Publications

Abstract: The global financial crisis demonstrated that monetary policy alone cannot ensure both price and financial stability. According to the Tinbergen (1952) rule, there was a gap in the policymakers’ toolkit for safeguarding financial stability, as the number of available policy instruments was insufficient relative to the number of policy objectives. That gap is now being closed through the creation of new macroprudential policy instruments. Both monetary policy and macroprudential policy have the capacity to influence both price and financial stability objectives. This paper develops a framework for determining how best to assign instruments to objectives.

Using a simplified New-Keynesian model, the authors examine two sets of policy trade-offs, the first concerning the relative effectiveness of monetary and macroprudential policy instruments in achieving price and financial stability objectives and the second concerning trade-offs between macroprudential policy instruments themselves.

This model shows that regardless of whether the objective is to enhance financial system resilience or to moderate the financial cycle, macroprudential policies are more effective than monetary policy. Likewise, monetary policy is more effective than macroprudential policy in achieving price stability. According to the Mundell (1962) principle of effective market classification, this implies that macroprudential policy instruments should be paired with financial stability objectives, and monetary policy instruments should be paired with the price stability objective. The authors also find a trade-off between the two sets of macroprudential policy instruments, which indicates that failure to moderate the financial cycle would require greater financial system resilience.

The main contribution of the paper is to establish – with the help of a model framework – the relative effectiveness of monetary and macroprudential policies in achieving price and financial stability objectives. By so doing, it provides a rationale for macroprudential policy and it shows how macroprudential policy can unburden monetary policy in leaning against the wind of financial imbalances.

Abstract: We evaluate the ECB's monetary policy strategy against some of the underlying economic features of the eurozone, in normal times and during the financial crisis. We show that in the years preceding the crisis the ECB's emphasis on monetary indicators and deliberate avoidance of excessive activism were justified by the underlying macroeconomic conditions that the ECB faced in the eurozone and contributed to avoid more volatile patterns of inflation and economic activity. After the collapse of financial intermediation in late 2008, the strategy of the ECB was to adopt several non-standard policy measures. According to our quantitative evaluation of the impact of the main non-standard policies decided in October 2008 and in May 2009, which notably did not include entering commitments regarding the future path of the policy rate, such measures have significantly contributed to preserving price stability and forestalling a more disruptive collapse of the macroeconomy.

Abstract: The growth rates of wages, unemployment and output of a number of OECD countries have a strongly skewed distribution. In this paper we analyze to what extent downward wage rigidities can explain these empirical business cycle asymmetries. To this aim, we introduce asymmetric wage adjustment costs in a New-Keynesian DSGE model with search and matching frictions in the labor market. Increasing wages is less costly than cutting them. It follows that wages increase relatively fast and thus limit vacancy posting and employment creation, but they decline more slowly, leading to a strong reduction in vacancies and employment. The presence of downward wage rigidities strongly improves the fit of the model to the observed skewness of labor market variables and the relative length of expansions and contractions in the output and the employment cycles. The asymmetry also explains the differing transmission of positive and negative monetary policy shocks from wages to inflation.

Abstract: This paper analyses the implications of heterogeneity in the type of downward wage rigidity (nominal or real) for optimal monetary policy in a monetary union with asymmetric wage adjustment costs. Indexation in one region of the union reduces optimal grease inflation in the presence of common productivity shocks. Large common shocks may have sizeable and persistent effects on the intra-union terms of trade, whereby the region characterized by downward real wage rigidity adjusts with a persistent loss of competitiveness. In response to asymmetric productivity shocks, there is no role for grease inflation because relative price changes facilitating the real wage changes dominate the adjustment mechanism.

Abstract: This paper presents a tractable, transparent and broad-based domestic cyclical systemic risk indicator (d-SRI) that captures risks stemming from domestic credit, real estate markets, asset prices, and external imbalances. The d-SRI increases on average several years before the onset of systemic financial crises, and its early warning properties for euro area countries are superior to those of the total credit-to-GDP gap. In addition, the level of the d-SRI around the start of financial crises is highly correlated with measures of subsequent crisis severity, such as GDP declines. Model estimates suggest that the d-SRI has significant predictive power for large declines in real GDP growth three to four years down the line, as it precedes shifts in the entire distribution of future real GDP growth and especially of its left tail. The d-SRI therefore provides useful information about both the probability and the likely cost of systemic financial crises many years in advance. Given its timely signals, the d-SRI is a useful analytical tool for macroprudential policymakers.

Abstract: The countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) is one of the centrepieces of the post-crisis reforms that introduced macroprudential policy instruments. Macroprudential instruments aim to protect the resilience of the financial system throughout the financial cycle. While many measures have been implemented to structurally raise capital in the banking sector, only a few euro area countries have activated the CCyB. This implies that macroprudential authorities currently have limited policy space to release buffer requirements in adverse circumstances. Against this background, this special feature provides some insights into the relevant macroprudential policy response under different macroeconomic conditions. It is argued that, barring a severe economic downturn, even under a scenario of moderate economic growth a gradual build-up of cyclically adjustable buffers could be considered to help create the necessary macroprudential space and to reduce the procyclicality of the financial system in an economic and financial downturn.

Abstract: When living by the ocean, instead of trying to calm the waves and tides, building a levee or a breakwater is the safest option. This article reviews the country-specific strategic choices and decisions regarding timing and calibration of the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) in countries participating in the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). It identifies commonalities across countries and country specificities that influence decisions by national designated authorities. In so doing, it summarises the limitations encountered with the credit-to-GDP gap and the role of other indicators and factors in calibrating the appropriate CCyB rate on the basis of “guided discretion”. Ultimately, assessing risks across euro area countries consistently, while taking into account country-specific factors, supports the effective use of the CCyB as a macroprudential instrument and ensures that similar risk exposures are subject to the same set of macroprudential requirements.

Abstract: This special feature presents a tractable, transparent and broad-based cyclical systemic risk indicator (CSRI) that captures risks stemming from domestic credit, real estate markets, asset prices, external imbalances and cross-country spillovers. The CSRI increases on average several years before the onset of systemic financial crises and its level is highly correlated with measures of crisis severity. Model estimates suggest that high values of the CSRI contain information about large declines in real GDP growth three to four years down the road, as it precedes shifts in the entire distribution of future real GDP growth and especially of its left tail. Given its timely signals, the CSRI is a useful analytical tool for macroprudential policymakers to complement other existing analytical tools.

Abstract: Macroprudential measures implemented in individual Member States may have cross-border or cross-sectoral repercussions. This special feature discusses crossborder spillover channels. To limit negative spillover effects, macroprudential instruments should be applied consistently across countries, and reciprocity agreements must be applied transparently.

Abstract: This paper studies offshore outsourcing by modelling it as a frictional process captured by the domestic firms' need to match with foreign producers. We highlight the effects of offshore outsourcing on wages, productivity and job flows, including their dynamics. We replicate four main robust features of the data with our model. First, outsourcing leads in the short run to closures and job destruction in the domestic market generating an increase in unemployment as has been observed during the nineties. Second, outsourcing leads to specialisation in high quality products in the home country as low productivity employment tends to be substituted by outsourcing.

Third, the possibility of outsourcing raises the production possibilities of firms and raises the outside option to employment relationships. Fourth, if different tasks are complementary in the aggregate production, outsourcing leads to improvements in productivity in the medium term, increasing pro ts of firms, raising wages ad after a period of higher unemployment ultimately increases employment.

Abstract: We analyze the dynamic effects of lumpy factor adjustments at the firm level onto the aggregate economy. We find that distinguishing between capital and labour as lumpy factors within the production function result in very dfferent dynamics for aggregate output, investment and labour in an otherwise standard real business cycle model. Lumpy capital leaves the RBC mainly unchanged, while lumpy labour allows for persistence and an inner propagation within the model in form of hump-shaped impulse repsonses. In addition, when modeling lumpy adjustments on both investment and labour, the aggregate effects are even stronger. We investigate the mechanisms underlying these results and identify the elasticity of factor supply as the most important element in accounting for these differences.