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Anton Nakov

Research

Division: Monetary Policy Research
Current Position: Principal Economist
Fields of interest: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
Email: anton.nakov@ecb.europa.eu

Biography

Other current responsibilities: 2020
Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research
Education: 2007
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Ph.D. in Economics; 2000
Central European University, M.A. in Economics
Professional experience: 2013-2020
European Central Bank, Senior Economist; 2006-2013
Bank of Spain, Economist; 2011-2012
Federal Reserve Board, Economist
Awards: 2005
Doctoral Scholarship, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; 2002
Scholarship of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 2000
PHARE ACE Scholarship of the European Union; 1998
Open Society Institute Fellowship

ECB publications

28 September 2023

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2845

Climate-conscious monetary policy

English

Abstract: We study the implications of climate change and the associated mitigation measures for optimal monetary policy in a canonical New Keynesian model with climate externalities. Provided they are set at their socially optimal level, carbon taxes pose no trade-offs for monetary policy: it is both feasible and optimal to fully stabilize inflation and the welfare-relevant output gap. More realistically, if carbon taxes are initially suboptimal, trade-offs arise between core and climate goals. These trade-offs however are resolved overwhelmingly in favor of price stability, even in scenarios of decades-long transition to optimal carbon taxation. This reflects the untargeted, inefficient nature of (conventional) monetary policy as a climate instrument. In a model extension with financial frictions and central bank purchases of corporate bonds, we show that green tilting of purchases is optimal and accelerates the green transition. However, its effect on CO2 emissions and global temperatures is limited by the small size of eligible bonds’ spreads.
JEL Code: E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
Q54 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Environmental Economics→Climate, Natural Disasters, Global Warming
Q58 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Environmental Economics→Government Policy

17 July 2023

OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 321

Some implications of micro price-setting evidence for inflation dynamics and monetary transmission

English

Abstract: This paper analyses the implications of the evidence on micro price setting gathered by Price-setting Microdata Analysis Network (PRISMA) for inflation dynamics and monetary policy, relying on calibrated models and direct empirical evidence. According to models calibrated to the euro area micro evidence in Gautier et al. (2022, 2023), infrequent price changes and moderate state dependence in price setting should result in a meaningful Phillips curve in the euro area. Empirical estimates of the Phillips curve during the low-inflation period confirm previous findings of a relatively flat but stable slope. This estimated flat slope reflects both infrequent and subdued price adjustment in response to aggregate shocks, i.e. the presence of nominal and real rigidities. Model-based simulations show that, due to non-linearities in price setting, changes in trend inflation above 5-6% would have significant effects on the euro area Phillips curve. Similarly, shocks to nominal costs larger than 15% would result in non-linear effects on inflation dynamics in calibrated models. In line with these simulations, recent micro evidence suggests that the return of higher and more volatile inflation seems to be associated with higher frequencies of price changes, mainly because the frequency of price increases rises with the level and volatility of inflation.
JEL Code: E3 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

21 September 2021

OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 275

Employment and the conduct of monetary policy in the euro area

English

Abstract: This report discusses the role of the European Union’s full employment objective in the conduct of the ECB’s monetary policy. It first reviews a range of indicators of full employment, highlights the heterogeneity of labour market outcomes within different groups in the population and across countries, and documents the flatness of the Phillips curve in the euro area. In this context, it is stressed that labour market structures and trend labour market outcomes are primarily determined by national economic policies. The report then recalls that, in many circumstances, inflation and employment move together and pursuing price stability is conducive to supporting employment. However, in response to economic shocks that give rise to a temporary trade-off between employment and inflation stabilisation, the ECB’s medium-term orientation in pursuing price stability is shown to provide flexibility to contribute to the achievement of the EU’s full employment objective. Regarding the conduct of monetary policy in a low interest rate environment, model-based simulations suggest that history-dependent policy approaches − which have been proposed to overcome lasting shortfalls of inflation due to the effective lower bound on nominal interest rates by a more persistent policy response to disinflationary shocks − can help to bring employment closer to full employment, even though their effectiveness depends on the strength of the postulated expectations channels. Finally, the importance of employment income and wealth inequality in the transmission of monetary policy strengthens the case for more persistent or forceful easing policies (in pursuit of price stability) when interest rates are constrained by their lower bound.
JEL Code: E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E24 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital

21 September 2021

OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 266

Digitalisation: channels, impacts and implications for monetary policy in the euro area

English

Abstract: The digitalisation workstream report analyses the degree of digital adoption across the euro area and EU countries and the implications of digitalisation for measurement, productivity, labour markets and inflation, as well as more recent developments during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and their implications. Analysis of these key issues and variables is aimed at improving our understanding of the implications of digitalisation for monetary policy and its transmission. The degree of digital adoption differs across the euro area/EU, implying heterogeneous impacts, with most EU economies currently lagging behind the United States and Japan. Rising digitalisation has rendered price measurement more challenging, owing to, among other things, faster changes in products and product quality, but also new ways of price setting, e.g. dynamic or customised pricing, and services that were previously payable but are now “free”. Despite the spread of digital technologies, aggregate productivity growth has decreased in most advanced economies since the 1970s. However, it is likely that without the spread of digital technologies the productivity slowdown would have been even more pronounced, and the recent acceleration in digitalisation is likely to boost future productivity gains from digitalisation. Digitalisation has spurred greater automation, with temporary labour market disruptions, albeit unevenly across sectors. The long-run employment effects of digitalisation can be benign, but its effects on wages and labour share depend on the structure of the economy and its labour market institutions. The pandemic has accelerated the use of teleworking: roughly every third job in the euro area/EU is teleworkable, although there are differences across countries. ...
JEL Code: E24 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital
E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
O33 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Technological Change, Research and Development, Intellectual Property Rights→Technological Change: Choices and Consequences, Diffusion Processes
O57 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economywide Country Studies→Comparative Studies of Countries

27 June 2019

RESEARCH BULLETIN - No. 59

Price and Wage Setting when Accurate Decisions Are Costly: Implications for Monetary Policy Transmission

English

Abstract: Recent low inflation is motivating new research to better characterise how individual firms and workers set prices and wages. In this article, we describe a new approach which emphasises that the costs of decision-making may limit the precision of price and wage changes. As well as making better sense of price and wage changes in microeconomic data, this new approach also strikes a middle ground between two leading models of monetary policy transmission, improving our quantitative understanding of the short-run effects of monetary policy on output and the short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment.
JEL Code: E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
C73 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Game Theory and Bargaining Theory→Stochastic and Dynamic Games, Evolutionary Games, Repeated Games

26 April 2019

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2272

Monetary policy implications of state-dependent prices and wages

English

Abstract: We study the effects of monetary shocks in a model of state-dependent price and wage adjustment based on “control costs”. Suppliers of retail goods and of labor are both monopolistic competitors that face idiosyncratic productivity shocks and nominal rigidities. Stickiness arises because precise decisions are costly, so agents choose to tolerate small errors in the timing of adjustments. Our simulations are calibrated to microdata on the size and frequency of price and wage changes. Money shocks have less persistent real effects in our state-dependent model than they would a time-dependent framework, but nonetheless we obtain sufficient monetary nonneutrality for consistency with macroeconomic evidence. Nonneutrality is primarily driven by wage rigidity, rather than price rigidity. State-dependent nominal rigidity implies a flatter Phillips curve as trend inflation declines, because nominal adjustments become less frequent, making short-run inflation less reactive to shocks.
JEL Code: E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
C73 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Game Theory and Bargaining Theory→Stochastic and Dynamic Games, Evolutionary Games, Repeated Games

21 June 2017

DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES - No. 3

Communication of monetary policy in unconventional times

English

Abstract: Monetary policy communication is particularly important during unconventional times, because high uncertainty about the economy, the introduction of new policy tools and possible limits to the central bank’s toolkit could hamper the predictability of policy actions. We study how monetary policy communication should and has worked under such circumstances. Our main results relate to announcements of asset purchase programmes and the use of forward guidance. We show that announcements of asset purchase programmes have lowered market uncertainty, particularly when accompanied by a contextual release of implementation details such as the envisaged size of the programme. We also show that forward guidance reduces uncertainty more effectively when it is state‐contingent or when it provides guidance about a long horizon than when it is open‐ended or covers only a short horizon, and that the credibility of forward guidance is strengthened if the central bank also has embarked on an asset purchase programme.
JEL Code: E43 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies

21 June 2017

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2080

Communication of monetary policy in unconventional times

English

Abstract: Monetary policy communication is particularly important during unconventional times because high uncertainty about the economy, the introduction of new policy tools and possible limits to the central bank’s toolkit could hamper the predictability of policy actions. We study how monetary policy communication should and has worked under such circumstances. Our main results relate to announcements of asset purchase programmes and the use of forward guidance. We show that announcements of asset purchase programmes have lowered market uncertainty, particularly when accompanied by a contextual release of implementation details such as the envisaged size of the programme. We also show that forward guidance reduces uncertainty more effectively when it is state‐contingent or when it provides guidance about a long horizon than when it is open‐ended or covers only a short horizon, and that the credibility of forward guidance is strengthened if the central bank also has embarked on an asset purchase programme.
JEL Code: E43 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
Network: Discussion papers

15 July 2014

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1693

Logit price dynamics

English

Abstract: We model retail price stickiness as the result of errors due to costly decision-making. Under our assumed cost function for the precision of choice, the timing of price adjustments and the prices firms set are both logit random variables. Errors in the prices firms set help explain micro
JEL Code: E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
C73 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Game Theory and Bargaining Theory→Stochastic and Dynamic Games, Evolutionary Games, Repeated Games

28 November 2011

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1396

Learning from experience in the stock market

English

Abstract: We study the dynamics of a Lucas-tree model with finitely lived agents who "learn from experience." Individuals update expectations by Bayesian learning based on observations from their own lifetimes. In this model, the stock price exhibits stochastic boom-and-bust fluctuations around the rational expectations equilibrium. This heterogeneous-agents economy can be approximated by a representative-agent model with constant-gain learning, where the gain parameter is related to the survival rate.
JEL Code: G12 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Asset Pricing, Trading Volume, Bond Interest Rates
D83 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Search, Learning, Information and Knowledge, Communication, Belief
D84 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Expectations, Speculations

25 August 2011

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1375

Precautionary price stickiness

English

Abstract: This paper proposes two models in which price stickiness arises endogenously even though firms are free to change their prices at zero physical cost. Firms are subject to idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks, and they also face a risk of making errors when they set their prices. In our first specification, firms are assumed to play a dynamic logit equilibrium, which implies that big mistakes are less likely than small ones. The second specification derives logit behavior from an assumption that precision is costly. The empirical implications of the two versions of our model are very similar. Since firms making sufficiently large errors choose to adjust, both versions generate a strong "selection effect" in response to a nominal shock that eliminates most of the monetary nonneutrality found in the Calvo model. Thus the model implies that money shocks have little impact on the real economy, as in Golosov and Lucas (2007), but fits microdata better than their specification.
JEL Code: E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
C72 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Game Theory and Bargaining Theory→Noncooperative Games

14 June 2011

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1354

Saudi Aramco and the oil market

English

Abstract: We present a general equilibrium model of the global oil market, in which the oil price, oil production, and consumption, are jointly determined as outcomes of the optimizing decisions of oil importers and oil exporters. On the supply side the oil market is modelled as a dominant firm – Saudi Aramco – with competitive fringe. We establish that a dominant firm may exist as long as it enjoys a cost advantage over the fringe. We provide an expression for the optimal markup and compute the spare capacity maintained by such a firm. The model produces plausible dynamic in response to oil supply and oil demand shocks. In particular, it reproduces successfully the jump in oil output of Saudi Aramco following the output collapse of Iraq and Kuwait during the first Gulf War, explaining it as the profit-maximizing response of the dominant firm. Oil taxes and subsidies affect the oil price and welfare through their effect on the trade-off between oil production efficiency and oil market competition.
JEL Code: E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
Q43 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Energy→Energy and the Macroeconomy

20 April 2011

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1333

Distributional dynamics under smoothly state-dependent pricing

English

Abstract: Starting from the assumption that firms are more likely to adjust their prices when doing so is more valuable, this paper analyzes monetary policy shocks in a DSGE model with firm-level heterogeneity. The model is calibrated to retail price microdata, and inflation responses are decomposed into “intensive”, “extensive”, and “selection” margins. Money growth and Taylor rule shocks both have nontrivial real effects, because the low state dependence implied by the data rules out the strong selection effect associated with fixed menu costs. The response to firm-specific shocks is gradual, though inappropriate econometrics might make it appear immediate.
JEL Code: E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

1 October 2010

WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1250

Optimal monetary policy with state-dependent pricing

English

Abstract: We study optimal monetary policy in a flexible state-dependent pricing framework, in which monopolistic competition and stochastic menu costs are the only distortions. We show analytically that it is optimal to commit to zero inflation in the long run. Moreover, our numerical simulations indicate that the optimal stabilization policy is "price stability". These findings represent a generalization to a state-dependent framework of the same results found for the simple Calvo model with exogenous timing of price adjustment.
JEL Code: E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation

16 June 2010

OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 113

Energy markets and the euro area macroeconomy

English

Abstract: This report aims to analyse euro area energy markets and the impact of energy price changes on the macroeconomy from a monetary policy perspective. The core task of the report is to analyse the impact of energy price developments on output and consumer prices. Nevertheless, understanding the link between energy price fluctuations, inflationary pressures and the role of monetary policy in reacting to such pressure requires a deeper look at the structure of the economy. Energy prices have presented a challenge for the Eurosystem, as the volatility of the energy component of consumer prices has been high since the creation of EMU. At the same time, a look back into the past may not necessarily be very informative for gauging the likely impact of energy price changes on overall inflation in the future. For instance, the reaction of HICP inflation to energy price fluctuations seems to have been more muted during the past decade than in earlier periods such as the 1970s.
JEL Code: E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
Network: Eurosystem Monetary Transmission Network

External publications

2023

Journal of Monetary Economics

Optimal Monetary Policy with r*<0