Here we will review the structure, organisation and molecular machinery that make our circadian clock work, and its relevance for the proper functioning of physiological processes. We will also describe the interconnections between circadian rhythms and endocrine homeostasis, as well as the underlying consequences that circadian dysregulations might have in the development of several pathologic affections. Finally, we will discuss how a better knowledge of such relationships might prove helpful in designing new therapeutic approaches for endocrine and metabolic diseases

Labor Market Participation, Unemployment and Monetary Policy

In the present paper we examine how the introduction of endogenous participation in an otherwise standard DSGE model with matching frictions and nominal rigidities affects business cycle dynamics and monetary policy. The contribution of the paper is threefold: first, we show that the model provides a good fit for employment and unemployment volatility, as well as participation volatility and its correlation with output for US data. Second, we show that in such a model, and contrary to a model with exogenous participation, a monetary authority that becomes more aggressive in fighting inflation decreases the volatility of employment and unemployment. Finally, we show the role of search costs in shaping those results.matching frictions, endogenous participation, monetary policy

Discretionary Fiscal Policy and Optimal Monetary Policy in a Currency Area

The paper evaluates the effects of fiscal discretion in a currency area, where a common and independent monetary authority commits to optimally set the union-wide nominal interest rate. National governments implement fiscal policy by choosing government expenditure. The assumption of fiscal policy coordination across countries is retained in order to evaluate the costs exclusively due to discretion, leaving aside the free-riding problems stemming from noncooperation. In such a context, nominal rigidities potentially generate a stabilization role for fiscal policy, in addition to the one of ensuring efficient provision of public goods. However, it is showed that, under discretion, aggregate fiscal policy stance is inefficiently loose and the volatility of government expenditure is higher than optimal. As an implication, the optimal monetary policy rule involves the targeting of union-wide fiscal stance, on top of inflation and output gap. The result questions the welfare enhancing role of government expenditure, as the proper instrument for stabilizing asymmetric shocks. In fact, discretion entails significant welfare costs, the magnitude depending on the stochastic properties of the shocks and, for plausible parameter values, it is not optimal to use fiscal policy as a stabilization tool

Optimal simple monetary policy rules and non-atomistic wage setters in a New-Keynesian framework

The purpose of the paper is to design optimal monetary policy rules in a New-Keynesian model featuring the presence of non-atomistic unions. It is shown that concentrated labor markets call for more aggressive inflation stabilization. This is because the central bank is able to induce wage restraint and to push output towards Pareto efficiency by implementing tougher stabilization policies. Moreover, the welfare cost of deviation from the optimal policy is increasing in wage setting centralization. The analysis is performed in the context of a linear-quadratic approach where the welfare measure is derived resorting to a second order approximation to households’ lifetime utility. JEL Classification: E24, E52Inflation, monetary policy, Unions

Do labor market institutions matter for business cycles?

Available online 4 November 2014. Using panel data of 19 OECD countries observed over 40 years and data on specific labor market reform episodes we conclude that labor market institutions matter for business cycle fluctuations. Spearman partial rank correlations reveal that more flexible institutions are associated with lower business cycle volatility. Turning to the analysis of reform episodes, wage bargaining reforms increase the correlation of the real wage with labor productivity and the volatility of unemployment. Employment protection reforms increase the volatility of employment and decrease the correlation of the real wage with labor productivity. Reforms reducing replacement rates make labor productivity more procyclical

Housework and fiscal expansions

We build an otherwise-standard business cycle model with housework, calibrated consistently with data on time use, in order to discipline consumption-hours complementarity and relate its strength to the size of fiscal multipliers. We show that if substitutability between home and market goods is calibrated on the empirically relevant range, consumption-hours complementarity is large and the model generates fiscal multipliers that agree with the evidence. Hence, our analysis supports the relevance of consumption-hours complementarity for fiscal multipliers. However, we also find that explicitly modeling the home sector is more appealing than restricting to the consumption-leisure margin and/or to the preferences proposed by Greenwood, Hercowitz and Huffman (1988). A housework model can imply substantial complementarity, without low wealth effects contradicting the microeconomic evidence

Monetary commitment and fiscal discretion : the optimal policy mix

We study a noncooperative policy game between monetary and fiscal policy, where only monetary policy can commit to future actions. The equilibrium outcome of the game depends on the strategies available to the monetary policymaker. If strategies are left unrestricted, the central bank can alter the incentives of the fiscal authority in a way that replicates the full commitment solution. If the central bank cannot commit to respond to fiscal policy, the fiscal authority generates fluctuations in government expenditure that undermine the stabilization goals of the central ban