In this paper we apply the wavelets methodology to the analysis business cycle fluctuations. The analysis is performed using the industrial production index in 6 developed countries between 1960-2002. We produce an orthogonal decomposition of industrial output series by time scale over six...

Standard macroeconomics, based on a reductionist approach centered on the representative agent, is badly equipped to explain the empirical evidence where heterogeneity and industrial dynamics are the rule. In this paper we show that a simple agent-based model of heterogeneous financially fragile...

In macroeconomic models with financial constraints (see, for instance, Greenwald and Stiglitz, 1993; Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist,1998; Kiyotaki and Moore,1997) firms' supply decisions depend upon the degree of financial robustness/fragility, which is identifed and measured in different ways. In the...

The present work analyzes the individual behavior in an experimental asset market in which the only task of each player is to predict the future price of an asset. To form their expectations, players see the past realization of the asset price in the market and the current information about the...

Assessing systemic risk and defining macro-prudential policies aiming at reducing economic system vulnerability have been at the center of the economic debate of the last years. Credit networks play a crucial role in diffusing and amplifying local shocks, following the network-based financial...

Agents forming adaptive expectations generally make systematic mistakes. This characterization has fostered the rejection of adaptive expectations in macroeconomics. Experimental evidence, however, shows that in complex environments human subjects frequently rely on adaptive heuristics –...

In this paper we show how a simple modification of a well-known multiplicative process of firms' growth, taking into account common and idiosyncratic elements, allows to reconcile an old aggregate-sector puzzle (Quandt, 1966) on firms'' size distribution reported in the literature.

Are expansions and recessions more likely to end as their magnitude increases? In this paper we apply parametric hazard models to investigate this issue in a sample of 16 countries from 1881 to 2000. For the total sample we find evidence of positive magnitude dependence for recessions, while for...

Based on the prices of McDonald's Big Mac hamburger in 11 Eurozone countries over the 1986–2009 period, the present article investigates whether the adoption of the euro was accompanied by an increase in inflation and how far it affected developments in price dispersion. Our results...

The EU Directive 2000/60/EC, also known as the “Framework directive in the field of water policy”, stresses the importance of water in human development processes and states that EU members should coordinate water policies towards a sustainable use of this resource; hence, water has a...