Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to associate a probabilistic confidence with the stock market interval forecasts obtained with the interval least squares (ILS) algorithm. The term probabilistic confidence in this paper means the probability of a point observation that will fall in the...

This paper examines the usefulness of asset prices in predicting recessions in the G-7 countries. It finds that asset price drops are significantly associated with the beginning of a recession in these countries. In particular, the marginal effect of an equity/house price drop on the likelihood...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to associate a probabilistic confidence with the stock market interval forecasts obtained with the interval least squares (ILS) algorithm. The term probabilistic confidence in this paper means the probability of a point observation that will fall in the...

The U.S. business cycle typically leads the European cycle by a few quarters and this can be used to forecast euro area GDP. We investigate whether financial variables carry additional information. We use vector autoregressions (VARs) which include the U.S. and the euro area GDPs as a minimal...

The 2005 Article IV Consultation for the United Arab Emirates reports that the prices in real estate and stock markets, have soared aided by stronger economic fundamentals and investor optimism. An outward-oriented development strategy and prudent financial policies have resulted in impressive...

The output gap-which measures the deviation of actual output from its potential-is frequently used as an indicator of slack in an economy. This paper estimates the Finnish output gap using various empirical methods. It evaluates these methods against economic history and each other by a...

This paper examines the determinants of inflation in Sierra Leone using a structural vector autoregression (VAR) approach to help forecast inflation for operational purposes. Despite data limitations, the paper accurately models inflation in Sierra Leone. As economic theory predicts, domestic...

Monetary policy in the euro area is conducted within a multicountry, multicultural, and multilingual context involving multiple central banking traditions. How does this heterogeneity affect the ability of economic agents to understand and to anticipate monetary policy by the European Central...

This is the second of a series of papers that are being written as part of a larger project to estimate a small quarterly Global Projection Model (GPM). The GPM project is designed to improve the toolkit for studying both own-country and cross-country linkages. In this paper, we estimate a small...

This paper examines the implications of inflation persistence for the inverted Fisher hypothesis that nominal interest rates do not adjust to inflation because of a high degree of substitutability between money and bonds. It is emphasized that the substitutability between nominal assets and...