This paper provides a brief analysis of three major questions raised in the context of the recent global financial crisis. First, how similar is the crisis to previous episodes? We argue that the crisis featured some close similarities to earlier ones, including the presence of credit and asset...

This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly is one of the best, if not the best, books ever written on the history of financial crises. It presents a comprehensive survey of financial crises utilizing an extraordinary database of macroeconomic and financial series. The massive...

The paper investigates the common dynamic properties of business cycle fluctuations across countries, regions and the world. We employ a Bayesian dynamic latent factor model to estimate common components in main macroeconomic aggregates (output, consumption and investment) in a sixty-country...

This paper provides a brief analysis of three major questions raised in the context of the recent global financial crisis. First, how similar is the crisis to previous episodes? We argue that the crisis featured some close similarities to earlier ones, including the presence of credit and asset...

This paper documents the extent of similarities and differences of business cycle characteristics of the Asian countries and compares the cyclical regularities in this region with those of the G7 countries. The Asian economies are generally more volatile than the G7 countries, but the amplitude...

The paper documents the extent of similarities and differences of business cycle characteristics of the Asian countries and compares the cyclical regularities in this region with those of the G-7 countries. The Asian economies are generally more volatile than the G-7 countries, but the amplitude...