The network pattern of financial linkages is important in many areas of banking and finance. Yet bilateral linkages are often unobserved, and maximum entropy serves as the leading method for estimating counterparty exposures. This paper proposes an efficient alternative that combines...

In this paper, the authors develop a new tool to improve the short-term forecasting of real GDP growth in the euro area and Japan. This new tool, which uses unrestricted mixed-data sampling (U-MIDAS) regressions, allows an evaluation of the usefulness of a wide range of indicators in predicting...

This paper studies the effects of a monetary policy expansion in the United States during times of high financial stress. The analysis is carried out by introducing a smooth transition factor model where the transition between states (“normal” and high financial stress) depends on a...

We measure consumers’ use of cash by harmonizing payment diary surveys from seven countries. The seven diary surveys were conducted in 2009 (Canada), 2010 (Australia), 2011 (Austria, France, Germany and the Netherlands), and 2012 (the United States). Our paper finds cross-country differences -...

This paper considers the adaptability of estimation methods for binary response panel data models to multiple fixed effects. It is motivated by the gravity equation used in international trade, where important papers such as Helpman, Melitz and Rubinstein (2008) use binary response models with...

The use of payment cards, either debit or credit, is becoming more and more widespread in developed economies. Nevertheless, the use of cash remains significant. We hypothesize that the lack of card acceptance at the point of sale is a key reason why cash continues to play an important role. We...

The answer as to whether there are gains from pooling real-time oil price forecasts depends on the objective. The approach of combining five of the leading forecasting models with equal weights dominates the strategy of selecting one model and using it for all horizons up to two years. Even more...

This paper examines the business cycle linkages that propagate industry-specific business cycle shocks throughout the economy in a way that (sometimes) generates aggregated cycles. The transmission of sectoral business cycles is modelled through a multivariate Markov-switching model, which is...

This paper proposes a Markov-switching framework to endogenously identify the following: (1) regimes where economies synchronously enter recessionary and expansionary phases; and (2) regimes where economies are unsynchronized, essentially following independent business cycles. The reliability of...

The objective of this paper is to propose an early warning system that can predict the likelihood of the occurrence of financial stress events within a given period of time. To achieve this goal, the signal extraction approach proposed by Kaminsky, Lizondo and Reinhart (1998) is used to monitor...