The euro area inefficiency gap

Abstract

We construct a measure of Euro area cyclical effficiency, following the approach developed in Galí, Gertler and López-Salido (2002).Our measure -wich we call “the gap”- corresponds to the inverse of price over social marginal cost. Here we present a time series of this gap for the Euro area, as well as it two components, the price and wage markups. As with U.S. data, the inefficiency gap is highly procyclical, and driven largely by countercyclical movements in the wage markup. We are also able to use our gap variable to derive a theory-based measure of the output gap for the Euro area, which we can compare to other measures often used in applications. We also show that the wage markup moves closely with the unemployment rate, as theory would suggest. Finally, we discuss briefly the implications for monetary policy of alternative interpretations of our evidence [resumen de autor]