We assess the effectiveness of the forward guidance undertaken by European Central Bank using a standard medium-scale DSGE model à la Smets and Wouters (2007). Exploiting data on expectations from surveys, we show that incorporating expectations should be crucial in performance evaluation of...

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models use modern macroeconomic theory to explain and predict comovements of aggregate time series over the business cycle and to perform policy analysis. We explain how to use DSGE models for all three purposes - forecasting, story telling, and...

We reassess the predictability of U.S. recessions at horizons from three months to two years ahead for a large number of previously proposed leading-indicator variables. We employ an efficient probit estimator for partially missing data and assess relative model performance based on the receiver...

This paper develops a Monte-Carlo backtesting procedure for risk premia strategies and employs it to study Time-Series Momentum (TSM). Relying on time-series models, empirical residual distributions and copulas we overcome two key drawbacks of conventional backtesting procedures. We create...

We show that the news is a rich source of data on distressed firm links that drive firm- level and aggregate risks. The news tends to report about links in which a less popular firm is distressed and may contaminate a more popular firm. This constitutes a contagion channel that yields...

In prediction markets, investors trade assets whose values are contingent on the occurrence of future events, like election outcomes. Prediction market prices have been shown to be consistently accurate forecasts of these outcomes, but we don't know why. I formally illustrate an information...

Real-time macroeconomic data reflect the information available to market participants, whereas final data's containing revisions and released with a delays' overstate the information set available to them. We document that the in-sample and out-of-sample Treasury return predictability is...

We investigate intermediary asset pricing theories empirically and find strong support for models that have intermediary leverage as the relevant state variable. A parsimonious model that uses detrended dealer leverage as a price-of-risk variable, and innovations to dealer leverage as a pricing...

Using a unique data set of individual professional forecasts, we document disagreement about the future path of monetary policy, particularly at longer horizons. The stark differences in short rate forecasts imply strong disagreement about the risk-return trade-off of longer-term bonds....

In several recent studies unit root methods have been used in detection of financial bubbles in asset prices. The basic idea is that fundamental changes in the autocorrelation structure of relevant time series imply the presence of a rational price bubble. We provide cross-country evidence for...