This paper evaluates the ability of autoregressive models, professional forecasters, and models that leverage unemployment flows to forecast the unemployment rate. We pay particular attention to flows-based approaches—the more reduced form approach of Barnichon and Nekarda (2012) and the more...

Since 2007, the labor force participation rate has fallen from about 66 percent to about 63 percent. The sources of this decline have been widely debated among academics and policymakers, with some arguing that the participation rate is depressed due to weak labor demand while others argue that...

This paper measures flow rates into and out of unemployment for Turkey and uses them to estimate the unemployment rate trend, that is, the unemployment rate to which the economy converges in the long run. In doing so, the paper explores the role of labor force participation in determining the...

The alleged pro-cyclicality of bank capital (high in good times, low in bad) has received some blame for the recent financial crisis. Others blame the countercyclicality of capital regulations: too low in high times and too high in bad. To address this problem, Basel III has introduced...

Consumer debt played a central role in creating the U.S. housing bubble, the ensuing housing downturn, and the Great Recession, and it has been blamed as a factor in the weak subsequent recovery as well. This paper uses micro-level data to decompose consumer debt dynamics by separating the...

How can a systemic risk early warning system (EWS) facilitate the financial stability work of policymakers? In the context of evolving financial market dynamics and limitations of microprudential policy, this study examines new directions for financial macroprudential policy. A flexible...

Recent monetary policy experience suggests a simple diagnostic for models of monetary non-neutrality. Suppose the central bank pegs the nominal interest rate below steady state for a reasonably short period of time. Familiar intuition suggests that this should be modestly inflationary, and a...