infonet-economy

We develop a reciprocity-based model of wage determination and incorporate it into a modern dynamic general equilibrium framework. We estimate the model and find that, among potential determinants of wages, rent-sharing (between workers and firms) and wage entitlement (based on wages earned in the past) are important to fit the dynamic responses of output, wages and inflation to...

This paper analyses the development of housing market imbalances, housing prices and residential investment in Switzerland within a stock-flow framework. In the long run, the desired level of residential capital stock and the existing residential capital stock revert. Empirical results indicate, however, that housing demand can diverge from the existing supply for several years due...

Based on real-time trade data from the Swiss franc overnight interbank repo market and SIX Interbank Clearing (SIC) - the Swiss real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system - we are able to gain valuable insights on the daytime value of money and its determinants: First, an implicit hourly interbank interest rate can be derived from the intraday term structure of the overnight rate. We...

We develop a macroeconomic framework where money is supplied against only few eligible securities in open market operations. The relationship between the policy rate, expected inflation and consumption growth is affected by money market conditions, i.e. the varying liquidity value of eligible assets and the associated risk. This induces a liquidity premium, which explains the...

While price-setting models usually suggest constant or increasing hazard functions for price changes, empirical studies often find decreasing hazards, possibly due to misspecified or neglected heterogeneity. This paper attempts to disentangle the downward bias into various sources: observed and unobserved heterogeneity which can be either constant or time-varying. Based on micro data...

This paper looks into the determinants of the Swiss franc exchange rate against the euro. Based on the monetary approach to exchange rates, we start from the premise that monetary policy has an influence on the exchange rate. To measure this effect, we apply the structural vector-autoregression methodology on a set of Swiss macroeconomic variables and the euro area interest rate....

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) provides reserves to market participants via fixed rate tender auctions. We analyze the banks' bidding behavior and identify the determinants for the decision to participate as well as on the amount to tender. Therefore, we estimate bidding functions for banks which participate regularly in the SNB's auctions. We find that a bank's bids from the previous...

Male and female labor are imperfect substitutes and some sectors are more suitable for female employment than others. Clearly, expansions of those sectors that use female labor intensively must affect aggregate female labor force participation (FLFP). We suggest that FLFP actually drops when trade and international specialization expand sectors that use female labor intensively. This...

Recent trade data exhibit the following four empirical regularities: (i) countries import only a small fraction of all traded varieties (ii) per capita income and the number of imported varieties correlate positively (iii) per capita income and trade shares correlate positively and, finally, (iv) world trade shares have increased substantially. The present paper argues that standard...