The paper draws on Baumol’s (1967) model of «unbalanced growth» to show that pressing economic problems of mature economies such as declining growth rates of real GDP, an increasing government share in GDP and the «cost explosion» in health care can readily be explained – yet they cannot...

We apply the novel approach of Siliverstovs (2015) to modelling data sampled at different frequencies in order to scrutinise the composition of one of the most influential economic indicators in Switzerland. The Purchasing Managers' Index consists of eight sub-indices out of which only five...

In this paper we extend the targeted-regressor approach suggested in Bai and Ng (2008) for variables sampled at the same frequency to mixed-frequency data. Our MIDASSO approach is a combination of the unrestricted MIxed-frequency DAta-Sampling approach (U-MIDAS) (see Foroni et al., 2015; Castle et...

Okun’s Law postulates a stable relationship between quarterly output growth and changes in (un)employment. This proposition has so far been tested with macroeconomic data at the highest level of aggregation. The paper goes beyond that in extending the analysis to industry data from...

This paper first discusses concepts, definitions and theoretical explanations for international business cycles. This is followed by an overview of previous empirical studies. We then argue that for ex post analyses the output gap is a univariate quantification of the business cycle that is...

Recent studies in the tradition of Schmookler have re-emphasised the potential role of demand in stimulating innovation. Here, we reconsider the role of ‘home’ and ‘export’ market demand in stimulating manufacturing innovation using comparable panel data for two small open economies –...

The paper summarises and advances arguments made earlier by staff members of the Swiss Institute for Business Cycle Research in the current debate over the reasons for growth in Switzerland being weak. It is shown that the assessment of the speed of productivity growth crucially depends on how...

Macroeconometric policy simulation models allow for an analysis, and, above all, for a quantification of the effects different economic policies have on the various variables that represent the economy. Despite the seminal ‘Lucas critique’ levelled against them, these models are still widely...

Nordhaus (2008) has developed a testing strategy for what he calls ‘Baumol’s diseases’, by which name he designates a number of by-products of structural change that are unwanted from an economic policy perspective. He finds that the U.S. economy is strongly affected by the ‘diseases’....

We investigate whether the KOF Barometer–a leading indicator regularly released by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute–can be useful for short-term out-of-sample prediction of year-on-year quarterly real GDP growth rates in Switzerland. We find that the KOF Barometer appears to be useful for...