In this paper we estimate industry-level VAR models at the 4- digit SIC level for a number of US manufacturing sectors, using TFP series which allow for variable factor utilisation over the cycle. This allows us to verify the relevance of alternative theoretical modelling approaches to the...

In this paper we study the link between elections, fiscal policy and economic growth/fluctuations. The set-up is a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of growth and endogenously chosen fiscal policy, in which two political parties can alternate in power. The party in office chooses...

This paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to examine the quantitative macroeconomic implications of countercyclical fiscal policy for France, Germany and the UK. The model incorporates real wage rigidity which is the particular market failure justifying policy...

Recently, Baxter and King (1995) developed a bandpass filter which overcomes to some extent the well known drawbacks of the Hodrick-Prescott filter. In this paper, the circumstances under which the Baxter-King filter is preferable are identified, and a modification is presented which takes into...

The aim of this paper is to test formally the classical business cycle hypothesis, using data from industrialized countries for the time period since 1960. The hypoth- esis is characterized by the view that the cyclical structure in GDP is concentrated in the investment series: mixed investment...

Using a two-sector endogenous growth model, this paper explores how productivity shocks in the goods and human capital producing sectors contribute to explaining aggregate cycles in output, consump- tion, investment and hours. To contextualize our findings, we also assess whether the human...

This paper recasts Temin's (1976) question of whether monetary forces caused the Great Depression in a modern time series framework. We adopt a Bayesian estimation and forecasting algorithm to evaluate the eects of monetary policy against nonmonetary alternatives, allowing for time-varying...

Based on the data set of Behringer (1997), we develop and test competing models of the determinants of witch hunting in Bavaria in the period 1345-1750, which explain the cyclicity as well as the variation over time from the 14th to the 18th century. Our main focus is on economic factors and...

The main objective of the paper is to analyze the cyclical structure of style indices and of selected economic time series. After comparing similarities we examine the relationship between the economic indica- tors with the style indices to observe interactions and lead-lag struc- tures. Our...

Rogoff’s "conservative central banker" has received a lot of attention recently. As a rule, central bank independence and inflation seem to be negatively correlated across countries. But the cross-country approach has been criticized for its reliance on legal measures and the measures’...