This paper uses a data-set including time series data on macroeconomic variables, loans, deposits and interest rates for the euro area in order to study the features of financial intermediation over the business cycle. We find that stylized facts for aggregate monetary and real variables are...

The estimation of dynamic no-arbitrage term structure models with a flexible specification of the market price of risk is beset by a severe small-sample problem arising from the highly persistent nature of interest rates. We propose using survey forecasts of a short-term interest rate as an...

This paper shows consistency of a two step estimator of the parameters of a dynamic approximate factor model when the panel of time series is large (n large). In the first step, the parameters are first estimated from an OLS on principal components. In the second step, the factors are estimated...

The Beveridge-Nelson (BN) technique provides a forecast-based method of decomposing a variable such as output, into trend and cycle when the variable is integrated of order one (I (1)). This paper considers the multivariate generalization of the BN decomposition when the information set includes...

This paper considers quasi-maximum likelihood estimations of a dynamic approximate factor model when the panel of time series is large. Maximum likelihood is analyzed under different sources of misspecification: omitted serial correlation of the observations and cross-sectional correlation of...

This paper uses a multivariate generalization of the Beveridge and Nelson methodology to model trends and cycles of business sector labour productivity in the major OECD countries. The method implies that the trend is the long-run forecast of productivity, given all available information; the...

This paper asks two questions. First, can we detect empirically whether the shocks recovered from the estimates of a structural VAR are truly structural? Second, can the problem of non-fundamentalness be solved by considering additional information? The answer to the first question is 'yes' and...

This paper shows that the explanation of the decline in the volatility of GDP growth since the mid-eighties is not the decline in the volatility of exogenous shocks but rather a change in their propagation mechanism.

Which are the new frontiers in central banking? Which things have changed in the aftermath of the financial, economic and sovereign debt crisis? These are questions raised frequently by central bankers, academics and interested observers alike. There are quite a few areas to cover in answering...

This paper examines the robustness characteristics of optimal control policies derived un- der the assumption of rational expectations to alternative models of expectations. We assume that agents have imperfect knowledge about the precise structure of the economy and form expectations using a...