This paper examines the role of currency and banking in the German financial crisis of 1931 for both Germany and the U.S. We specify a structural dynamic factor model to identify financial and monetary factors separately for each of the two economies. We find that monetary transmission through...

This paper presents insights on U.S. business cycle volatility since 1867 de- rived from diffusion indices. We employ a Bayesian dynamic factor model to obtain aggregate and sectoral economic activity indices. We find a remarkable increase in volatility across World War I, which is reversed...

: This text contains the winter forecast 2014 of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich, released on 17 December 2014. We present the recent economic developments in Switzerland and abroad, and discusses the main forecast results in the various sectors of the economy. We expect the Swiss...

This text presents the latest economic forecast conducted by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at the ETH Zurich on 21 June 2013. After an introduction describing the starting points and crucial assumptions underlying the forecast, we summarise the key results for Switzerland. Subsequently, we...

This text presents the economic forecast of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich on 23 September 2013. After an introduction describing the starting points and crucial assumptions underlying the forecast, we summarise the key results for Switzerland. Then we turn to the international...

This text contains the autumn forecast 2014 of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich, released on 29 October 2014. The first part discusses recent economic developments in Switzerland and abroad, and presents the main forecast results across the various sectors of the economy....

We present a new way to model age-specific demographic variables with the example of age-specific mortality in the U.S., building on the Lee-Carter approach and extending it in several dimensions. We incorporate covariates and model their dynamics jointly with the latent variables underlying...

This text presents the economic forecast released by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich on 13 June 2014. After an introduction describing the starting points and crucial assumptions underlying the forecast, we summarise the key results for Switzerland. Then we turn to the...

This text presents the economic forecast presented by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich on 28 March 2014. After an introduction describing the starting points and crucial assumptions underlying the forecast, we summarise the key results for Switzerland. Then we turn to the...

Die starke Aufwertung des Schweizer Frankens veranlasste die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB), verschiedene Massnahmen zu ergreifen. In diesem Beitrag soll das Ausmass dieser «massiven Überbewertung» gegenüber dem wichtigsten Handelspartner der Schweiz, d.h. Deutschland, geschätzt werden....