In the paper a general framework for large scale modeling of macroeconomic and financial time series is introduced. The proposed approach is characterized by simplicity of implementation, performing well independently of persistence and heteroskedasticity properties, accounting for common...

The recent financial crisis has highlighted the fragility of the US financial system under several respects. In this paper, the properties of a summary index of financial fragility, timely capturing changes in credit and liquidity risk, distress in the mortgage market, and corporate default...

In the paper a general framework for large scale modeling of macroeconomic and financial time series is introduced. The proposed approach is characterized by simplicity of implementation, performing well independently of persistence and heteroskedasticity properties, accounting for common...

What is the role of financial speculation in determining the real oil price? We find that while macroeconomic shocks have been the major upward driver of the real oil price since the mid 1980s, financial shocks have also sizably contributed since early 2000s, and at a much larger extent since...

This study contributes to the investigation of the macro-finance interface by assessing the economic content and risk based interpretation of widely employed risk factors in the specification of empirical asset pricing models, i.e., Fama-French size and value, and Carhart momentum factors, as...