This paper deals with the relationship between decentralisation, regional economic development, and income inequality within regions. Using multiplicative interaction models and regionally aggregated microeconomic data for more than 100,000 individuals in the European Union (EU), it addresses...

Which structural reforms affect the speed the regional convergence within a country? We found that domestic financial development, trade/current account openness, better institutional infrastructure, and selected labor market reforms facilitate regional convergence. However, these reforms have...

This 2008 Article IV Consultation highlights that problems in the housing and financial markets over the past year have combined to slow the United States’ economy substantially. As the residential investment downturn accelerated and national indices of housing prices started falling, mortgage...

This paper discusses the estimation of models of the term structure of interest rates. After reviewing the term structure models, specifically the Nelson-Siegel Model and Affine Term- Structure Model, this paper estimates the terms structure of Treasury bond yields for the United States with...

The 2008 crisis underscored the interconnectedness of the international business cycle, with U.S. shocks leading to the largest global slowdown since the 1930s. We estimate spillover effects across major advanced country regions in a structural VAR (SVAR) using pre-crisis data. Our new method...

This 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that the U.S. economy has experienced the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In the second half of 2008, financial pressures intensified and came to a head with the failure of Lehman Brothers in September. Executive Directors have...

The stress testing analysis in the United States was based on publicly available information and on models that are subject to a considerable degree of uncertainty. The stress tests illustrate important vulnerabilities in the banking sector. It highlights the importance of macrofinancial...