Essays in empirical macroeconomics

Abstract

This Dissertation is composed of two Chapters which can be read independently. Each Chapter consists of a self-contained empirical study of an economic issue from the field of macroeconomics. The first Chapter of this Dissertation is concerned with the transmission of monetary policy decisions to real economic activity. I show that US manufacturing industries react vastly different to monetary policy shocks. I use the heterogeneity in output responses to monetary policy shocks across industries to test whether industries with a higher degree of price stickiness react more strongly to monetary policy shocks, as predicted by New Keynesian models of the monetary transmission mechanism. The second Chapter of my Dissertation provides new evidence on the extent and the geography of intergenerational mobility in Germany. We show that intergenerational mobility, measured by the association of the educational attainment of children in secondary school and their parents income, differs substantially across regions within Germany