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Working Paper
Taxation and inflation: a new explanation for current account imbalances
In a world of mobile capital, the current system of nominal interest taxation implies that the cost of capital and the return to saving in each country are strongly and negatively correlated with the rate of inflation. It follows that a country's net foreign asset position (and its current account balance) ought to be negatively correlated with its inflation rate. The magnitude of these effects is shown to be large, both theoretically and empirically. For OECD countries, cross-sectional regressions confirm that inflation rates are good predictors of current accounts, even after controlling ...
Working Paper
Unconventional Monetary and Exchange Rate Policies
This paper explores the direct effects and spillovers of unconventional monetary and exchange rate policies. We find that official purchases of foreign assets have a large positive effect on a country's current account that diminishes considerably as capital mobility rises. There is an important additional effect through the lagged stock of official assets. Official purchases of domestic assets, or quantitative easing (QE), appear to have no significant effect on a country's current account when capital mobility is high, but there is a modest positive impact when capital mobility is low. The ...
Report
Benefits and spillovers of greater competition in Europe: a macroeconomic assessment
We estimate the macroeconomic benefits and international spillovers of an increase in competition using a general-equilibrium simulation model with nominal rigidities and monopolistic competition in product and labor markets. We draw three conclusions after calibrating the model to the euro area against the rest of the industrial world. First, greater competition produces large effects on macroeconomic performance, as measured by standard indicators. In particular, we show that differences in competition can account for more than half of the current gap in GDP per capita between the euro area ...
Working Paper
Benefits and spillovers of greater competition in Europe: a macroeconomic assessment
Using a general-equilibrium simulation model featuring nominal rigidities and monopolistic competition in product and labor markets, this paper estimates the macroeconomic benefits and international spillovers of an increase in competition. After calibrating the model to the euro area vs. the rest of the industrial world, the paper draws three conclusions. First, greater competition produces large effects on macroeconomic performance, as measured by standard indicators. In particular, we show that differences in competition can account for over half of the current gap in GDP per capita ...
