We analyze the feedback mechanisms between economic downturns and financial stress for several euro area countries. Our study employs newly constructed financial condition indices that incorporate banking variables extensively. We apply a non-linear Vector Smooth Transition Autoregressive...

The paper considers the transition of an economy from non-renewable to renewable energy. The Hotelling theorem suggests to extract a non-renewable resource in an optimal way such that the resource tends to be depleted when optimally extracted. Yet,it might not be reasonable to deplete...

Using parametric and non-parametric estimation techniques, we analyze the sustainability of the recently growing current account imbalances in the Euro Area and test whether the introduction of the European Monetary Union has aggravated these imbalances. For these purposes two alternative...

We review the major provisions of Dodd-Frank, focusing on the monitoring of systemic risk, the limitation on proprietary trading, the regulation of the hedge fund industry, credit rating agencies, and the rules applicable to derivative trading. We compare these provisions with the recent...

Determining the social cost of carbon emissions (SCC) is a crucial step in the economic analysis of climate change policy as the US government’s recent decision to use a range of estimates of the SCC centered at $77/tC (or, equivalently, $21/tCO2) in cost-benefit analyses of proposed...

This study updates what we know about the Great Recession’s impact on older unemployed Americans’ health and pre-retirement life by focusing on their wealth and income sources, health insurance access, poverty rates, unemployment duration, labor force drop-out rates, and Social Security...

Workplace retirement plans (DC and DBs) help workers save for retirement conveniently, consistently, and automatically. But retirement account offer rates are steadily declining. Between 2001-2003 and 2010-2012, the retirement plan offer rate dropped from 63% to 55%. The drop is driven by a...

By using Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods we select the proper subset of competitive firms and find striking evidence for Laplace shaped firm profit rate distributions. Our approach enables us to extract more information from data than previous research. We filter US firm-level data...

Trend and cyclical patterns of household, business, government, and foreign net borrowing shares of GDP are reviewed using diagrams and covariance decompositions of the identity stating that the sum of the shares equals zero. Household and business net borrowing shares and thereby those...