Gram-Charlier expansion have become popular in Finance as a generalization over the normality assumption. Even though Gram-Charlier expansions allow for a certain flexibility over skewness and kurtosis they have the unfortunate drawback of sometimes yielding negative densities. The goal of this...

This study identifies common features of currency crises in 15 emerging countries over the period 1980-1998. By analyzinf such features, we build an early-warning system aimed at predicting looming crises in probabilistic terms.

This paper uses daily exchange rates from the mark/franc, dollar/mark and dollar/yen markets in the period between November 2, 1994 and September 21, 1995, to examine the predictive content of two option-implied indicators on future spot rates.

This paper incorporates banks as well as frictions in the market for bank capital into a standard New Keynesian model and considers the positive and normative implications of various financial shocks. It shows that the frictions matter significantly for the effects of the shocks and the...

In this article, we analyze the US short term real interest rate series for the last five decades in the framework of a M-SETAR model (Momentum - Self Exciting Threshold Auto-Regressive). With the aim of disentangling the non-linearity from the non-stationarity cases, we use threshold...

The advent and spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs) increase potential output growth . It is uncertain to what extent and for how long they do so. We use the term "new economy" (NE) to describe the acceleration in potential output growth and the attendant and partly...

In this paper, we try to illustrate the interest of the Bayesian approach for the evaluation of economic policies, often realised by analysing the response of the economy to a standard shock. We present a Stochastic Dynamic General Equilibrium model for the euro area. The Bayesian estimation...

The recent boom in housing markets of most developed economies has spurred criticism that inflation targeting central banks may have neglected the build-up of financial imbalances. This paper provides a formal empirical test of such claims, using a standard program evaluation methodology to...

Monetary union can benefit countries suffering from policy credibility problems if it eliminates the inflation bias and also allows for more efficient management of certain shocks. But it also carries costs as some stabilization may be feasible even in the absence of credibility, and this may be...

We measure the impact of bank capital requirements on corporate borrowing and business activity. We use loan-level data and take advantage of the transition from Basel 1 to Basel 2. While under Basel 1 the capital charge was the same for all firms, under Basel 2, it depends in a predictable way...