All economists say that they want to take their models to the data. But with incomplete and highly imperfect data, doing so is difficult and requires carefully matching the assumptions of the model with the statistical properties of the data. The cointegrated VAR (CVAR) offers a way of doing so....

The present value model of the current account has been very popular, as it provides an optimal benchmark to which actual current account series have often been compared. We show why persistence in observed current account data makes the estimated optimal series very sensitive to small-sample...

Drawing on the modern literature on the monetary transmission mechanisms with capital market imperfections, this paper presents a model of the "credit-cost channel" of monetary policy. The thrust of the model is that firms' reliance on bank loans ("credit channel") may make aggregate supply...

Over the past 15 years there has been remarkable progress in the specification and estimation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Central banks in developed and emerging market economies have become increasingly interested in their usefulness for policy analysis and...

In the last months, the world's economies were confronted with the largest economic recession since the Great Depression. The occurrence of a worldwide financial market meltdown as a consequence originally stemming from of the crisis in the US subprime housing sector was only prevented by...

Das derzeitige „Bündnis für Arbeit" ist ein Kooperationsversuch, bei dem eine gemeinsame Zielsetzung der Akteure nicht erkennbar ist. Wie könnte eine Kooperation mit einer gemeinsamen Zielsetzung aussehen? Dr. Arne Heise plädiert für einen „Makro-Dialog" zwischen Tarifparteien,...

Wissenschaftliche Prognosen unterscheiden sich von sonstigen Vorhersagen nicht zuletzt dadurch, daß mit ihnen der Anspruch auf systematische Verbesserbarkeit verknüpft wird. Hat sich die Treffsicherheit von Konjunkturprognosen als Folge des wissenschaftlich-technischen Fortschritts verbessert?