Real Business Cycle (RBC) and Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) methods have become essential components of the macroeconomist's toolkit. This literature review stresses recently developed techniques for computation and inference, providing a supplement to the Romer (2006) textbook,...

We develop a system that provides model-based forecasts for inflation in Norway. Forecasts are recursively evaluated from 1999 to 2008. The performance of the models over this period is then used to derive weights that are used to combine the forecasts. Our results indicate that model...

Forecast combination has become popular in central banks as a means to improve forecasts and to alleviate the risk of selecting poor models. However, if a model suite is populated with many similar models, then the weight attached to other independent models may be lower than warranted by their...

We apply a suite of models to produce quasi-real-time density forecasts of Norwegian GDP and inflation, and evaluate different combination and selection methods using the Kullback-Leibler information criterion (KLIC). We use linear and logarithmic opinion pools in conjunction with various...

In 2006 the Norges Bank initiated a project to improve its short term forecasts. The current phase of the project is tasked with developing a system that provides model-based forecasts for gross domestic product and consumer price inflation excluding taxes and energy prices, for each policy...

By using administrative data from New Zealand, we assess the relative importance of job-finding, and job-to-job transition rates for wage dynamics. We exploit the regional variation and find that wages are closely linked to job-to-job transitions and less so to the job- finding rate. Further,...

It has been argued that credit-to-GDP gaps (credit gap) are useful early warning indicators for banking crises. In addition, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has also advocated using these gaps - estimated using a one-sided Hodrick-Prescott filter with a smoothing parameter of 400,000...

By conducting a high-frequency event study similar to Gürkaynak et al.(2005), we find that two factors are needed to adequately capture the effects of monetary policy announcements for a non-inflation targeting emerging market economy, Malaysia. These factors are the surprise changes inthe...

Every monetary policy decision by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is accompanied by a written statement about the state of the economy and the policy outlook, but only every second decision by a published interest rate forecast. We exploit this difference to study the relative influences...