Pasquale Foresti

On keynesian effects of (apparent) non-keynesian fiscal policies

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the robustness of the theory that claims for restrictive effects of expansionary fiscal policy. It shows that such socalled “non-Keynesian effects” may arise as a consequence of a synchronous and opposite monetary policy intervention. The paper demonstrate this conclusion through a stylized model – supported by an empirical investigation on ECB and FED reaction functions - in which Central Banks take into account deficit spending as an element that generate inflation expectations. The econometric analysis shows also that the ECB reacts asymmetrically to deficit spending variations while the FED has a linear reaction to this indicator.

Modelling long-run money demand: a panel data analysis on nine developed economies

In this article, we investigate the presence of a long-run money demand in a selected group of nine developed OECD countries (G7 plus Australia and Switzerland). Our estimations are based on panel DOLS and between-dimension group-mean panel DOLS introduced by Mark and Sul (2003) and Pedroni (2001), respectively. We employ income and wealth as alternative scale variables to model two money demand functions using quarterly data for the period 1982 to 2008. Our results highlight the role of total wealth in the determination of money demand with a positive elasticity. Moreover, a parameter stability analysis suggests that estimated money demand with the inclusion of wealth is more stable.

Macroeconomic dynamics in four selected new member states of the EU

In this paper, we employ a block structured near-vector autoregression in order to compare the reactions to euro-area shocks in four New Member States (Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Romania) and in the Old Member State of the EU. Thanks to the methodology adopted we also study the effects of national economic policies and their reactions to national shocks in each New Member State. Our analysis highlights that possible asymmetric effects of the ECBs monetary policy cannot be excluded and that the potential accession of the New Member States may increase the level of fiscal indiscipline in the eurozone.

Updating the Evidence on Risk-Sharing through the Cross-Ownership of Assets in the Euro-Area

Abstract Risk-sharing is a crucial issue in order to evaluate the performance of a monetary union. By implementing conventional econometric techniques, this paper intends to estimate the degree of risk-sharing through the cross-ownership of assets within 11 European countries in the period 1971–2014. We show that risk-sharing has been increasing after the launch of the euro due to increased cross-ownership of assets. Nevertheless, we also show that despite the extreme needs for adjustment mechanisms as a reaction to asymmetric shocks in the EMU during the crises, the estimated market risk-sharing mechanism seems to have remained marginal in this period. We also show that the degree of asymmetry (potential benefits from risk-sharing) has declined with the start of the EMU, but it has sharply increased during the crises period. This implies that EMU countries have needed good functioning risk-sharing mechanisms during the crisis, while in this period their estimated performance does not seem to have improved. We interpret these results as the evidence of a missing element of the EMU that forced governments to intervene by means of fiscal policy to tackle the imbalances deriving from the financial crisis. Therefore, we conclude that the weakness in the risk-sharing has been one of the channels that allowed the global financial crisis to mutate in a sovereign debt crisis in the EMU.