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Shocks, structures or monetary policies? The euro area and US after 2001

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Author Info
Lawrence Christiano () (Northwestern University and National Bureau of Economic Research. Mailing address: Department of Economics, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.)
Roberto Motto () (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, D-60311, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.)
Massimo Rostagno () (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, D-60311, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.)

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Abstract

The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates more vigorously in the recent recession than the European Central Bank did. By comparison with the Fed, the ECB followed a more measured course of action. We use an estimated dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions to show that comparisons based on such simple metrics as the variance of policy rates are misleading. We find that - because there is greater inertia in the ECB’s policy rule - the ECB’s policy actions actually had a greater stabilizing effect than did those of the Fed. As a consequence, a potentially severe recession turned out to be only a slowdown, and inflation never departed from levels consistent with the ECB’s quantitative definition of price stability. Other factors that account for the different economic outcomes in the Euro Area and US include differences in shocks and differences in the degree of wage and price flexibility. JEL Classification: C51, E52, E58.

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Paper provided by European Central Bank in its series Working Paper Series with number 774.

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Length: 49 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2007
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Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20070774

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Related research
Keywords: Policy activism; DSGEmodel; policy inertia; shocks.;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Woodford, Michael, 1999. "Optimal Monetary Policy Inertia," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 67(0), pages 1-35, Supplemen. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Carlstrom, Charles T & Fuerst, Timothy S, 1997. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 893-910, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Christiano, Lawrence J, 2002. "Solving Dynamic Equilibrium Models by a Method of Undetermined Coefficients," Computational Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1-2), pages 21-55, October. [Downloadable!]
  5. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2003. "The excess sensitivity of long-term interest rates: evidence and implications for macroeconomic models," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Frank Schorfheide, 2005. "Learning and Monetary Policy Shifts," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 392-419, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "Current Real-Business-Cycle Theories and Aggregate Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 430-50, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Lawrence J. Christiano & Roberto Motto & Massimo Rostagno, 2003. "The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 1119-1215.
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  9. Fisher, Jonas D M, 1999. "Credit Market Imperfections and the Heterogeneous Response of Firms to Monetary Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(2), pages 187-211, May.
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  10. Erceg, Christopher J. & Henderson, Dale W. & Levin, Andrew T., 2000. "Optimal monetary policy with staggered wage and price contracts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 281-313, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Jean-Guillaume Sahuc & Frank Smets, 2008. "Differences in Interest Rate Policy at the ECB and the Fed: An Investigation with a Medium-Scale DSGE Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2-3), pages 505-521, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1999. "Interest Rate Rules in an Estimated Sticky Price Model," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 57-126 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Adolfson, Malin & Laseen, Stefan & Linde, Jesper & Villani, Mattias, 2007. "Bayesian estimation of an open economy DSGE model with incomplete pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 481-511, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2005. "The Sensitivity of Long-Term Interest Rates to Economic News: Evidence and Implications for Macroeconomic Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 425-436, March. [Downloadable!]
  16. Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Interest-Rate Smoothing," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 70(4), pages 861-886, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. V. V. Chari & Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum, 1994. "Inside money, outside money and short-term interest rates," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 1354-1401.
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  18. Lars E.O. Svensson & Stefan Gerlach, 2001. "Money and inflation in the Euro Area: A case for monetary indicators?," BIS Working Papers 98, Bank for International Settlements. [Downloadable!]
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  19. Gabriel Fagan & Jérôme Henry & Ricardo Mestre, 2001. "An area-wide model (AWM) for the euro area," Working Paper Series 42, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  20. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Luigi Landolfo, 2007. "Modeling the impact of external factors on the euro area’s HICP and real economy - a focus on pass-through and the trade balance," Working Paper Series 789, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  2. Ippei Fujiwara & Yuki Teranishi, 2008. "Real Exchange Rate Dynamics under Staggered Loan Contracts," IMES Discussion Paper Series 08-E-11, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan. [Downloadable!]
  3. Ichiro Fukunaga & Masashi Saito, 2009. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy," IMES Discussion Paper Series 09-E-21, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan. [Downloadable!]
  4. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni & Benoît Mojon, 2008. "How Has the Euro Changed the Monetary Transmission?," NBER Working Papers 14190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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