This paper evaluates the ability of formal rules to establish U.S. business cycle turning point dates in real time. We consider two approaches, a nonparametric algorithm and a parametric Markov-switching dynamic-factor model. In order to accurately assess the real-time performance of these...

This paper examines and compares the recent business cycle experiences of the seven states that lie partly or wholly within the Eighth Federal Reserve District (Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee). For the period surrounding the 1990-91 NBER recession,...

We measure the relative contribution of the deviation of real activity from its equilibrium (the gap), quot;supply shockquot; variables, and long-horizon inflation expectations for explaining the U.S. inflation rate in the post-war period. For alternative specifications for the inflation driving...

Studies of the predictive ability of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book, an anecdotal measure of regional economic conditions, for aggregate output and employment have proven inconclusive. This might be attributed, in part, to the irregular release schedule of the Beige Book. In this paper, we use...

A number of studies have documented a reduction in aggregate macroeconomic volatility beginning in the early 1980s, i.e., the quot;Great Moderation.quot; This paper documents the Great Moderation at the state level, finding significant heterogeneity in the timing and magnitude of states'...

In this paper, we analyze the propagation of recessions across countries. We construct a model with multiple qualitative state variables that evolve in a VAR setting. The VAR structure allows us to include country-level variables to determine whether policy also propagates across countries. We...

Earnings press releases are the primary mechanism by which managers announce quarterly earnings and make other concurrent disclosures to investors and other stakeholders. A largely unexplored element of earnings press releases is the language that managers use throughout the press release, which...

We find evidence that adopting an explicit inflation objective plays a role in anchoring long-run inflation expectations and in reducing the intrinsic persistence of inflation. For the period 1994-2003, private-sector long-run inflation forecasts exhibit significant correlation with lagged...

We apply both classical and Bayesian econometric methods to characterize the dynamic behavior of inflation for twelve industrial countries over the period 1984-2003, using four different price indices for each country. In particular, we estimate a univariate autoregressive (AR) model for each...