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Jaime Martínez-Martin

15 September 2016
OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 178
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Abstract
Global trade has been exceptionally weak over the past four years. While global trade grew at approximately twice the rate of GDP prior to the Great Recession, the ratio of global trade to GDP growth has declined to about unity since 2012. This paper assesses to what extent the change in the relationship between global trade and global economic activity is a temporary phenomenon or constitutes a lasting change. It finds that global trade growth has been primarily dampened by two factors. First, compositional factors, including geographical shifts in economic activity and changes in the composition of aggregate demand, have weighed on the sensitivity of trade to economic activity. Second, structural developments, such as waning growth in global value chains, a rise in non-tariff protectionist measures and a declining marginal impact of financial deepening, are dampening the support from factors that boosted global trade in the past. Notwithstanding the particularly pronounced weakness in 2015 that is assessed to be mostly a temporary phenomenon owing to a number of country-specific adverse shocks, the upside potential for trade over the medium term appears to be limited. The
JEL Code
F10 : International Economics→Trade→General
F13 : International Economics→Trade→Trade Policy, International Trade Organizations
F14 : International Economics→Trade→Empirical Studies of Trade
F15 : International Economics→Trade→Economic Integration
9 August 2018
ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOX
Economic Bulletin Issue 5, 2018
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Abstract
The degree of business cycle synchronisation, both across the euro area countries as well as between the euro area and the rest of the world, is a pertinent research question. Regarding the euro area, the endogenous optimal currency area (OCA) hypothesis suggests that the degree of business cycle synchronisation among the participating countries should increase over time as a result of deepening financial and trade integration. Individual countries should thus become less exposed to idiosyncratic shocks, facilitating the effectiveness of the single monetary policy. Against this background, this box presents and analyses several measures of business cycle synchronisation both within the euro area as well as from a global perspective.
JEL Code
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
21 December 2018
ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOX
Economic Bulletin Issue 8, 2018
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Abstract
Growth in economic activity has moderated significantly in the euro area since the end of 2017. Indeed, quarter-on-quarter GDP growth in the euro area fell to 0.2% in the third quarter of 2018, down from 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2017. This box assesses the factors which are contributing to that slowdown and looks at whether it should be considered a surprise. In particular, it looks at whether the underlying factors are temporary or of a more permanent nature, whether they have originated within the euro area or externally, and whether the slowdown has been driven by a weakness in demand or a tightening of supply conditions.
JEL Code
E20 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→General
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
3 December 2019
WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2335
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Abstract
The post-crisis environment has posed important challenges to standard forecasting models. In this paper, we exploit several combinations of a large-scale DSGE structural model with standard reduced-form methods such as (B)VAR (i.e. DSGE-VAR and Augmented-(B)VARDSGE methods) and assess their use for forecasting the Spanish economy. Our empirical findings suggest that: (i) the DSGE model underestimates growth of real variables due to its mean reverting properties in the context of a sample that is difficult to deal with; (ii) in spite of this, reduced-form VARs benefit from the imposition of an economic prior from the structural model; and (iii) pooling information in the form of variables extracted from the structural model with (B)VAR methods does not give rise to any relevant gain in terms of forecasting accuracy.
JEL Code
C54 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Quantitative Policy Modeling
E37 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
F3 : International Economics→International Finance
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics
25 March 2020
WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2383
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Abstract
This paper decomposes the time-varying effect of exogenous exchange rate shocks on euro area countries inflation into country-specific (idiosyncratic) and region-wide (common) components. To do so, we propose a flexible empirical framework based on dynamic factor models subject to drifting parameters and exogenous information. We show that exogenous shocks to the EUR/USD exchange rate account for over 50% of nominal EUR/USD exchange rate fluctuations in more than a third of the quarters of the past six years, especially in turning point periods. Our main results indicate that headline inflation in euro area countries, and in particular its energy component, has become significantly more affected by these exogenous exchange rate shocks since the early 2010s, in particular for the region's largest economies. While in the case of headline inflation this increasing sensitivity is solely reliant on a sustained surge in the degree of comovement, for energy inflation it is also based on a higher region-wide effect of the shocks. By contrast, purely exogenous exchange rate shocks do not seem to have a significant impact on the core component of headline inflation, which also displays a lower degree of comovement across euro area countries.
JEL Code
C32 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Time-Series Models, Dynamic Quantile Regressions, Dynamic Treatment Effect Models, Diffusion Processes
E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
F31 : International Economics→International Finance→Foreign Exchange
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics