We consider which labor market variables are the most informative for estimating and nowcasting the US output gap using a multivariate trend-cycle decomposition. Although the unemployment rate clearly contains important cyclical information, it also appears to reflect more persistent movements...

We consider which labor market variables are the most informative for estimating and now-casting the U.S. output gap using a multivariate trend-cycle decomposition. Although the unemployment rate clearly contains important cyclical information, it also appears to reflect more persistent...

Interest rates have fallen worldwide in recent decades, a phenomenon that has been linked at least in part to a decline in the natural rate of interest, r* (a.k.a. “r-star”). To investigate this decline, we consider a multivariate trend-cycle decomposition of real interest rates using a...

The financial crisis clearly illuminated the potential amplifying role of financial factors on macroeconomic developments. Indeed, the heavy impairments of banks' balance sheets brought to the fore the banking sector's ability to provide a smooth flow of credit to the real economy. However, most...

The monitoring and analysis of the business cycle is a central element of inputs to monetary policy decision-making. This report contributes to the analysis of business cycles in the euro area in three dimensions. First, in terms of business cycle dating, it proposes automated procedures to...

We study how financial factors shape and interact with the U.S. business cycle through a unified empirical approach where we jointly estimate financial and business cycles as well as identify their underlying drivers using a medium-scale Bayesian Vector Autoregression. First, we show, both in...