On the Quantitative Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policies

I use a unique micro price data to estimate the pass-through from commodity prices to retail prices in several countries. The paper presents and develops a simple methodology to estimate the pass-through from the prices of different commodities into various sectors across several countries. This is the first exercise of this type. As expected, countries respond differently to the different shocks; and sectors respond differently across countries and commodities. A third of all the explained variation is driven by sectoral characteristics, which is a dimension mostly disregarded by the literature.

Modeling Copper Price: A Regime-Switching Approach

This paper explores the virtues of Markov-Switching models to characterize the behavior of copper price. In particular, we study the performance of several univariate specifications of this type of models, both in and out of sample, comparing them also with constant parameter models such as ARMA and GARCH. The main finding is that allowing for a regime-switching variance in the error term is most relevant in explaining the behavior of this price.

Estimating Models for Monetary Policy Analysis in Emerging Countries

We estimate a DSGE model of an emerging country containing many frictions that, as has been recently argued, impose non-trivial constraints for monetary-policy design in these economies. In particular, our framework features a sectoral decomposition of the productive sector, the use of intermediate inputs, imperfect pass-through, endogenous premium to finance capital accumulation, balance sheet effects due to liability dollarization, currency substitution, price and wage stickiness, and dynamics driven by eleven shocks. We use a Bayesian approach to Mexican data to address three main questions: i) can the model satisfactorily fit the data? Our answer is generally yes, with some caveats; ii) are the estimated parameters similar to those usually calibrated in policy-related studies? The answer is negative, particularly for those describing financial frictions, price stickiness and money demand. Finally, which of the emerging-markets’ frictions are more relevant in fitting the data? We find that including intermediate inputs is most important, while currency substitution does not seem to play a major role. Moreover, financial frictions and liability dollarization are also relevant.

Real Business Cycles in Emerging Countries?

We use more than one century of Argentine and Mexican data to estimate the structural parameters of a small-open-economy real-business-cycle model driven by nonstationary productivity shocks. We find that the RBC model does a poor job at explaining business cycles in emerging countries. We then estimate an augmented model that incorporates shocks to the country premium and financial frictions. We find that the estimated financial-friction model provides a remarkably good account of business cycles in emerging markets and, importantly, assigns a negligible role to nonstationary productivity shocks.

Heterodox Central Banking

This paper discusses theoretical and practical aspects of the various unconventional central bank policies during the 2008-2009 crisis. In terms of theory, we first discuss the role of credibility in the attainment of inflationary goals once the nominal interest rate is at a lower bound, paying particular attention to the role of the central bank’s balance sheet. Additionally, we present a model which has at its core a financial imperfection that highlights the role of bank’s capital as well as the relevance of alternative credit policies that can be used to deal with financial distress. On the other hand, we review evidence regarding the recent experience. We discuss the timing and type of observed unconventional policies. We then explore alternative measures to assess the stance of monetary policy in a situation when the policy rate has reached its lower bound. Finally, we present some descriptive evidence on the effect of the applied policies on the shape of the yield curve and the lending-deposit spread.

UNA NOTA SOBRE LA NUEVA OLA DE DEUDA EN MONEDA EXTRANJERA EN LAS FIRMAS NO FINANCIERAS DE LATINOAMÉRICA

This paper presents new evidence on foreign-currency debt of non-financial compa-nies in six Latin-American countries, including years in the aftermath of the sub-pri-me crisis. The paper differentiates between total debt and financial debt in foreign currency. Main results indicate that some firm-specific features are key to unders-tand foreign currency debt. Exporting firms behave differently between total fore-ign-currency debt and financial currency debt. Exporters hold more total foreign-currency debt than the average firm while they hold less financial foreign-currency debt. Foreign-owned firms hold less total debt in foreign currency. Macroeconomic variables only play some role when interacting with specific firm characteristics.Este artículo presenta nueva evidencia sobre determinantes de pasivos en moneda extranjera de empresas en seis países de Latinoamérica, incluyendo períodos posteiores a la crisis sub-prime, diferenciando entre pasivos totales y financieros en mo-neda extranjera. Los resultados principales indican que ciertas características espe-cíficas son claves para entender estas deudas. Firmas que exportan deciden diferen-temente entre pasivos totales y financieros en moneda extranjera, manteniendo más deuda total y menos deuda financiera en moneda extranjera que la firma promedio. Empresas de propiedad extranjera mantienen menos pasivos totales en moneda ex-tranjera. Las variables macroeconómicas sólo importan cuando se las interactúa con tipos de empresas.&nbsp

Inflación y política monetaria: Argentina 2006-2011

This article analyzes the causes of inflation in Argentina between 2006 and 2011, and the roleplayed by monetary policy in this evolution. The conceptual framework used emphasizes the real exchange rate and the relative price between tradable and non-tradable goods tradable; unlike the most frequent aggregate-based analyzes Monetary The conclusion reached, comparing the Argentine experience with that of other Latin American countries, is that the main cause of inflation was that the Central Bank did not induce currency revaluations during the expansionary periods They tended to appreciate the real exchange rate. Additionally, evidence is presented empirical to support the relationship (emphasized in the conceptual framework) between the type of real exchange and the relative price of tradable and non-tradable goods for Argentina. This evidence suggests that inflation experienced since 2006 wasmainly in non-tradable goods.Este artículo analiza las causas de la inflación en Argentina entre 2006 y 2011, y el rol jugado por la política monetaria en esta evolución. El marco conceptual utilizado enfatiza el tipo de cambio real y el precio relativo entre bienes transables y no transables; a diferencia de los más frecuentes análisis basados en agregados monetarios. La conclusión a la que se arriba, comparando la experiencia Argentina con la de otros países Latinoamericanos, es que la principal causa de la inflación fue que el Banco Central no indujo revaluaciones en la moneda durante los períodos expansivos que tendieron a apreciar el tipo de cambio real. Adicionalmente, se presenta evidencia empírica para fundamentar la relación (enfatizada en el marco conceptual) entre el tipo de cambio real y el precio relativo de los bienes transables y no transables para Argentina. Esta evidencia apunta a que la inflación experimentada desde 2006 fue principalmente en bienes no transables

Multidifferential study of identified charged hadron distributions in ZZ-tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at s=\sqrt{s}=13 TeV

Jet fragmentation functions are measured for the first time in proton-proton collisions for charged pions, kaons, and protons within jets recoiling against a $Z$ boson. The charged-hadron distributions are studied longitudinally and transversely to the jet direction for jets with transverse momentum 20 $< p_{\textrm{T}} < 100$ GeV and in the pseudorapidity range $2.5 < \eta < 4$. The data sample was collected with the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.64 fb$^{-1}$. Triple differential distributions as a function of the hadron longitudinal momentum fraction, hadron transverse momentum, and jet transverse momentum are also measured for the first time. This helps constrain transverse-momentum-dependent fragmentation functions. Differences in the shapes and magnitudes of the measured distributions for the different hadron species provide insights into the hadronization process for jets predominantly initiated by light quarks.Comment: All figures and tables, along with machine-readable versions and any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-013.html (LHCb public pages