International Research Forum on Monetary Policy | 2026 Conference | Day 2

The video provides a valuable glimpse into cutting-edge macroeconomic research on the fiscal determinants of inflation. The presenter, Juan Rome, articulates a clear research question: are fiscal transfers inflationary? He motivates the study by documenting the rising importance of transfers in government expenditure, particularly during crises, and notes the relative scarcity of empirical work on this specific fiscal instrument. The methodological contribution is significant: the paper extends the time-varying structural VAR framework to allow for economic identification of shocks, building on recent advances by Arias, Rubio-Ramírez, and others. This is a technically demanding approach, and the presentation does a reasonable job of explaining the key innovations, such as the use of rotation-invariant priors and the reparameterization of the covariance matrix to facilitate time variation. The speaker is careful to acknowledge the limitations of purely statistical identification in TV-VARs and argues for the advantages of bringing economic structure back into the identification process. The argumentation is coherent and the presentation is well-structured, though the technical depth may be challenging for non-specialists. The sources cited are appropriate, including the conference programme and the ECB website, which lend credibility. However, the video is a single presentation, not a peer-reviewed publication, and the transcription is incomplete and contains some errors, which limits the ability to fully assess the details of the model and results. The adéquation between the title and content is good, as the video indeed captures a session from the conference. Overall, the video offers a substantive contribution to the understanding of fiscal policy transmission, but its impact is constrained by the format and the lack of full results in the excerpt.

The title accurately describes the content: a day of the International Research Forum on Monetary Policy conference, featuring a research presentation.

8/10

The video is a recording of a session from a prestigious academic conference co-organized by the ECB and the Federal Reserve Board. The presentation is by a researcher (Juan Rome) and appears to be based on rigorous econometric methods (time-varying structural VARs). The content is technical and aimed at an expert audience. The source is institutional (ECB), and the conference series is well-established. However, the video is a single presentation, not peer-reviewed, and the transcription is incomplete and contains some errors, limiting full verification.

Markers derived by PSI from the transcript: the creator did not define chapters.

• 00:00Introduction by the session chair, welcoming attendees and introducing the speaker.
• 02:00Juan Rome begins his presentation, outlining the research question on fiscal transfers and inflation.
• 05:00Discussion of the rising share of transfers in GDP and their volatility over time.
• 10:00Comparison of government expenditure components during the Great Recession and COVID-19, highlighting the dominance of transfers.
• 15:00Introduction to time-varying structural VARs and the challenges of statistical identification.
• 20:00Explanation of the proposed class of time-varying SVARs that allow for economic identification.
• 25:00Technical details on the law of motion for the covariance matrix and the reparameterization approach.
• 30:00Conclusion of the presentation and transition to Q&A or next session.

• Conference Programme - 14th International Research Forum on Monetary Policy — Official programme of the conference, providing details on the sessions and papers.
• Conference Playlist - All Sessions — YouTube playlist containing recordings of all sessions from the conference.

• ECB Working Paper Series — ECB working papers often cover similar topics on monetary and fiscal policy interactions.