We document that the first and third cross-sectional moments of the distribution of GDP growth rates made by professional forecasters can predict equity excess returns, a finding which is robust to controlling for a large set of well established predictive factors. We show that introducing...

In this paper, we examine the results of GDP trend-cycle decompositions from the estimation of bivariate unobserved components models that allow for correlated trend and cycle innovations. Three competing variables are considered in the bivariate setup along with GDP: the unemployment rate, the...

This paper explores the impact of the terms of trade on output fluctuations in. - Colombia, a developing country where as much as 62% of export earnings come. - from just four commodities: oil (42%), coal (14%), coffee (5%), and nickel (1%). This. - research was prompted by: the particular role...

This paper examines the major determinants of GDP growth in Iran using annual time series data spanning from 1960 to 2003. The Iranian economy has been subject to a multitude of structural changes and regime shifts during the sample period. Thus, time series properties of the data are first...

In this paper, we analyse Okun's law - a relation between the change in the unemployment rate and GDP growth - using data from Australia, the euro area, the United Kingdom and the United States. More specifically, we assess the relevance of non-Gaussianity when modelling the relation. This is...

This paper provides new evidence on the stochastic behaviour of the EPU (Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index constructed by Baker et al. (2016) in six of the biggest economies (Canada, France, Japan, US, Ireland, and Sweden) over the period from January 1985 to October 2019. In particular,...