We examine the global dimension of inflation in 24 OECD countries between 1980 and 2007in a traditional Phillips curve framework. We decompose output gaps and changes in unitlabor costs into common (or global) and idiosyncratic components using a factor analysis andintroduce these components...

We look at how large international datasets can improve forecasts of national activity. Weuse the case of New Zealand, an archetypal small open economy. We apply “data-rich” factorand shrinkage methods to tackle the problem of efficiently handling hundreds of predictordata series from many...