We use tests for multiple breaks at unknown points in the sample, and the Stock-Watson (1996, 1998) time-varying parameters median-unbiased estimation methodology, to investigate changes in the equilibrium rate of growth of labor productivity–both per hour and per worker–in the United...

If labour market policies aimed at people with disabilities are effective, we should observe no significant difference in labour market outcomes between disabled and non-disabled individuals. This Paper examines the impact of disability status on labour market outcomes using matching methods...

In the finance literature, cross-sectional dependence in extreme returns of risky assets is often modelled implicitly assuming an asymptotically dependent structure. If the true dependence structure is asymptotically independent then existing finance models will lead to over-estimation of the...

We propose a numerical method, based on indirect inference, for checking the identification of a DSGE model. Monte Carlo samples are generated from the model's true structural parameters and a VAR approximation to the reduced form estimated for each sample. We then search for a different set of...

This paper unveils a new resource for macroeconomic research: a long-run dataset covering disaggregated bank credit for 17 advanced economies since 1870. The new data show that the share of mortgages on banks’ balance sheets doubled in the course of the 20th century, driven by a sharp rise of...

Is there a link between loose monetary conditions, credit growth, house price booms, and financial instability? This paper analyzes the role of interest rates and credit in driving house price booms and busts with data spanning 140 years of modern economic history in the advanced economies. We...

The paper reports strikingly high correlations of the cyclical components of industrial production between the participant countries in the ERM. Supplementing these correlations with criteria based on real exchange rate volatility, trade and monetary policy conformity, cluster analysis is used...

This Paper reviews recent econometric work on factor models in large cross-sections of time series. In this literature, traditional factor analysis is adapted to develop parsimonious estimation methods for high dimension time series models. The review covers problems of consistency and rates –...

In this paper we develop a mixed frequency dynamic factor model featuring stochastic shifts in the volatility of both the latent common factor and the idiosyncratic components. We take a Bayesian perspective and derive a Gibbs sampler to obtain the posterior density of the model parameters. This...

We develop a twofold analysis of how the information provided by several economic indicators can be used in Markov-switching dynamic factor models to identify the business cycle turning points. First, we compare the performance of a fully non- linear multivariate specification (one-step...