Oil and the Euro area economy

We examine the macroeconomic effects of different types of oil shocks and the oil transmission mechanism in the Euro area. A comparison is made with the US and across individual member countries. First, we find that the underlying source of the oil price shift is crucial to determine the repercussions on the economy and the appropriate monetary policy reaction. Second, the transmission mechanism is considerably different compared to the US. In particular, inflationary effects in the US are mainly driven by a strong direct pass-through of rising energy prices and indirect effects of higher production costs. In contrast, Euro area inflation reacts sluggishly and is much more driven by second-round effects of increasing wages. The monetary policy reaction of the ECB to oil shocks is also strikingly different compared to the FED. The inflation objective, relative to the output stabilization objective, appears more important for Euro area monetary authorities than for the FED. Third, there are substantial asymmetries across member countries. These differences are due to different labour market dynamics which are further aggravated by a common monetary policy stance which does not fit all.
--- Gert Peersman and Ine Van Robays     

Time-varying inflation persistence in the Euro area

This paper investigates how inflation persistence in the Euro area has evolved between 1991 and 2006. Employing an ARMA(1,11) model with time-varying autoregressive parameter, we find that inflation persistence has fallen markedly since the third stage of the EMU began in January 1999 and inflation no longer exhibits unit-root behaviour.     

Forecasting industrial production in the Euro area

The creation of the Euro area has increased the importance of obtaining timely information about short-term changes in the area's real activity. In this paper we propose a number of alternative short term forecasting models, ranging from simple ARIMA models to more complex cointegrated VAR and conditional models, to forecast the index of industrial production in the euro area. A conditional error-correction model in which the aggregate index of industrial production for the area is explained by the US industrial production index and the business confidence index from the European Commission harmonised survey on manufacturing firms achieves the best score in terms of forecasting capacity. First version received: Jan. 2000/Final version received: March 2000     

Euro area inflation persistence

This paper presents evidence on the lag between monetary policy actions and the response of inflation in the euro area as a whole as well as in some of its core countries, notably Germany, Italy and France. In line with previous findings for the US and the UK, results here show that it takes over a year before monetary policy actions have their maximum effect on inflation both in the euro area and in individual countries and that a lag of this length has existed in Europe at least since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, despite the numerous changes in European monetary policy regime thereafter. Results based on alternative definitions of inflation persistence support these findings and indicate, if any, that transmission lags could be in fact much longer for individual countries and the euro area as a whole, although, at the country level, there is strong evidence over time of a drop in German inflation persistence and a sizeable shift in the mean of inflation – particularly in Italy and France. An examination based on results from this paper reveals that euro area inflation persistence could well be an intrinsic phenomenon rather than a ‘statistical fluke’ due to aggregation.This research was conducted during my visit at the European Central Bank Directorate Research, as part of the Research Visitor Programme. I would like to thank Anna Maria Agresti for providing individual country data from the macroeconomic database of the Monetary Transmission Network; Alistair Dieppe for providing data from the ECB area-wide model dataset; and Michele Manna for supplying me with the area-wide M3 data for the period 1970–1980. I thank Gabriel Fagan, Frank Smets, Ignazio Angeloni, Vítor Gaspar, Michael Ehrmann, Guenter Coenen, Oreste Tristani, Tommaso Monacelli, Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe and Gerhard Ruenstler for helpful discussions during my stay at the ECB. I would also like to thank seminar participants at the ECB for their input and I am very grateful to Jeffrey Fuhrer, Edward Nelson and Kenneth West, Bernd Fitzenberger and two anonymous referees for comments on an earlier draft. Any errors and omissions are mine. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the International Monetary Fund, its Executive Board, or its management     

Inflation surprises and inflation expectations in the Euro area

In the second half of 2012, euro area inflation started declining and reached historical lows at the end of 2014. Market-based measures of inflation expectations also declined to unprecedented levels. During this disinflationary period, inflation releases have often surprised analysts on the downside. We provide evidence that inflation ‘surprises’ have significant effects on inflation expectations. The sensitivity of inflation expectations to the surprises, which has varied over time, disappeared after the introduction of the Asset Purchase Programme by the European Central Bank.     

Functional income distribution and aggregate demand in the Euro area

An increase in the wage share has contradictory effects on thesubaggregates of aggregate demand. Private consumption expendituresought to increase because wage incomes typically are associatedwith higher consumption propensities than capital incomes. Investmentexpenditures ought to be negatively affected because investmentwill positively depend on profits. Net exports will be negativelyaffected because an increase in the wage share corresponds toan increase in unit labour costs and thus a loss in competitiveness.Therefore, theoretically, aggregate demand can be either wage-ledor profit-led depending on how these effects add up. The resultswill crucially depend on how open the economy is internationally.The paper estimates a post-Kaleckian macro model incorporatingthese effects for the Euro area and finds that the Euro areais presently in a wage-led demand regime. Implications for wagepolicies are discussed.     

Monetary transmission mechanism and time variation in the Euro area

This paper examines the monetary transmission mechanism in the Euro area (EA) for the period of single monetary policy using factor-augmented vector autoregressive (FAVAR) techniques. The aims of the paper are threefold. First, a novel dataset consisting of 120 disaggregated macroeconomic time series spanning the period 1999:M1 through 2011:M12 is gathered for the EA as an aggregate. Second, a Bayesian joint estimation technique of the FAVAR approach is applied to the European data in order to investigate the impacts of monetary policy shocks on the economy. Third, time variation in the transmission mechanism and the impact of the global financial crisis are investigated in the FAVAR context using a rolling windows technique. We find that there are considerable gains from the implementation of the Bayesian technique such as smoother impulse response functions and statistical significance of the estimates. According to our rolling estimations, consumer prices and monetary aggregates display the most time-variant responses to the monetary policy shocks in the EA.     

Shadow short rate and monetary policy in the Euro area

Empirical modelling of the monetary policy effects using conventional linear econometric models is put to a great test when interest rates approach the zero-lower bound. A possible remedy recently proposed in the literature is to introduce a shadow short rate (SSR) obtained from the yield curve model as an alternative monetary policy measure. This paper examines the usefulness of shadow rates as a policy stance measure for the Euro area. Moreover, the SSR can be used to study the country-specific monetary policy stance. We incorporate the shadow short rate in a standard vector autoregressive analysis to study the effects of monetary policy shocks both at the level of the Euro area and for two periphery EA countries, Italy and Spain, that endured significant financial stress during the crisis. Our analysis shows that monetary policy shocks identified form the SSR produce similar macro responses as shocks identified from the standard policy rate. The Euro area shocks can directly translate to a corresponding change in the country-specific financing conditions in the periphery, whereas the reverse effect is limited. The historical decomposition of the stochastic component of the SSR series shows that the unconventional policy measures were effective in stabilising the sovereign crisis in 2011, however, their relatively limited quantity provided only a weak stimulus to the economy.     

Financial market frictions in a model of the Euro area

We build a model of the euro area incorporating financial market frictions at the level of firms and households. Entrepreneurs borrow from financial intermediaries in order to purchase business capital, in the spirit of the “financial accelerator” literature. We also introduce two types of households that differ in their degree of time preference. All households have preferences for housing services. The impatient households are faced with a collateral constraint that is a function of the value of their housing stock. Our aim is to provide a unified framework for policy analysis that emphasises financial market frictions alongside the more traditional model channels. The model is estimated by Bayesian methods using euro area aggregate data and model properties are illustrated with simulation and conditional variance and historical shock decomposition.     

Monetary transmission in Germany: Lessons for the Euro area

This study analyses the transmission of monetary policy in Germany for the EMS period in the framework of a structural vector error correction model (S-VECM).Three stable cointegration relationships are found: a money demand relation, an interest rate spread and a stationary real interest rate. Based on both contemporaneous and long-run restrictions, five structural shocks to the economy are identified. In contrast to analyses for the euro area, we find that output and inflation are not independent in the long run for Germany. In accordance with results previously found for Europe, we do not find strong support for monetary targeting for Germany. Our analysis indicates that uncertainties remain concerning the controllability of money and its usefulness as a leading indicator with respect to inflation. Stability of the money demand relationship does not seem to be problematic.Jel classification:C32, C52, E41, E43, E52We would like to thank Jörg Breitung, Bertrand Candelon, Peter van Els, Carsten Folkertsma, Helmut Lütkepohl, Dieter Nautz, Hans-Eggert Reimers, Nikolaus Siegfried and Jürgen Wolters, two anonymous referees as well as participants of the 8th World Congress of the Econometric Society in Seattle and the Annual Meeting of the Verein für Sozialpolitik in Berlin for helpful comments. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the European Central Bank or De Nederlandsche Bank.Both authors were working at the research department of De Nederlandsche Bank at the time of writing.First revision received: April 2002/Final revision received: January 2003     

A persistence-weighted measure of core inflation in the Euro area

We propose a new core inflation measure for the Euro area which places the emphasis on the more lasting, i.e. persistent, price developments at a disaggregated level. The importance of each component of the HICP is reweighted according to its relative persistence, as measured by the sum of the autoregressive coefficients or by an indicator of mean reversion. Unlike headline inflation, our baseline core inflation measure is highly correlated with ECB monetary policy decisions, which could mean that they contain ex ante (pre monetary policy) information on inflationary pressure.     

Inflation persistence in the Euro area before and after the European Monetary Union

This paper provides new evidence on inflation persistence before and after the European Monetary Union (EMU). Taking into account fractional integration of inflation, we confirm that inflation dynamics differed considerably across Euro area countries before the start of EMU. Since 1999, however, results obtained from panel estimation indicate that the degree of long run inflation persistence has converged. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that the persistence of inflation has significantly decreased in the Euro area, probably as a result of the more effective monetary policy of the ECB.     

Macroeconomic forecasting in the Euro area: Country specific versus area-wide information

This paper compares several time series methods for short-run forecasting of Euro-wide inflation and real activity using data from 1982 to 1997. Forecasts are constructed from univariate autoregressions, vector autoregressions, single equation models that include Euro-wide and US aggregates, and large-model methods in which forecasts are based on estimates of common dynamic factors. Aggregate Euro-wide forecasts are constructed from models that utilize only aggregate Euro-wide variables and by aggregating country-specific models. The results suggest that forecasts constructed by aggregating the country-specific models are more accurate than forecasts constructed using the aggregate data.     

Comparing new Keynesian models in the Euro area: a Bayesian approach

This paper estimates and compares four versions of the sticky price New Keynesian model for the Euro area using a Bayesian approach. We find that the average duration of price contracts is between two and four quarters, while the average duration of wage contracts is estimated to be below two quarters. Both mechanisms of price and wage indexation are not important when autocorrelated price markup shocks are introduced in the model. These results are in stark contrast to Smets and Wouters (2003): when we use their priors, our estimated posterior distributions are similar to theirs, but the models’ fit to the data is worse. We are thankful to the Econometric Modelling Unit at the European Central Bank for providing us with the Euro area data. We also thank two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona (“la Caixa”).     

An alternative method for identifying booms and busts in the Euro area housing market

This article develops a model-based method to detect booms and busts in the Euro area housing market. A model is constructed and tested, whereby the user cost rate, a demographic variable, unemployment rate, disposable income, debt-to-income ratio and housing stock are fundamental variables significantly explaining house price (HP) developments. Booms/busts are identified as episodes when the HP index exceeds the levels implied by those economic fundamentals. Furthermore, a cross-check with boom/bust episodes based on other methods is carried out to substantiate the results, while the ability of the model in predicting booms/busts in real time is also tested.     

Fiscal devaluation and real exchange rates in the Euro area: Some econometric insights

We explore whether a fiscal devaluation, that is, a reduction in employers’ social security contributions and an increase in value added tax, affects two indicators of bilateral real exchange rates in the euro area: one based on unit labor costs, and another based on consumer prices. We find that, in the short term, cuts in employers’ contributions depreciate real exchange rates based on unit labor costs, while value added tax hikes appreciate real exchange rates based on consumer prices. In the long run, a value added tax increase also appreciates the real exchange rates based on unit labor costs.     

A composite leading indicator of the inflation cycle for the Euro area

We evaluate the performance of composite leading indicators of turning points of inflation in the Euro area, constructed by combining the techniques of Fourier analysis and Kalman filters with the National Bureau of Economic Research methodology. In addition, the study compares the empirical performance of Euro Simple Sum and Divisia monetary aggregates and provides a tentative answer to the issue of whether or not the UK should join the Euro area. Our findings suggest that, first, the cyclical pattern of the different composite leading indicators very closely reflect that of the inflation cycle for the Euro area; second, the empirical performance of the Euro Divisia is better than its Simple Sum counterpart and third, the UK is better out of the Euro area.     

Combining country-specific forecasts when forecasting Euro area macroeconomic aggregates

European Monetary Union member countries’ forecasts are often combined to obtain the forecasts of the Euro area macroeconomic aggregate variables. The aggregation weights which are used to produce the aggregates are often considered as combination weights. This paper investigates whether using different combination weights instead of the usual aggregation weights can help to provide more accurate forecasts. In this context, we examine the performance of equal weights, the least squares estimators of the weights, the combination method recently proposed by Hyndman et al.  (Comput Stat Data Anal 55(9):2579–2589, 2011) and the weights suggested by shrinkage methods. We find that some variables like real GDP and the GDP deflator can be forecasted more precisely by using flexible combination weights. Furthermore, combining only forecasts of the three largest European countries helps to improve the forecasting performance. The persistence of the individual series seems to play an important role for the relative performance of the combination.