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 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 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...

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 analyse the likely effects of changes in the monetary and financial regimes of EMU countries on the dynamics of output and inflation. In particular, we evaluate the impact of the regime shift on the forecasting performance of reduced-form models. Data for both the pre-EMU and the EMU regimes...

This paper investigates the identification and dating of the European business cycle, using different methods. We concentrate on methods and statistical series that provides timely and accurate information about the contemporaneous state of the economy in order to provide the reader with a...

Filters used to estimate unobserved components in time series are often designed on a priori grounds, so as to capture the frequencies associated with the component. A limitation of these filters is that they may yield spurious results. The danger can be avoided if the so called ARIMA model...

This paper develops a flexible and computationally efficient model to estimate the credit loss distribution of the loans in a banking system. We consider a sectorial structure, where default frequencies and the total number of loans are allowed to depend on macroeconomic conditions as well as on...

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)....