Publications

We introduce rule-of-thumb consumers in an otherwise standard dynamic sticky price model, and show how their presence can change dramatically the properties of widely used interest rate rules. In particular, the existence of a unique equilibrium is no longer guaranteed by an interest rate rule that satisfies the so called Taylor principle. Our findings call for caution when using estimates of interest rate rules in order to assess the merits of monetary policy in specific historical periods.

This paper analyses the impact of alternative measures of firms' financial health on their investment and employment decisions. The emphasis is on the analysis of disaggregated data on such financial indicators. For this purpose, itemised data from a sample of the non-financial firms reporting to the Banco de España Central Balance Sheet Data Office Annual Database for the period 1985-2001 is used. We find that corporate financial position –proxied by alternative indicators– affects business activity and that this impact is non-linear and becomes relatively more intense when financial pressure exceeds a certain threshold. We also construct, using different financial variables, composite indicators that summarize the non-linear impact that the financial position has on investment and employment. Our results suggest that the use of firm-level data is particularly relevant in episodes where the financial pressure on a significant number of firms reaches levels at which it has a pronounced influence on real activity. In these episodes, indicators based on aggregate data may not reliably reflect the system's financial soundness since they do not adequately reflect the vulnerability of the most fragile companies.

This paper estimates the response of per capita GDP growth to changes in the proportion of mature workers across countries. We define and estimate the effect of demographic maturity in two ways. First, a growing cohort of working age persons (15-64) is found to have a large positive effect on growth of GDP per capita. Second, an increase in the number of prime age workers (35-54) as a fraction of the total working age population (15-64) is found to have a positive but diminishing effect on per capita GDP growth. We find that growth peaks when the ratio of prime age workers over the potentially active population reaches 0.36. Beyond this ratio, diminishing returns set in. Several well known theoretical models of economic growth and labour market performance are consistent with these findings. In particular, the standard life-cycle framework, "Mincerian" earnings equations and personnel economic models of optimal mixes of youth and mature human capital all find confirmation in these estimates.

The paper tests whether there were events of contagion, and portfolio shift, in the sovereign bond markets of eleven emerging countries' between January 1995 and November 2001. From existing definitions, we narrow down the concept of contagion by focusing on pricing errors, after general market movements haven been taken into account with a three factor asset pricing model. We measure contagion (and portfolio shift) in terms of a causal positive (negative) dynamic co movement between sovereign bond pricing errors. Downgrades of sovereign ratings are used as proxies for a shock. We find empirical support for contagion and portfolio shift for a number of countries on the basis of our definition.

This paper investigates empirically whether there is a negative relationship between a country's risk premium and the balance sheet effect, as implied by recent theories emphasizing financial imperfections. We find evidence that balance sheet effects, stemming from the increase in the external debt service after an unexpected real depreciation, significantly raise the risk premium. We also show that the increase in the risk premium is not due to the debt service as such. While the result holds for the whole sample, we show that it is mainly driven by those countries with the largest financial imperfections, as argued by imperfect capital market theories. Particularly large real depreciations also seem to be disproportionately important, meaning that the balance sheet effects may be strongest at times of economic crisis, when large devaluations occur.

This paper analyzes the effect of the fiscal structure upon the trade-off between inflation and output stabilization in the presence of technological shocks in a DGE model with nominal and real rigidities. The model reproduces the main features of European economies and it integrates a rich menu of fiscal variables as well as a target on the debt to output ratio. The main result of this paper is that distortionary taxes tend to increase output volatility relative to lump-sum taxes unless substantial rigidities are present. We explore in detail the mechanisms that generate such a result, and the conditions under which the supply-side effects of distortionary taxes and the procyclical behaviour of public spending induced by fiscal rules prevail over the conventional effect of automatic stabilizers operating through disposable income.

This paper presents evidence that the existence of deposit and lending facilities combined with an averaging provision for the reserve requirement are powerful tools to stabilize the overnight rate. We reach this conclusion by comparing the behavior of this rate in Germany before and after the start of the EMU. The analysis of the German experience is useful because it allows to isolate the effects on the overnight rate of these particular instruments of monetary policy. To show that this outcome is a general conclusion and not a particular result of the German market, we develop a theoretical model of reserve management which is able to reproduce our empirical findings.

We estimate models of labour demand for a panel of 3,400 Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1985-2001. We examine the roles of flexible labour through temporary contracts, financial factors and a policy reform in 1997 affecting permanent contracts by lowering payroll taxes and dismissal costs. Compared to permanent employment, the demand for flexible labour displays (i) greater sensiti vity to financial factors (ii) greater cyclical sensitivity (iii) a larger average wage elasticity (iv) less inertia. Our analysis of the 1997 policy reform finds an effect of payroll taxes on employment. A 5 percentage point reduction in the payroll tax increases labour demand by 8 per cent.

This paper focuses on the effects of fiscal policy in Spain analysed in a VAR context. Fiscal shocks are found to have small, though significant, effects on GDP, private consumption, private investment, interest rates and prices. The pattern of responses and the multipliers obtained seem to accord with some recent pieces of empirical evidence in several cases, while observing some counterintuitive responses in others. Shocks to different readings of spending or taxes yield divergent profiles of responses. When the sample is restricted to the 1990s a different pattern of responses to fiscal shocks is observed, with GDP and interest rate responses being non-significant.

This paper considers the "trade-off" and "pecking order" theories, the two most influential approaches to understanding firms' capital structure decisions. The paper adopts two approaches to examining capital structures using firm-level panel data for firms in both Spain and the United Kingdom. First, debt ratios are examined and found to be decreasing in cash flow or profitability and increasing in the investment of the firm in both countries. Second, aspects of the two different financial systems are examined. In Spain, a bank-based financial system, there is some modest evidence that such effects are weaker for larger firms and for firms with equity held by financial institutions. In the United Kingdom, a market-based financial system, the propensity to issue additional debt is compared to that for issuing new equity and found to be more sensitive to financial characteristics of the firm. The results are consistent with the pecking order approach and generally inconsistent with the tradeoff approach suggesting behaviour consistent with the existence of a hierarchy of finance faced by firms in Spain and the United Kingdom.

We decompose the low-frequency movements in labour productivity into an investment-neutral and investment-specific technology component. We show that neutral technology shocks cause a short run increase in job creation and job destruction and leads to a reduction in aggregate employment. Investmentspecific technology shocks reduce job destruction, have mild effects on job creation and are expansionary. We construct a general equilibrium search model with neutral and investment-specific technological progress. We show that the model can replicate these findings if neutral technological progress is mainly embodied into new jobs, while investment-specific technological progress benefits (almost) equally old and new jobs. This provides evidence in favor of models where old jobs can (at least partially) reap the benefits of ongoing technological progress.

House prices in Spain have shown one of the biggest cumulative growth rates among the OECD countries over the past five years and, indeed, over a more extensive period. This paper focuses on analysing this development and its possible determinants. The evidence provided suggests income and nominal interest rates are pivotal explanatory factors, although equity returns may also have been influential in the final years of the sample. According to the estimated models, house prices are currently above their long-term equilibrium level by an amount not unlike other times in the past. Therefore, something of a correction –of an intensity difficult to estimate but not necessarily sharper than in past episodes– may be expected in the future.

This paper examines the dividend policies of firms in Spain. Using firm-level panel data, models are estimated for dividend omissions as functions of financial characteristics, whilst also considering a role for persistence. The results are consistent with a tax discrimination model in which cash flow is the marginal source of funds. High degrees of persistence are also found in binary panel data models that control for unobservables and initial conditions. Whilst companies in Spain use the dividend to adjust the balance sheet, such persistence suggests this occurs slowly.

In a monetary union, inflation rate differentials may be substantial over the business cycle. This paper parameterizes a two-country monetary union in which different economic structures in the two countries generate temporary inflation differentials. Cross-country differences are introduced in (i) the elasticity of demand in the goods markets, which cause producers to discriminate prices, (ii) the degree price inertia and (iii) openness or preference for foreign goods in consumption. The model is calibrated to reproduce two average big EMU countries and it is able to generate sizeable inflation differentials. We find the mechanism of price discrimination quantitatively more important than the differences in price inertia. Moreover, under asymmetric shocks, differences in the degree of openness as the ones observed within the EMU can have sizeable effects on the dispersion of inflation rates.