No abstract

This paper investigates the dynamic effects of common macroeconomic shocks in shaping business cycle fluctuations in a group of Euro-area countries. In particular, by using the structural (near) VAR methodology, we investigate the effect of area-wide shocks, with particular attention to monetary policy shocks. The main conclusion is that: (a) contractionary monetary policy shocks cause similar recessionary effects in all countries; (b) as far as business cycle fluctuations are concerned, there is a separation into two distinct groups of countries, with a first group including the biggest European economies in which business cycle fluctuations are mainly explained by common, area-wide shocks and a second one, including Greece, Ireland and Portugal, in which the national shocks play, instead, a much greater role.

No abstract

Structural var, Cointegration, Inflation, Unemployment, C32, E32, E31,

The aim of this study is to investigate both the short-run and long-run relationship between inflation and unemployment characterizing the US economy in the last 30 years. To this end a cointegrated structural VAR vs built. Since unemployment does not cause inflation at frequency zero a recursive structure, with inflation ordered first, allows the identification of a permanent and a transitory shock (cf. Ribba, Economics Letters 56, pp. 253–6, 1997). The main conclusions of the investigation are that: (i) in the short run, the existence of a tradeoff induced by the transitory shock is confirmed; (ii) in the long run, the two variables move one-for-one in the same direction driven by a permanent supply shock.