In this paper, we construct the country-specific chronologies of the house price bubbles for 12 OECD countries over the period 1969:Q1 - 2010:Q2. These chronologies are obtained using a combination of a fundamental and a filter approaches. The resulting speculative bubble chronology is the one...

The European debt crisis has revealed serious deficiencies and risks on a proper functioning of the monetary union. Against this backdrop, early warning systems are of crucial importance. In this study that focuses on euro area member states, the robustness of early warning systems to predict...

We examine real business cycle convergence for 41 euro area regions and 48 US states. Results obtained by a panel model with spatial correlation indicate that the relevance of common business cycle factors is rather stable over the past two decades in the euro area and the US. Ongoing business...

In this paper we investigate the effects of EU enlargement on price convergence. The internal market is expected to boost integration and increase efficiency and welfare through a convergence of prices in product markets. Two principal drivers are crucial to explain price developments. On the...

Survey-based indicators such as the consumer confidence are widely seen as leading indicators for economic activity, especially for the future path of private consumption. Although they receive high attention in the media, their forecasting power appears to be very limited. Therefore, this paper...

Das Platzen von spekulativen Preisblasen an den Immobilienmärkten führt oft zu realwirtschaftlichen Verwerfungen, die mit hohen Produktions- und Beschäftigungsverlusten verbunden sind. In diesem Beitrag wird diskutiert, inwieweit institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen das Entstehen und die...

In this paper, the authors construct country-specific chronologies of house price bubbles for 12 OECD countries over the period 1969:Q1–2009:Q4. These chronologies are obtained using a combination of fundamental and filter approaches. The resulting speculative bubble chronology is the one...