In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the yield curve (or alternatively, the term premium) as a predictor of future economic activity. In this paper, we re‐examine the evidence for this predictor, both for the United States, as well as European countries. We believe a...

This paper examines the relationship between spot and futures prices for commodities, including those for energy (crude oil, gasoline, heating oil markets and natural gas), precious and base metals (gold, silver, aluminum, copper, lead, nickel and tin), and agricultural commodities (corn,...

This paper examines the potential role for foreign official holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and the associated implications for Treasury security interest rates, international portfolio allocations, net international income flows, and the U.S. net international debt position, using a...

We re-examine the determinants of current account balances applying updated data to the framework based on Chinn and Ito (2007). The main purpose of this study is to examine whether the determinants of global current account balances changed during the period preceding the global crisis of...

The concept of fiscal multipliers is examined, in the context of the major theoretical approaches. Differing methods of calculating multipliers are then recounted (structural equations, VAR, simulation). The sensitivity of estimates to conditioning on the state of the economy (slack, financial...