There is much scepticism about the ability to predict recessions. Harding and Pagan (2010b)have argued that this is because the definition of a recession involves the signs of future growth rates of economic activity and there is little predictability of these from the past. Turkey represents an...

In response to the widespread criticism that macro-economists failed to predict the global recession coming from the GFC, we look at whether recessions in Turkey can be predicted. Because the growth in Turkish GDP is quite persistent one might expect this is possible. But it is the sign of GDP...

The paper provides a review of the estimation of structural VARs with sign restrictions. It is shown how sign restrictions solve the parametric identification problem present in structural systems but leave the model identification problem unresolved. A market and a macro model are used to...

Many papers which have estimated models with forward looking expectations have reported that the magnitude of the coefficients of the expectations term is very large when compared with the effects coming from past dynamics. This has sometimes been regarded as implausible and led to the feeling...

Three major themes have emerged in the literature on patterns. These involve pattern recognition, pattern matching (do a set of observations match a particular pattern?) and pattern formation ( how does a pattern emerge?). The talk takes up each of these themes, presenting some economic examples...