We use a historical quasi-experiment to estimate the causal effect of trade on capital flows. We argue that fluctuations in regional rainfall within the Ottoman Empire capture the exogenous variation in exports from the Empire to Germany, France, and the U.K., during the period of 1859–1913....

We study changes in the plucking behavior of employment growth, as well as changes in its relationship with the output cycle in the G7 countries. Using both revised and real-time data, we consider several popular measures of the output cycle. For most countries, we see significant evidence in...

The conduct of monetary policy is often characterised by either “hawks versus doves” or “rules versus discretion”. We use a metric to evaluate monetary policy rules by calculating quadratic loss ratios, the (inflation plus unemployment) loss in high deviations periods divided by the loss...

Debates about the conduct of monetary policy have evolved over time from “rules versus discretion” to “policy rules versus constrained discretion.” We propose a metric to evaluate monetary policy rules that are consistent with constrained discretion by calculating quadratic loss ratios,...

Using real-time data that reflects information available to monetary authorities at the time they are formulating policy, we find that estimated Taylor rules based on revised and real-time data differ more for Germany than for the U.S., Taylor rules using real-time data suggest differences...