Monetary Shocks, Inflation and the Asymmetric Adjustment of EU Output

Empirical studies have suggested that price rigidities ensure that real output responds asymmetrically to monetary shocks. Models advanced by Tsiddon and Ball and Mankiw argue that the degree of asymmetry to demand shocks is sensitive to inflation. This study tests whether this is the case for a sample of EU economies. Maximum likelihood estimation offers confirmation of output asymmetry in the cases of Germany and Italy but no such evidence in France and the UK.