We formulate a simple theoretical model of a banking industry that we use to identify and construct theory-based measures of systemic bank shocks (SBS). These measures differ from "banking crisis" (BC) indicators employed in many empirical studies, which are constructed using primarily...

This paper examines the problem of measuring the growth of a monetary aggregate in the presence of innovations in financial markets and changes in the relationship between individual assets and output. We propose constructing a monetary aggregate so that it is a good leading indicator of nominal...

Many empirical studies of banking crises have employed "banking crisis" (BC) indicators constructedusing primarily information on government actions undertaken in response to bank distress. Weformulate a simple theoretical model of a banking industry which we use to identify and...

This paper describes a weekly economic index (WEI) developed to track the rapid economic developments associated with the onset of and policy response to the novel coronavirus in the United States. The WEI is a weekly composite index of real economic activity, with eight of ten series available...

This paper rehabilitates the concept of effective rate of protection for use in political economy. The usual definition corresponds to no economically interesting magnitude in general equilibrium. The effective rate of protection for a sector is redefined here as the uniform tariff which is...

This paper develops and characterizes an index of trade policy restrictiveness defined as the uniform tariff equivalent which maintains the same volume of trade as a given set of tariffs, quota, and domestic taxes and subsidies. We relate this volume-equivalent index to the Trade Restrictiveness...

We formulate a simple theoretical model of a banking industry that we use to identify and construct theory-based measures of systemic bank shocks (SBS). These measures differ from “banking crisis” (BC) indicators employed in many empirical studies, which are constructed using primarily...

This paper considers forecasting a single time series using more predictors than there are time series observations. The approach is to construct a relatively few indexes, akin to diffusion indexes, which are weighted averages of the predictors, using an approximate dynamic factor model....

This paper develops and characterizes an index of trade policy restrictiveness defined as the uniform tariff equivalent which maintains the same volume of trade as a given set of tariffs, quota, and domestic taxes and subsidies. We relate this volume-equivalent index to the Trade Restrictiveness...