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Empirical Essays on Monetary Policy

This dissertation is divided into four essays, each of them having its own structure and
methodological framework. Although each of the essays making the chapters of the thesis is
self-contained, their topics are very closely related. Consequently, the reader will be able to
follow the thesis in its unity.
The four essays are empirical and address some relevant issues from monetary economics and
policy. In first three essays we aim at the way central banks sets their policy rates, which is
usually described by central bank’s reaction function or a monetary policy rule (Taylor,
1993), and in the fourth one, we look at the inflation dynamics and the New Keynesian (NK)
Phillips Curve (Galí and Gertler, 1999). In the first three papers, we look at different issues
related to policy rules such as their nonlinearities, evolution across time, the intensity of
interest rate response to inflation, degree of policy inertia as well as how policy changes when
it is faced by financial stress.
The monetary policy rule and the NK Phillips Curve became key elements of the NK policy
model (e.g. Galí, 2008), which is at present the most influential theoretic framework for
analysis of macroeconomic dynamics and monetary policy both in academia and among
monetary policy makers. Dynamics Stochastic General Equlibrium models (DSGE), which
are the main analytic tools within most central banks (e.g. Area-Wide model of the European
Central Bank), are inspired by the NK models. While the traditional Keynesian literature
assumed sticky prices and wages in the short-term, it was unable to provide their satisfactory
microeconomic explanations. The NK model enriched the original Keynesian literature by
microeconomic foundations but at the same time by some important elements such as rational
expectations and vertical long-term Phillips curve incompatible with the Keynesian tradition.
Price rigidities (both nominal and real), which are result of imperfect competition, enable that
monetary policy has impact on real variables in the short term. Such view on monetary policy
is quite paradoxically close to monetarism but quite distant from other current
macroeconomic branches such as Real Business Cycle Theory or Post-Keynesianism that cast
doubt on the ability of monetary policy to affect real economy (Snowdon and Vane, 2005). In
spite of the popularity of NK models, the empirical evidence goes behind the theory. The
purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the empirics of the NK model.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TDX_UAB/oai:www.tdx.cat:10803/48715
Date17 January 2011
CreatorsVasicek, Borek
ContributorsGambetti, Luca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia Aplicada
PublisherUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Source SetsUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Format174 p., application/pdf
SourceTDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa)
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, ADVERTIMENT. L'accés als continguts d'aquesta tesi doctoral i la seva utilització ha de respectar els drets de la persona autora. Pot ser utilitzada per a consulta o estudi personal, així com en activitats o materials d'investigació i docència en els termes establerts a l'art. 32 del Text Refós de la Llei de Propietat Intel·lectual (RDL 1/1996). Per altres utilitzacions es requereix l'autorització prèvia i expressa de la persona autora. En qualsevol cas, en la utilització dels seus continguts caldrà indicar de forma clara el nom i cognoms de la persona autora i el títol de la tesi doctoral. No s'autoritza la seva reproducció o altres formes d'explotació efectuades amb finalitats de lucre ni la seva comunicació pública des d'un lloc aliè al servei TDX. Tampoc s'autoritza la presentació del seu contingut en una finestra o marc aliè a TDX (framing). Aquesta reserva de drets afecta tant als continguts de la tesi com als seus resums i índexs.

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