In this paper we study how 103 bilateral Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) shape bilateral trade flows over time. The analysis of quarterly trade flows from 1982 Q4 to 2018 Q4 shows dynamic differences between RTAs and among trading partners. Results show that countries benefit unevenly from...

We show that an extension of the Markov-switching dynamic factor models that accounts for the specificities of the day to day monitoring of economic developments such as ragged edges, mixed frequencies and data revisions is a good tool to forecast the Euro area recessions in real time. We...

Practitioners do not always use research findings, as the research is not always conducted in a manner relevant to real-world practice. This survey seeks to close the gap between research and practice in respect of short-term forecasting in real time. To this end, we review the most relevant...

We extend the Markov-switching dynamic factor model to account for some of the specifi cities of the day-to-day monitoring of economic developments from macroeconomic indicators, such as ragged edges and mixed frequencies. We examine the theoretical benefi ts of this extension and corroborate...

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 approach)...