IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17950.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monetary Policy in Currency Unions with Unequal Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Boehnert, Lukas

    (University of Oxford)

  • de Ferra, Sergio

    (University of Oxford)

  • Mitman, Kurt

    (Stockholm University)

  • Romei, Federica

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

We investigate how the composition of expenditure shapes the transmission of monetary policy in a currency union. European Monetary Union data reveal three facts: (1) higher inequality countries have larger service expenditure shares; (2) monetary policy has a weaker output impact in these high-service-share, high-inequality countries; and (3) monetary policy induces systematic trade flows between high- and low-service-share countries. We develop a New Keynesian model with non-homothetic preferences and heterogeneous sectoral income that rationalizes these facts. Pro-cyclical inequality, driven by wealthier households' greater income exposure to services, buffers poorer households' consumption to contractionary shocks, dampening overall policy transmission. Our findings suggest that accounting for cross-country differences in consumption and income distributions is essential for understanding common monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Boehnert, Lukas & de Ferra, Sergio & Mitman, Kurt & Romei, Federica, 2025. "Monetary Policy in Currency Unions with Unequal Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 17950, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17950
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17950.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davide Debortoli & Jordi Galí, 2024. "Heterogeneity and Aggregate Fluctuations: Insights from TANK Models," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2024, volume 39, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Bayer, Christian & Kriwoluzky, Alexander & Müller, Gernot J. & Seyrich, Fabian, 2024. "A HANK2 model of monetary unions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(S).
    3. Timo Boppart, 2014. "Structural Change and the Kaldor Facts in a Growth Model With Relative Price Effects and Non‐Gorman Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2167-2196, November.
    4. Greg Kaplan & Benjamin Moll & Giovanni L. Violante, 2018. "Monetary Policy According to HANK," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(3), pages 697-743, March.
    5. Dirk Krueger & Fabrizio Perri & Luigi Pistaferri & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "Cross Sectional Facts for Macroeconomists," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, January.
    6. Erwan Gautier & Cristina Conflitti & Riemer P. Faber & Brian Fabo & Ludmila Fadejeva & Valentin Jouvanceau & Jan-Oliver Menz & Teresa Messner & Pavlos Petroulas & Pau Roldan-Blanco & Fabio Rumler & Se, 2024. "New Facts on Consumer Price Rigidity in the Euro Area," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 386-431, October.
    7. Sushant Acharya & Keshav Dogra, 2020. "Understanding HANK: Insights From a PRANK," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 1113-1158, May.
    8. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    9. Xing Guo & Pablo Ottonello & Diego J. Perez, 2023. "Monetary Policy and Redistribution in Open Economies," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 191-241.
    10. Rafael Guntin & Pablo Ottonello & Diego J. Perez, 2023. "The Micro Anatomy of Macro Consumption Adjustments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(8), pages 2201-2231, August.
    11. Marek Jarociński & Peter Karadi, 2020. "Deconstructing Monetary Policy Surprises—The Role of Information Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 1-43, April.
    12. de Ferra, Sergio & Romei, Federica & Mitman, Kurt, 2021. "Why Does Capital Flow from Equal to Unequal Countries?," CEPR Discussion Papers 15647, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Piyabha Kongsamut & Sergio Rebelo & Danyang Xie, 2001. "Beyond Balanced Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(4), pages 869-882.
    14. Luis J. Álvarez & Emmanuel Dhyne & Marco Hoeberichts & Claudia Kwapil & Hervé Le Bihan & Patrick Lünnemann & Fernando Martins & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl & Philip Vermeulen & Jouko Vilmunen, 2006. "Sticky Prices in the Euro Area: A Summary of New Micro-Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 575-584, 04-05.
    15. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762, September.
    16. de Ferra, Sergio & Mitman, Kurt & Romei, Federica, 2020. "Household heterogeneity and the transmission of foreign shocks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Cravino, Javier & Lan, Ting & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2020. "Price stickiness along the income distribution and the effects of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 19-32.
    18. Auclert, Adrien & Rognlie, Matthew & Souchier, Martin & Straub, Ludwig, 2021. "Exchange Rates and Monetary Policy with Heterogeneous Agents: Sizing up the Real Income Channel," CEPR Discussion Papers 16198, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Ferriere, Axelle & Grübener, Philipp & Sachs, Dominik, 2024. "Optimal Redistribution: Rising Inequality vs. Rising Living Standards," CEPR Discussion Papers 19107, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Oskolkov, Aleksei, 2023. "Exchange rate policy and heterogeneity in small open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    21. Mattias Almgren & José-Elías Gallegos & John Kramer & Ricardo Lima, 2022. "Monetary Policy and Liquidity Constraints: Evidence from the Euro Area," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 309-340, October.
    22. Nils Gornemann & Keith Kuester & Makoto Nakajima, 2021. "Doves for the Rich, Hawks for the Poor? Distributional Consequences of Systematic Monetary Policy," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 089, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    23. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    24. Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2018. "Government Spending Multipliers in Good Times and in Bad: Evidence from US Historical Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 850-901.
    25. José Luis Montiel Olea & Mikkel Plagborg‐Møller, 2021. "Local Projection Inference Is Simpler and More Robust Than You Think," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(4), pages 1789-1823, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marco Bellifemine & Adrien Couturier & Rustam Jamilov, 2022. "The Regional Keynesian Cross," Economics Series Working Papers 995, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Hong, Seungki, 2023. "MPCs in an emerging economy: Evidence from Peru," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    3. Javier Bianchi & Louphou Coulibaly, 2021. "Liquidity Traps, Prudential Policies, and International Spillovers," Working Papers 780, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Asger Lau Andersen & Niels Johannesen & Mia Jørgensen & José-Luis Peydró, 2020. "Monetary policy and inequality," Economics Working Papers 1761, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2021.
    5. Bu, Chunya & Rogers, John & Wu, Wenbin, 2021. "A unified measure of Fed monetary policy shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 331-349.
    6. Oskolkov, Aleksei, 2023. "Exchange rate policy and heterogeneity in small open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    7. Marco Bellifemine & Adrien Couturier & Rustam Jamilov, 2023. "The Regional Keynesian Cross," Discussion Papers 2311, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    8. Eunseong Ma, 2023. "Monetary Policy And Inequality: How Does One Affect The Other?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(2), pages 691-725, May.
    9. Jaanika Meriküll & Matthias Rottner, 2025. "Monetary policy and earnings inequality: inflation dependencies," BIS Working Papers 1271, Bank for International Settlements.
    10. Rodolfo G. Campos & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Galo Nuño & Peter Paz, 2024. "Navigating by Falling Stars: Monetary Policy with Fiscally Driven Natural Rates," NBER Working Papers 32219, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Ampudia, Miguel & Ehrmann, Michael & Strasser, Georg, 2023. "The effect of monetary policy on inflation heterogeneity along the income distribution," Working Paper Series 2858, European Central Bank.
    12. Adrien Auclert & Matthew Rognlie & Ludwig Straub, 2024. "The Intertemporal Keynesian Cross," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(12), pages 4068-4121.
    13. Gulyas, Andreas & Meier, Matthias & Ryzhenkov, Mykola, 2024. "Labor market effects of monetary policy across workers and firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    14. Axelle Ferriere & Gaston Navarro, 2025. "The Heterogeneous Effects of Government Spending: It’s All About Taxes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(2), pages 1061-1125.
    15. Jordà, Òscar & Schularick, Moritz & Taylor, Alan M., 2020. "The effects of quasi-random monetary experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 22-40.
    16. Anna Samarina & Anh D.M. Nguyen, 2024. "Does Monetary Policy Affect Income Inequality in the Euro Area?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(1), pages 35-80, February.
    17. Bilbiie, Florin O. & Monacelli, Tommaso & Perotti, Roberto, 2024. "Stabilization vs. Redistribution: The optimal monetary–fiscal mix," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(S).
    18. Paweł Kopiec, 2022. "A Theory of The Procyclical Effectiveness of Forward Guidance," KAE Working Papers 2022-081, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    19. Anna Samarina & Anh D.M. Nguyen, 2019. "Does monetary policy affect income inequality in the euro area?," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 61, Bank of Lithuania.
    20. Paul Hubert & Frédérique Savignac, 2023. "Monetary Policy and Labor Income Inequality: the Role of Extensive and Intensive Margins," Working Papers hal-04524715, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17950. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.