This paper proposes a moment-matching method for approximating vector autoregressions by finite-state Markov chains. The Markov chain is constructed by targeting the conditional moments of the underlying continuous process. The proposed method is more robust to the number of discrete values and...

Japan is in the midst of a demographic transition that is both rapid and large by international standards. As recently as 1990, Japan had the youngest population among the Group of 6 large, developed countries. However, the combined effects of aging of the baby boomer generation and low...

We build a satellite DSGE model to investigate the transmission of fiscal policy to the real economy in the Czech Republic. Our model shares features of the Czech National Bank's current g3 forecasting model (Andrle, Hledik, Kamenik, and Vlcek, 2009), but contains a more comprehensive fiscal...

Although there is by now strong evidence that sovereign risk premia are driven by a common factor, little is known about the detailed linkages between sovereign bond markets. We employ the VAR method by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009) to analyse the strength and direction of bilateral linkages between...

What is the size of quasi-fiscal operations and their impact on the overall fiscal balance and public debt in the Czech Republic? Is the recent increase in Czech fiscal deficits fully attributable to the business cycle, or are there non-cyclical factors in place? And last but not least, what are...