This Paper analyses the co-movement in activity, measured by GDP and industrial production, between the G7 countries for the period 1972-2002. For that purpose, a dynamic factor model is estimated using Kalman Filtering techniques. In addition to separating common and country-specific -...

Using OECD Composite Leading Indicators (CLI), we assess empirically whether the ability of the country-specific CLIs to predict economic activity has diminished in recent years, e.g. due to rapid advances in globalisation. Overall, we find evidence that the CLI encompasses useful information...

Against the background of the rapid inter- and intra-regional integration of East Asia, we examine the extent and nature of synchronisation of business cycles in the region. We estimate a dynamic common factor model for output growth of 10 East Asian countries. A significant common factor is...

We study the role of transparency in an environment of robust monetary policy under wage bargaining. The standard view from the game-theoretical literature is that, with unionised labour markets, monetary policy transparency is unambiguously “bad” (it induces increases in wage and price...

Disclosure of monetary policy targets reduces unemployment uncertainty at the expense of higher inflation uncertainty, thereby posing a dilemma for monetary policymakers.

In a model with fiscal policy, Hughes Hallett et al. [Hughes Hallett, A., Libich, J., Stehlík, P., 2009. Rogoff revisited: the conservative central banker proposition under active fiscal policies. Economics Letters 104, 140–143] challenge the relevance of the conservative central banker...