Volume 69, Issue 2 - Special Issue: 12th Workshop on Macroeconomics & Business Cycles Research 26th/27th January 2018 at the ifo Institute, Dresden

This study investigates the impact of the economic crisis in the late 2000s and early 2010s on European inflation dynamics using a hybrid New-Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) during three distinct periods. The pre-crisis period from 1999 through mid-2007, the crisis period until August 2012, and finally the “Whatever-It-Takes”-period after the remark by ECB president Mario Draghi. The structural hybrid NKPC is estimated for six countries of the Euro area (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and Austria) and for each of the three periods. The crisis and the subsequent reaction of the ECB both seem to have had a profound impact on the dynamics, as estimated parameters differ markedly between the periods. A discussion and interpretation of the results is provided.

Using a novel dataset, I quantify the magnitude of the EU-27 countries’ output gap revisions in 2002–2014, and study the implications of this uncertainty for the optimal fiscal policy with a DSGE model. I find that taking into account the output gap uncertainty (i.e. the difficulty to distinguish between cyclical and trend shocks in real time) has large implications for both the net lending and fiscal policy. In the median EU country, the primary net lending turns mildly countercyclical; a feature that is consistent with the data, but contrasts with the procyclical net lending under the full output gap information. The optimal fiscal policy, as measured by the changes in the cyclically-adjusted budget balance (CAB), is cautious and turns from strongly to weakly countercyclical because of the uncertainty. During fiscal crises, the CAB is allowed to deteriorate less and the adjustment of the CAB is gradual, while underestimation of the uncertainty may lead to more volatile policy. The uncertainty generates a substantial amount of cross-country heterogeneity in the dynamics of the total net lending, but not so much in the CAB-based fiscal policy.

Existing micro evidence of firms ’ price changes tends to show a downward sloping hazard rate – the longer the price of a product has remained the same, the less likely it is that the price will change. Using a panel of Norwegian plant- and product-specific prices, we also find a downward sloping hazard when applying a Kaplan–Meier model. After having controlled for both observed and unobserved characteristics, we find flat hazards with spikes in the first and twelfth months. This suggests time-dependent price-setting by at least some of the producers. The spike after 12 months might be explained by seasonal demand effects, but also by the pricing season effect related to information acquisition and processing, negotiation and signing of price contracts. The revealed price adjustment pattern is at odds with the predictions of the Calvo model, a central element in many dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, as this assumes constant frequencies of price adjustments over time. Our empirical findings instead point to a modified Calvo model where firms in some periods experience lower menu costs. Finally, the empirical findings may have implications for the effectiveness of monetary policy interventions.

This paper provides a brief review of the academic literature that assesses the quantitative importance of tax avoidance behaviour of multinational entities (MNEs) by means of income shifting from high-tax to low-tax affiliates. Existing studies unanimously report evidence in line with tax-motivated profit shifting (despite using different data sources and estimation strategies). In terms of shifting channels, there is evidence consistent with strategic mispricing of intra-firm trade, the location of valuable intellectual property at low-tax affiliates and debt-shifting activities. The quantitative estimates vary across approaches and studies though. The paper moreover stresses that some care should be warranted when interpreting profit shifting estimates as they often rely on non-trivial assumptions.