Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Publication
    Great Recession, Slow Recovery and Muted Fiscal Policies in the US
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2016-03) ; ;
    This paper reconsiders the role of macroeconomic shocks and policies in determining the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery in the US. The Great Recession was mainly caused by a large demand shock and by the ZLB on the interest rate policy. In contrast with previous findings, the subsequent jobless recovery is explained by the ZLB effect. We estimate a fraction of non-Ricardian households which is close to 50%, and obtain comparatively large fiscal multipliers. However we cannot detect a significant contribution of fiscal policies in stabilizing the US economy. For instance, the 2007-2009 large increase in expenditure-to-GDP ratios was apparently determined by the adverse non-policy shocks that caused the recession.
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  • Publication
    Limited Asset Market Participation and the Euro Area Crisis: An Empirical DSGE Model
    We estimate a medium‐scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the Euro area with limited asset market participation (LAMP). Our results suggest that in the recent European Monetary Union years LAMP is particularly sizable (39% during 1993–2012) and important to understand business cycle features. The Bayes factor and the forecasting performance show that the LAMP model is preferred to its representative household counterpart. In the representative agent model the risk premium shock is the main driver of output volatility in order to match consumption correlation with output. In the LAMP model this role is played by the investment‐specific shock, because non‐Ricardian households introduce a Keynesian multiplier effect and raise the correlation between consumption and investments. We also detect the contractionary role of monetary policy shocks during the post‐2007 years. In this period consumption of non‐Ricardian households fell dramatically, but this outcome might have been avoided by a more aggressive policy stance.
    Scopus© Citations 8  502
  • Publication
    In search of the Euro area fiscal stance
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2016-08) ; ;
    This paper investigates the role of fiscal policies over the aggregate EMU business cycle. Previous studies, based on the assumption of non-separability between public and private consumptions, obtain a large public consumption multiplier, a small fraction of non-Ricardian households and, consequently, a relatively small multiplier for public transfers. We provide motivations for assuming separability and, on these grounds, we estimate a relatively large share of non-Ricardian households. As a result, we obtain that both multipliers are large. We also find that, in spite of their potentially strong effects, fiscal policies were substantially muted during the EMU years. This result is confirmed even for the post 2007 period. In fact fiscal policies did not complement the monetary policy stimulus in response to the financial crisis. Further, we cannot detect any substantial aggregate effect of austerity measures. Finally, the post-2007 surge in expenditure-to-GDP ratios was apparently determined by non-policy shocks that reduced output growth.
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