2026 working papers
Erwan Gautier, Cristina Conflitti, Daniel Enderle, Ludmila Fadejeva, Alex Grimaud, Eduardo Gutiérrez, Valentin Jouvanceau, Jan-oliver Menz, Alari Paulus, Pavlos Petroulas, Pau Roldan-Blanco, Elisabeth Wieland
Abstract
We use CPI micro data for nine euro area countries to document new evidence on consumer price stickiness in the euro area during the 2021-2024 inflation cycle. In 2022, the monthly frequency of price changes reached 12%, compared with an average of 8% over 2010–2019, roughly a four-percentage-point increase; it then fell quickly in 2023 and more slowly in 2024, ending close to its pre-pandemic level. The decline in the frequency of price changes was faster for food and non-energy industrial goods (NEIG) than for services, where frequencies remained elevated in 2024. The overall frequency rose mainly because there were more price increases, while the magnitude of the average size of the price increases or decreases changed only marginally during the surge. Products with a larger imported-energy cost share responded more strongly, and hazard-rate evidence shows that the probability of price adjustments increases with the gap between actual and optimal prices, consistent with state-dependent pricing and a steepening of the Phillips curve. To illustrate the implications of this state dependence, a macro model suggests that peak inflation would have been almost 1 percentage point lower if the frequency had not responded to the inflation surge.
JEL Classification: E31, E52, F33, L11
Keywords: Price rigidity, euro area, inflation surge, micro price data.
Karsten Staehr, Oļegs Tkačevs, Ann Merit Toiger
Abstract
This paper studies the effects of fiscal shocks on the dynamics of public debt and other fiscal and macroeconomic variables. The data are annual and cover all the members of the European Union from 2001 to 2024. The fiscal shocks are identified using orthogonalised forecast errors computed from European Commission forecasts, and the impulse responses are generated using local projections. Primary balance shocks lower government debt measured in per cent of GDP, but the effect is gradual and is initially modest. There are large differences in how revenue and expenditure measures affect the stock of public debt. Revenue shocks have gradual and statistically insignificant effects, while primary expenditure shocks have fast, relatively large and statistically significant effects. The effects on the public debt stock differ because the resulting fiscal reactions are different for revenue or spending shocks.
Keywords: Government debt, debt dynamics, fiscal policy, austerity, euro area
JEL Codes: H63, H68, E62