Bond excess returns can be predicted by macro factors, however, large parts remain still unexplained. We apply a novel term structure model to decompose bond excess returns into expected excess returns (risk premia) and the unexpected part. In order to explore these risk premia and innovations,...

This paper reexamines the Equity Premium Puzzle for the German stock market with control for inflation and taxation. Two methods for relaxing the assumption of aggregate consumption being equal to aggregate dividends are compared: the leverage approach and the usage of a bivariate stochastic...

The recent global financial crisis has increased interest in macroeconomic models that incorporate financial linkages. Here, we compare the simulation properties of five mediumsized general equilibrium models used in Eurosystem central banks which incorporate such linkages. The financial...

How should wealth managers and private bankers find and serve the wealthy - particularly in developing countries? Several banks and consulting firms provide market sizing estimates for the number of high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals. However, it is still an open question...

The introduction of inflation targets in Canada in 1991 ostensibly clarified the objectives of monetary policy, namely the pursuit of price stability. In doing so, one of the objectives of the new policy was to ensure that the public would henceforth be able to assess more easily monetary policy...

In this paper we investigate the impact of UK macroeconomic news announcements on selected futures contracts and exchange rates. We include a wide set of scheduled public news announcements in our study, including official interest rate decisions. We investigate whether the reaction to these...

A growing body of literature argues that the financial cycle is considerably longer in duration and larger in amplitude than the business cycle and that its distinguishing features became more pronounced over time. This paper proposes an empirical approach suitable to test these hypotheses. We...

We study the synchronization of credit booms and busts among 12 major European economies and the United States between 1972-2011. We propose a regression-based procedure to test whether boom-bust phases of credit cycles coincide across countries and to cluster countries with positively...