We investigate whether expectations that are not fully rational have the potential to explain the evolution of house prices and the price-to-rent ratio in the United States. First,a Lucas type asset-pricing model solved under rational expectations is used to derive a fundamental value for house...

The authors study the implications of fiscal policy behaviour for sovereign risk in a framework that determines a country’s fiscal limit, the point at which, for economic or political reasons, taxes and spending can no longer adjust to stabilize debt. A real business cycle model maps the...

This paper analyses the Canadian economy for the post 1960 period. It uses an accounting procedure developed in Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2006). The procedure identifies accounting factors that help align the predictions of the neoclassical growth model with macroeconomic variables observed...

The generation and implementation of ideas, or knowledge, is crucial for economic performance. We study this process in a model of endogenous growth with frictions. Productivity increases with knowledge, which advances via innovation, and with the exchange of ideas from those who generate them...

The author attempts to track Canadian labour productivity over the past four decades using a multivariate dynamic factor model that, in addition to the labour productivity series, includes aggregate compensation and consumption information. Productivity is assumed to switch between two regimes...

The financial crisis of 200709 has highlighted the importance of developments in financial conditions for real economic activity. The authors estimate the effect of current and past shocks to financial variables on U.S. GDP growth by constructing two growthbased financial conditions indexes...