We document five facts about the distributional income effects of monetary policy shocks using Swedish administrative individual-level data. (i) The effects of monetary policy shocks are U shaped over the income distribution—that is, expansionary shocks increase the incomes of high- and low-income individuals relative to middle-income individuals. (ii) The large effects in the bottom are accounted for by the labor-income response and (iii) those in the top by the capital-income response. (iv) The heterogeneity in the labor-income response is due to the earnings heterogeneity channel, whereas (v) that in the capital-income response is due to the income composition channel. (JEL D31, E32, E52, J31)

We use Swedish administrative individual-level data to document five facts about the distributional income effects of monetary policy. (i) The effects of monetary policy shocks are Ushaped with respect to the income distribution-i.e., expansionary shocks increase the incomes of high-and low-income individuals relative to middle-income individuals. (ii) The large effects in the bottom are accounted for by the labor-income response and (iii) those in the top by the capital-income response. (iv) The heterogeneity in the labor-income response is due to the earnings heterogeneity channel, whereas (v) that in the capital-income response is due to the income composition channel.

This paper aims at empirically assessing the effect of the adoption of the euro on the ability of euro area member states to smooth consumption and share risk. With the objective of evaluating the economic performance of euro area countries in the scenario where the euro had not been adopted, we construct a counterfactual dataset of macroeconomic variables via the Synthetic Control Method. In order to get some preliminary measures of risk sharing, we first compute bilateral consumption correlations and Brandt-Cochrane-Santa Clara Indexes across euro area member states. We then decompose risk sharing in different channels by means of the Asdrubali, Sorensen and Yosha (1996) output decomposition. Our preliminary measures and our decomposition of risk sharing are computed with both actual and synthetic data so as to identify whether there has been any effect of the adoption of the euro on risk sharing and through which channels it has occurred. We find that the euro has not affected the level of risk sharing across euro area countries, but has partially reduced the ability of member states to smooth consumption. We attribute this change to the higher GDP growth generated by the adoption of the euro, which has been accompanied by a greater output volatility. We also report differential effects for core and periphery countries, showing that the former have not suffered any negative effects from the adoption of the euro in terms of risk sharing.

This paper focuses on the debt build-up that frontier low-income developing countries (LIDCs) have faced since 2012. First, it documents a 20-percentage point increase in the external and government debt-to-GDP ratios, a composition shift toward higher nonconcessional debt, and a rise in interest rate payments. Second, using panel regressions, it shows that while both global and country-specific factors are correlated with debt-to-GDP ratios over 1998-2016, global factors dominate for the period 2012-16. Third, through a small open-economy model, it shows that the projected tightening in global financial conditions would reduce debt-to-GDP ratios by less than the increase associated with the expected rise in investment.

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