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This book collects results from ad hoc surveys on firms pricing behavior conducted in 2003 and 2004 by nine National central banks of the Euro area in the context of a joint research project (Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network). These surveys have proved to be an efficient way to test theories on the pricing strategies of economic agents, documenting, in qualitative terms, the underlying rationale of the observed pricing patterns. The book provides an unprecedented amount of information from more than 11,000 euro area firms, addressing issues such as the relevance of nominal and real rigidities, the information set used by firms in the price setting process, the strategy followed to review prices, the frequency of both price reviews and price changes, the reasons underlying price stickiness, and asymmetries in price adjustment. It also compares results for the euro area to those obtained for other countries by similar studies. Finally, it draws the main implications for theoretical modeling and for monetary policy.
The distributive trades sector, which is primarily accounted for by wholesale and retail trade, is not only economically important in its own right, but also relevant to monetary policy. Ultimately, it is retailers who set the actual prices of most consumer goods. They are the main interface between producers of consumer goods and consumers, with around half of private consumption accounted for by retail trade. The "value added" of this intermediation service can be substantial, as this accounts for, on average, about 25% of consumer prices. The purpose of this report is to analyse the structural features of the distributive trades sector and the developments within it, as well as how these ...
This paper offers a comprehensive comparison of the structure of banking and financial markets in the euro area. Based on this, several hypotheses about the role of banks in monetary policy transmission are developed. Many of the predictions that have been proposed for the U.S. are deemed unlikely to apply in Europe. Testing these hypotheses we find that monetary policy does alter bank loan supply, with the effects most dependent on the liquidity of individual banks. Unlike in the US, the size of a bank does generally not explain its lending reaction. We also show that the standard publicly available database, BankScope, obscures the heterogeneity across banks. Indeed, for several types of questions BankScope data suggest very different answers than more complete data that reside at national central banks.
Argentina’s Billiken was the world’s longest-running children’s magazine, publishing 5144 issues over one hundred years. It educated and entertained generations of schoolchildren and came to occupy a central role in Argentine cultural life. This volume offers the first academic history of the whole lifespan of Billiken as a print magazine, through to its transition into a digital brand. As an editorial project founded at the time of the massification of print culture, Billiken was in the business of creating future citizens. From its transnational and literary beginnings, Billiken quickly became organised around the school year, offering valuable extra-curricular material aligned to th...
More than just an expression of religious authority or an instrument of social control, the Inquisition was an arena where cultures met and clashed on both shores of the Atlantic. This pioneering volume examines how cultural identities were maintained despite oppression. Persecuted groups were able to survive the Inquisition by means of diverse strategies—whether Christianized Jews in Spain preserving their experiences in literature, or native American folk healers practicing medical care. These investigations of social resistance and cultural persistence will reinforce the cultural significance of the Inquisition. Contributors: Jaime Contreras, Anne J. Cruz, Jesús M. De Bujanda, Richard ...
A "highly entertaining history [of] global hustling, cola wars and the marketing savvy that carved a niche for Coke in the American social psyche” (Publishers Weekly). Secret Formula follows the colorful characters who turned a relic from the patent medicine era into a company worth $80 billion. Award-winning reporter Frederick Allen’s engaging account begins with Asa Candler, a nineteenth-century pharmacist in Atlanta who secured the rights to the original Coca-Cola formula and then struggled to get the cocaine out of the recipe. After many tweaks, he finally succeeded in turning a backroom belly-wash into a thriving enterprise. In 1919, an aggressive banker named Ernest Woodruff levera...
This paper builds a model-based dynamic monetary and fiscal conditions index (DMFCI) and uses it to examine the evolution of the joint stance of monetary and fiscal policies in the euro area (EA) and in its three largest member countries over the period 2007-2018. The index is based on the relative impacts of monetary and fiscal policy on demand using actual and simulated data from rich estimated models featuring also financial intermediaries and long-term government debt. The analysis highlights a short-lived fiscal expansion in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, followed by a quick tightening, with monetary policy left to be the “only game in town” after 2013. Individual countries’ DMFCIs show that national policy stances did not always mirror the evolution of the aggregate stance at the EA level, due to heterogeneity in the fiscal stance.