All types of recessions, on average, not just those associated with financial and political crises (as in Cerra and Saxena, AER 2008), lead to permanent output losses. These findings have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. A new paradigm of the business cycle needs to account for...

Estimates of output gaps continue to play a key role in assessments of the stance of business cycles. This paper uses three approaches to examine the historical record of output gap measurements and their use in surveillance within the IMF. Firstly, the historical record of global output gap...

We study the role that changes in credit and fiscal positions play in explaining current account fluctuations. Empirically, the current account declines when credit increases, and when the fiscal balance declines. We use a two-country model with financial frictions and fiscal policy to study...