Most real world situations that are susceptible to herding are also characterized by direct payoff externalities. Yet, the bulk of the theoretical and experimental literature on herding has focused on pure informational externalities. In this paper we experi- mentally investigate the effects of...

We show that the trend of the one-sided HP filter can be asymptotically approximated by the Holt-Winters (HW) filter. The later is an elegant, moving average representation and facilitates the computation of trends tremendously. We confirm the accuracy of this approximation empirically by...

We show that the trend of the one-sided HP filter can be asymptotically approximated by the Holt-Winters (HW) filter. The later is an elegant, moving average representation and facilitates the computation of trends tremendously. We confirm the accuracy of this approximation empirically by...

When taking on new debt, borrowers commit to a pre-specified path of future debt service. This implies a predictable lag between credit booms and peaks in debt service which, in a panel of household debt in 17 countries, is four years on average. The lag is driven by two key features of the...