The classical theory about foreign exchange rate explains its fluctuations as the resulting of a random walk motion. In this paper, such a theory is put into question by performing Brock, Dechert and Scheinkman's (1987) test on the Austrian Schilling - US Dollars exchange rate for the period...

This study investigates exchange rate movements in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS) and in the Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERM-II). On the basis of the variant of the target zone model proposed by Bartolini and Prati (1999) and Bessec (2003), we set up a...

We propose a new time series model aimed at forecasting crude oil prices. The proposed specification is an unobserved components model with an asymmetric cyclical component. The asymmetric cycle is defined as a sine-cosine wave where the frequency of the cycle depends on past oil price...

We propose exploiting the term structure of relative interest rates to obtain estimates of changes in the timing of a currency crisis as perceived by market participants. Our indicator can be used to evaluate the relative probability of a crisis occurring in one week as compared to a crisis...

Current demographic developments are expected to challenge the sustainability of welfare in industrialised economies. Persistent low fertility levels and increasing survival rates to older age imply a decreasing share of younger individuals within the labour force that needs to support an...

We study empirically how various labor market institutions – (i) union density, (ii) unemployment benefit remuneration, and (iii) employment protection – shape fiscal multipliers and output volatility. Our theoretical model highlights that more stringent labor market institutions attenuate...

Assessing the robustness of the results of econometric analysis is a long standing subject of lively research. The majority of the literature focuses on sensitivity to model specification, while the quantification of sensitivity to sets of influential observations has received relatively little...