The sharp decline in economic activity registered in Spain over 2008 and 2009 has no precedents in recent history. After ten prosperous years with an average GDP growth of 3.7%, the current recession places non-judgemental forecasting models under stress. This paper evaluates the Spanish GDP...

We study the relationship between hours worked and technology during the postwar period in the US. We show that the responses of hours to technological improvements have increased over time, and that the patterns captured by the SVAR are consistent with those obtained from an RBC model with a...

This paper reviews some of the applications that use the vast swathes of information provided by Internet user searches for economic analysis and forecasting. This enormous volume of information, available in real time, can be handled by analysts thanks to statistical tools such as “Google...

This paper examines possible explanations for observed differences in the transmission of euro area monetary policy in central bank large scale macroeconomic models. In particular it considers the extent to which these differences are due to differences in the underlying economies or (possibly...

This document presents a multivariate transfer function model for two components of CPI, the processed food and non-energy industrial goods, where the component of consumption goods of industrial price index (i.e. wholesale prices) is used as a leading indicator. We find that inflation rates of...

To select the best leading indicators for predicting short-term inflation, an extensive number of economic variables is analysed at quarterly level on the basis of their past correlation with the consumer price index (CPI) and its services and non-energy processed goods component (IPSEBENE)....

This paper assesses the impact of oil price changes on Spanish and euro area consumer price inflation. We find, consistently with recent international evidence, that the inflationary effect of oil price changes is limited, even though crude oil price fluctuations are a major driver of inflation...

Recent treatments of the issue of a zero floor on nominal interest rates have been subject to some important methodological limitations. These include the assumption of perfect foresight or the introduction of the zero lower bound as an initial condition or a constraint on the variance of the...

This paper describes the methods of the third wave of the Spanish Survey of Household Finances (EFF2008), paying special attention to the innovations relative to the previous waves. The EFF2008 was designed to give continuity to the information on household finances collected through the EFF2002...

This paper describes the methods of the fourth wave of the Spanish Survey of Household Finances (EFF2011), paying special attention to the innovations relative to the previous waves. The EFF2011 was designed to give continuity to the information on household finances collected through the...