We examine the properties of house price fluctuations across eighteen advanced economies over the past forty years. We ask two specific questions: First, how synchronized are housing cycles across these countries? Second, what are the main shocks driving movements in global house prices? To...

We review the main identification strategies and empirical evidence on the role of expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips curve, paying particular attention to the issue of weak identification. Our goal is to provide a clear understanding of the role of expectations that integrates across...

This paper examines the ex-post performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that obtained small business credit scoring (SBCS) loans, using a unique Japanese firm?bank matched dataset. The ex-post probability of default after the SBCS loan was provided significantly increased for SMEs...

We describe the relationship between socio-economic status and current bidi or cigarette smoking among Indian men aged ?15 years. The prevalence of bidi smoking was 13.7% (95%CI 13.3?14.1) and that of cigarette smoking was 6.3% (95%CI 6.1?6.6). bidi smoking was concentrated among the...

In many decision problems, agents base their actions on a simple objective index, a single number that summarizes the available information about objects of choice independently of their particular preferences. This paper proposes an axiomatic approach for deriving an index which is objective...

Eurozone members are supposedly constrained by the fiscal caps of the Stability and Growth Pact. Yet ever since the birth of the euro, members have postponed painful adjustment. Wishful thinking has played an important role in this failure. We find that governments? forecasts are biased in the...