In this paper we suggest the use of an internet job-search indicator (Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample comparison of many forecasting models. With respect to the previous literature we concentrate on the monthly...

We use an incentive model in which improvements to fundamentals boost the ability of leveraged financial firms (banks) to expand the balance sheet (as in Adrian and Shin 2010). The rise in asset prices due to the amplified response of procyclical systems distorts bankers' incentives in providing...

Following a decline in the fundamental risk of assets, the ability of banks to expand the balance sheet under a Value-at-Risk constraint in- creases (as in Adrian and Shin (2010)), boosting the bank’s incentives to provide costly monitoring effort that prevents asset deterioration. On the...