Research

2017
Jonathan Benchimol and André Fourçans. 2017. “Money and Monetary Policy in the Eurozone: An Empirical Analysis During Crises.” Macroeconomic Dynamics. Publisher's VersionAbstract
This paper analyzes the role of money and monetary policy as well as the forecasting performance of New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with and without separability between consumption and money. The study is conducted over three crisis periods in the Eurozone, namely, the ERM crisis, the dot-com crisis, and the global financial crisis (GFC). The results of successive Bayesian estimations demonstrate that during these crises, the nonseparable model generally provides better out-of-sample output forecasts than the baseline model. We also demonstrate that money shocks have some impact on output variations during crises, especially in the case of the GFC. Furthermore, the response of output to a money shock is more persistent during the GFC than during the other crises. The impact of monetary policy also changes during crises. Insofar as the GFC is concerned, this impact increases at the beginning of the crisis, but decreases sharply thereafter.
Paper Online Appendix
2016
Jonathan Benchimol. 2016. “Money and Monetary Policy in Israel During the Last Decade.” Journal of Policy Modeling. Publisher's VersionAbstract
This study examines how money and monetary policy have influenced output and inflation during the past decade in Israel by comparing two New Keynesian DSGE models. One is a baseline separable model (Gali, 2008) and the other assumes non-separable household preferences between consumption and money (Benchimol & Fourçans, 2012). We test both models by using rolling window Bayesian estimations over the last decade (2001–2013). The results of the presented dynamic analysis show that the sensitivity of output with respect to money shocks increased during the Dot-com, Intifada, and Subprime crises. The role of monetary policy increased during these crises, especially with regard to inflation, even though the effectiveness of conventional monetary policy decreased during the Subprime crisis. In addition, the non-separable model including money provides lower forecast errors than the baseline separable model without money, while the influence of money on output fluctuations can be seen as a good predictive indicator of bank and debt risks. By impacting and monitoring households’ money holdings, policy makers could improve their forecasts and crisis management through models considering monetary aggregates.
Paper Online Appendix
2015
Jonathan Benchimol. 2015. “Money in the Production Function: A New Keynesian DSGE Perspective.” Southern Economic Journal. Publisher's VersionAbstract
This article checks whether money is an omitted variable in the production process by proposing a microfounded New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model. In this framework, real money balances enter the production function, and money demanded by households is differentiated from that demanded by firms. Using a Bayesian analysis, our model weakens the hypothesis that money is a factor of production. However, the demand of money by firms appears to have a significant impact on the economy, even if this demand has a low weight in the production process.
Paper
2014
Jonathan Benchimol. 2014. “Risk Aversion in the Eurozone.” Research in Economics. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We propose a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model where a risk aversion shock enters a separable utility function. We analyze five periods from 1971 through 2011, each lasting for 20 years, to follow over time the dynamics of several parameters such as the risk aversion parameter; the Taylor rule coefficients; and the role of the risk aversion shock in output, inflation, interest rate, and real money balances in the Eurozone. Our analysis suggests that risk aversion was a more important component of output and real money balance dynamics between 2006 and 2011 than it was between 1971 and 2006, at least in the short run.
Paper
2012
Jonathan Benchimol and André Fourçans. 2012. “Money and Risk in a DSGE Framework: A Bayesian Application to the Eurozone.” Journal of Macroeconomics. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We present and test a model of the Eurozone, with a special emphasis on the role of risk aversion and money. The model follows the New Keynesian DSGE framework, money being introduced in the utility function with a non-separability assumption. Money is also introduced in the Taylor rule. By using Bayesian estimation techniques, we shed light on the determinants of output, inflation, money, interest rate, flexible-price output, and flexible-price real money balance dynamics. The role of money is investigated further. Its impact on output depends on the degree of risk aversion. Money plays a minor role in the estimated model. Yet, a higher level of risk aversion would imply that money had significant quantitative effects on business cycle fluctuations.
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