Philip Vermeulen

Welcome to my home page. I am a  Professor of economics at University of  Canterbury and a Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (Australian National University).  Until February 2023 I was a Senior Lecturer at Auckland University of Technology  Until 2020, I  was a Principal economist at the European Central Bank in the Directorate General Research (in the Monetary Policy Research Division). I started working there in 1999 after my Ph.D. at Stanford University.  

I am an empirical macroeconomist. My main interest is in the role of heterogeneity in firms and households in the aggregate economy.  Heterogeneity affects aggregate fluctuations and monetary transmission, and vice versa, firms and households are differently affected by shocks.  The composition of firms' balance sheets and the wealth of households is quite heterogeneous and I often use micro-data that exploits and investigates the role of such heterogeneity.  I have published papers on a variety of related questions: How does monetary policy affect investment? How is firm investment affected by financing constraints and uncertainty?; How do markups differ across industries?; How heterogenous is pricing?; How much wealth is held by the top 1 percent of the wealth distribution?

I was a member of the Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN) which was set up to collect and investigate household finance and consumption data.  I was a member of a Task Force of the Monetary Policy Committee of the European System of Central Banks to investigate the distributive trade sector.  I also was a member of some past research networks, the Monetary Transmission Network, the Inflation Persistence Network and the Wage Dynamics Network.  

 From time to time I will update this page so you want might to come back to find new material.

Here is a link to my REPEC page: http://ideas.repec.org/e/pve48.html

Here is a link to my working papers at the ECB.   https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/research/authors/profiles/philip-vermeulen.en.html  

Here is a link to my google scholar page: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QjP4uv8AAAAJ&hl=en

My E-mail:  philip. vermeulen at canterbury.ac.nz

 Research Interests:  macroeconomics, monetary policy,  investment, wealth

Recent work 

I am currently working on  a number of  topics: monetary policy shocks and stock market reactions, house price idiosyncratic risk,  investment and monetary policy (Here is a link to a recent paper) , and the co-movement of  top income and wealth shares (link to paper ). I recently published work on investment and monetary policy, bias in price indices,  the duration dependence of business cycles (link to paper ) the effects of the banking crisis on firm investment and on the top of the wealth distribution. 

Education

Ph.D. in Economics, Stanford University, 1999

Licenciate degree (magna cum laude), Ghent University, 1991

Teaching Experience

Econ 635 Advanced Macroeconomics, UC, 2023  (Masters)

Econ 325 Macroeconomics, UC, 2023  

Econ 602 Macroeconomics, AUT, 2021, 2022 

Econ 802 Macroeconomic Theory and Policy, AUT, 2020, 2021, 2022 (Masters)

Buss 504 Economics and Society,  AUT, 2021 

Experience

Professor, University of Canterbury, since March 2023

Senior Lecturer, Auckland University of Technology, 2020-2023

Principal Economist, European Central Bank,  2020 

Senior Economist, European Central Bank, 2004-2019

Economist, European Central Bank, 1999-2003

Research Economist,  National Bank of Belgium, 1996-1997

Research Assistant, Ghent University, 1991-1993

Publications in refereed journals

Monetary policy, investment and firm heterogeneity, joint with E. Durante and A. Ferrando, European Economic Review, vol 148, 2022

Business cycle duration dependence and foreign recessions, joint with G. de Bondt, Scottish Journal of Political Economy , vol. 68(1), 2021. 

Elementary Index Bias: Evidence for the Euro Area from a large scanner dataset, joint with Gábor-Tóth E., German Economic Review, Vol 20(4), 2019. 

Is the Top Tail of the Wealth Distribution the Missing Link between the Household Finance and Consumption Survey and National Accounts?, joint with Chakraborty R., Kavonius I.K, Pérez-Duarte, S., Journal of Official Statistics, Vol 35, 1, 2019. 

How fat is the top tail of the wealth distribution,  Review of Income and Wealth, Vol 64 (2) , 2018.

Lenders on the storm of wholesale funding shocks: saved by the central bank?, joint with Leo de Haan and Jan Willem van den End, Applied Economics, Vol 49, 2017.

Corporate investment and bank-dependent borrowers during the recent financial crisis, joint with Andra Buca. Journal of Banking and Finance, Vol 78, May, 2017. 

Estimating the Top Tail of the Wealth Distribution, American Economic Review, vol 106(5), 2016.

How do households allocate their assets? Stylized facts from the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey. joint with nine co-authors. International Journal of Central Banking, Vol 12(2), 2016.

An evaluation of business survey indices for short-term forecasting: balance method versus Carlson-Parkin method, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol 30 (4) October-December 2014.  

Price setting in the euro area: some stylised facts from individual producer price data, joint with  Dias D., Dossche M., Gautier E.,  Hernando I.,  Sabbatini R. and H. Stahl, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, 44(8), December,  2012.

Markups in the Euro area and the US over the period 1981-2004: a comparison of 50 sectors, joint with R. Christopoulou,  Empirical Economics, 2012, 42, February.

Firms' investment decisions in response to demand and price uncertainty, joint with Fuss C., Applied Economics, 2008, 40, August-September.

The response of firms‘ investment and financing to adverse cash flow shocks: the role of bank relationships, joint with Fuss C., Review of Business and Economic Literature, 2008, 53(1), January-March.

Sticky prices in the euro area: a summary of new micro evidence, joint with  Álvarez L.J., Dhyne E., Hoeberichts M., Kwapil C.,  Le Bihan H., Lünnemann P., Martins F., Sabbatini R.,  Stahl H., Vilmunen J.,  Journal of the European Economic Association,2006, 4, (2-3), April-May .

Factor content, size, and export propensity at the firm level, Economics letters, 82, 2004.

Monetary policy transmission in the euro area: new evidence from micro data on firms and banks, joint with Châtelain J-B., Ehrmann M., Generale A., Martínez-Pagés and Worms A., Journal of the European Economic Association, 2003, 1 (2-3), April-May.

New findings on firm investment and monetary transmission in the euro area, joint with Châtelain J-B, Generale A., Hernando I. and von Kalckreuth U., Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2003, 19 (1), Spring.

The interest rate and credit channel in Belgium: an investigation with micro-level firm data, joint with Butzen P. and Fuss C., Cahiers Économiques de Bruxelles, 2002, 45 (3), Autumn. 

Investment and monetary policy in the euro area, joint with Mojon B. and Smets F., Journal of Banking and Finance, 2002, 26 (11), November.

Business fixed investment: evidence of a financial accelerator in Europe, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2002, 64 (3), July

Employment growth in the service sector and increasing inequality (in Dutch), Tijdschrift voor Sociale wetenschappen, 2, 1997.

Publications in books

What quantitative micro data reveal about price setting behavior, joint with Sabbatini R., Álvarez L., Dhyne E., Hoeberichts M., Le Bihan H., Lünnemann P., Martins F., Rumler F., Stahl H., Veronese G. and Vilmunen J., Pricing Decisions in the Euro Area: How Firms Set Prices and Why, 2007, Oxford University Press, Fabiani S., Loupias C., Martins F., and Sabbatini R.(eds).

The impact of uncertainty on investment plans: a survey data approach, joint with Butzen P. and Fuss C., Firms’ investment and finance decisions, 2003, Edward Elgar, Butzen P. and Fuss C. (eds).

Firm investment and monetary transmission in the euro area, joint with Châtelain J-B, Generale A., Hernando  I. and von Kalckreuth U., Monetary policy transmission in the euro area, 2003, Cambridge University Press, Angeloni I., Kashyap A. and Mojon B. (eds).

Business investment and monetary transmission in Belgium, joint with Butzen P. and Fuss C., Monetary policy transmission in the euro area, 2003, Cambridge University Press, Angeloni I., Kashyap A. and Mojon B. (eds).

Other Publications

The Eurosystem household finance and consumption survey: Methodological Report for the second wave, by Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Network,  ECB Statistics Paper Series, no 17, December 2016.

The Eurosystem household finance and consumption survey: Results from the second wave,  by Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Network,  ECB Statistics Paper Series, no 18, December 2016.

 The recovery of investment in the euro area in the aftermath of the great recession: how does it compare historically?, ECB Research Bulletin, Vol.28,  2016.

The Eurosystem household finance and consumption survey  Methodological Report for the first wave, by Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Network,  ECB Statistics Paper Series,no 1, April 2013

The Eurosystem household finance and consumption survey Results from the first wave,  by Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Network,  ECB Statistics Paper Series, no 2, April 2013

Structural features of distributive trades and their impact on prices in the euro area, by Task Force of the Monetary Policy Committee of the European System of Central Banks, ECB Occasional Paper Series, no 128, September 2011.

Conference Presentations (selection)

61st  Annual Conference of the New Zealand Association of Economists, 2021 

6th IAAE Conference, Nicosia, 2019

3rd Meetings of the Society of Economics of the Household, Lisbon, 2019

Royal Economic Society Annual Conference, Warwick, 2019

The Society for Economic Measurement, Xiamen, 2018

European Economic Association meetings, Lisbon, 2017

AEA Meetings, San Francisco, 2016