We measure the severity of recessions as a function of their amplitude and duration. Within a quantile regression framework, we assess what causes economic downturns to be more or less severe. We find that the most severe downturns have striking similarities regarding cumulated domestic credit...

We present time-series evidence on output convergence for 14 OECD countries allowing for time-varying determinants of transitional dynamics. We develop a simple theoretical model and test for non-stationarity in relative outputs using stationary covariates finding strong support for convergence.