In this paper we analyse the sensitivity of the macroeconomic outcomes under the Network for Greening the Financial System's (NGFS's) Phase III net-zero and delayed transition scenarios to different monetary and fiscal policy settings. In doing so, we provide a rare application of the NGFS climate scenarios to economic assessment through the lens of the macroeconomic modelling frameworks underlying the scenario construction (e.g. NiGEM). Using the model to disentangle the main drivers of the scenarios, we show that gross domestic product (GDP) growth is shaped by physical and transition shocks jointly, whereas transition shocks account for most of the inflationary pressure. As regards alternative policy settings within the model, it turns out that Fiscal recycling options become more discriminant in terms of GDP impact in the medium term. Full recycling through government investment yields the strongest output multiplier, whereas recycling through household transfers or reduced income taxes yields the lowest multiplier. During the transition, euro area macroeconomic variables respond very similarly if two-pillar or price level-targeting monetary policy rules are followed. The Taylor- rule, reacting to inflation and output gap, yields higher and more persistent inflation as well as stronger short-term interest rate increases. These findings are certainly modelspecific but do reflect the policy sensitivity embedded of the NGFS scenarios, within the confines of the very model used to build them up.

We estimate the euro area output gap by applying the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition based on a large Bayesian vector autoregression. Our approach incorporates multivariate information through the inclusion of a wide range of variables in the analysis and addresses data issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The estimated output gap lines up well with the CEPR chronology of the business cycle for the euro area and we find that hours worked, more than the unemployment rate, provides the key source of information about labor utilization in the economy, especially in pinning down the depth of the output gap during the COVID-19 recession when the unemployment rate rose only moderately. Our findings suggest that labor market adjustments to the business cycle in the euro area occur more through the intensive, rather than extensive, margin.

We investigate the factors driving current account and monetary policy developments in the euro area. We estimate an open-economy structural vector autoregression (VAR) model with zero and sign restrictions derived from a multi-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to identify relevant shocks and analyse their impact on the current account and interest rate. Examining the VAR impulse responses for Germany, Italy and Spain we find that investment shocks and preference shocks drive the current account and interest rates in the opposite directions. By contrast, external demand shocks and productivity shocks cause both the current account balance and interest rate to move in the same direction. We also provide evidence for spillovers to the euro area from US preference shocks and US interest rate policy shocks.

We propose a new and time-varying optimum currency area (OCA) index for the euro area in assessing the evolution of the OCA properties of the monetary union from an international business cycle perspective. It is derived from the relative importance of symmetric vs. asymmetric shocks that result from a sign and zero restricted open-economy structural vector autoregression (VAR) model. We argue that the euro area is more appropriate through the lens of empirical OCA properties when the relative importance of common symmetric shocks is high, but, at the same time, is not overly dispersed across euro area member countries. We find that symmetric shocks have been the dominant drivers of business cycles across euro area countries. Our OCA index, nevertheless, shows that cyclical convergence among euro area members is not a steady process as it tends to be disrupted by crises, especially those not primarily triggered by common external shocks. In the aftermath of a crisis the OCA index embarks on a recovery trajectory catching up with its pre-crisis level. Our OCA index is slow-moving and a good reflection of changing underlying economic structures across the euro area and, therefore, informative about the ability of monetary policy to stabilise the euro area economy in the medium run.