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This paper compares the international transmission of European Central Bank (ECB) and Federal Reserve System (Fed) monetary policy in a unified framework, identifying pure monetary policy shocks purged of bias from central bank information effects. The estimates reveal a stark asymmetry in the global spillovers from ECB and Fed monetary policy: Fed monetary policy shocks have a significant impact on euro area financial conditions and real activity, while ECB monetary policy shocks do not have a similar effect on the United States (US). Fed monetary policy shocks also affect real and financial variables in the rest of the world more than ECB monetary policy shocks.

We analyze the policy trade-offs generated by local currency price stability of imports in economies where upstream producers strategically interact with downstream firms selling the final goods to consumers. We study the effects of staggered price setting at the downstream level on the optimal price (and markup) chosen by upstream producers and show that downstream price movements affect the desired markup of upstream producers, magnifying their price response to shocks. We revisit the international dimensions of optimal monetary policy, unveiling an argument in favor of consumer price stability as the main prescription for monetary policy. Since stable consumer prices feed back into a low volatility of markups among upstream producers, this contains inefficient deviations from the law of one price at the border. However, efficient stabilization of different CPI components will not generally result into perfect stabilization of headline inflation. National policies optimally respond to the same shocks in a similar way, thus containing volatility of the terms of trade, but not necessarily of the real exchange rate. The latter will be more volatile, among other things, the larger the home bias in expenditure and the content of local inputs in consumer goods.

This paper studies the international spillovers of US monetary policy shocks on a number of macroeconomic and financial variables in 36 advanced and emerging economies. In most countries, a surprise US monetary tightening leads to depreciation against the dollar; industrial production and real GDP fall, unemployment rises. In ation declines especially in advanced economies. At the same time, there is significant heterogeneity across countries in the response of asset prices, and portfolio and banking cross-border ows. However, no clear-cut systematic relation emerges between country responses and likely relevant country characteristics, such as their income level, dollar exchange rate exibility, financial openness, trade openness vs. the US, dollar exposure in foreign assets and liabilities, and incidence of commodity exports.