This paper assesses the forecasting performance of various variable reduction and variable selection methods. A small and a large set of wisely chosen variables are used in forecasting the industrial production growth for four Euro Area economies. The results indicate that the Automatic Leading...

The crisis has gone through several phases of varying complexity before abating in mid-2014. It started with the Financial Turmoil in August 2007, followed by the Global Financial Crisis in September 2008, and the Great Recession in 2009-2010. These events exacerbated imbalances that had already...

This paper sheds light on how recent financial tensions in the euro area were ultimately reflected in bank interest rate setting. We make two new contributions. First, we develop a theoretical model capturing banks financing and the rate setting choices. Banks in the model can finance themselves...

We study market perception of sovereign credit risk in the euro area during the financial crisis. In our analysis we use a parsimonious CDS pricing model to estimate the probability of default (PD) and the loss given default (LGD) as perceived by financial markets. We find that separate...

The quantity theory of money predicts a positive relationship between monetary growth and inflation over long-run horizons. However, in the short-run, transitory shocks to either money or inflation can obscure the inflationary signal stemming from money. The spectral analysis of time series...

Standard measures of prices are often contaminated by transitory shocks. This has prompted economists to suggest the use of measures of underlying inflation to formulate monetary policy and assist in forecasting observed inflation. Recent work has concentrated on modelling large datasets using...

Under the Maastricht Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) European Union (EU) Member States commit themselves to avoid deficits over 3% of GDP and to pursue in the medium-term budgetary positions close-to-balance or in surplus. The SGP provides also regulation for the surveillance of...

This paper assesses the statistical reliability of different measures of the output gap for the Euro-11 area and the US using output, inflation and unemployment systems. In order to assess the reliability of an output gap estimate two criteria are adopted. Firstly, the estimate should have...

We study market perception of sovereign credit risk in the Euro area during the financial crisis. In our analysis we use a parsimonious CDS pricing model to estimate market implied measures of the probability of default (PD) and of the loss given default (LGD). We find that separate...