To measure contagion empirically, we propose using a Bayesian time-varying coefficient model estimated with Markov ChainMonte Carlo methods. The proposed measure works in the joint presence of heteroskedasticity and omitted variables and does not require knowledge of the timing of the crisis. It...

This paper re-examines two data issues concerning euro area money demand: aggregation of national data and measurement of the own rate.The main purpose is to study if euro area money demand is subject to parameter non-constancies using formal tests rather than informal diagnostics. As a...

In the paper we propose a new methodological approach to core in- flation estimation, based on a frequency domain principal components estimator, suited to estimate systems of fractionally cointegrated processes. The proposed core inflation measure is the scaled common persistent factor in...

Equilibrium correction models of the price level are often used to model inflation. Such models assume that the long-run markup of prices over costs is fixed, but this may not be true for the Euro area economy, which has undergone major structural reforms over the last 25 years. We allow for...

In this paper we study the zero frequency spectral properties of fractionally cointegrated long memory processes and introduce a new frequency domain principal components estimator of the cointegration space and the factor loading matrix for the long memory factors. We find that for fractionally...

The paper presents an incomplete competition model (ICM), where inflation is determined jointly with unit labour cost growth. The ICM is estimated on data for the Euro area and evaluated against existing models, i.e. the implicit inflation equation of the Area Wide model (AWM) - cf. Fagan, Henry...

In this paper we compare the in-sample fit and out-of-sample forecasting performance of no-arbitrage quadratic and essentially affine term structure models, as well as the dynamic Nelson-Siegel model. In total eleven model variants are evaluated, comprising five quadratic, four affine and two...

Capital-labor substitution and total factor productivity (TFP) estimates are essential features of growth and income distribution models. In the context of a Monte Carlo exercise embodying balanced and near balanced growth, we demonstrate that the estimation of the substitution elasticity can be...

The paper presents an analysis of the trade-offs of participants of different type between payment delay and liquidity requirement on the basis of synthetically generated data. The generation of the synthetic transaction data set for a simple RTGS system is described and calibrated using real...

The first official data releases of quarterly real GDP for the euro area are published about eight weeks after the end of the reference quarters. Meanwhile, ongoing economic developments must be assessed from various, more readily available, monthly indicators. We examine in the context of...