Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the presence and importance of adverse selection and moral hazard in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers issued by a major...

Charitable donations by private individuals and firms can help fund the Millennium Development Goals. What are the prospects for increasing donations for international development, whether from small-scale donors, the super-rich (as in the recent gifts by Bill Gates and Ted Turner), or the...

This analysis tests the price discovery relationship between sovereign CDS premia and bond yield spreads on the same reference entity. The theoretical no-arbitrage relationship between the two credit spreads is confronted with daily data from six Euro-area countries over the period 2004-2011. As...

This paper provides real time evidence on the usefulness of the euro area output gap as a leading indicator for inflation and growth. A genuine real-time data set for the euro area is used, including vintages of several alternative gap estimates. It turns out that, despite some difference across...

This paper provides evidence on the reliability of euro area real-time output gap estimates, including those provided by the IMF, OECD and EC and a set of model based measures. A genuine real-time data set is used, including vintages of several sets of euro area output gap estimates available...

This paper describes how we constructed a real-time database for the euro area covering more than 200 series regularly published in the European Central Bank Monthly Bulletin, as made available ahead of publication to the Governing Council members before their first meeting of the month. We...

The paper explores the determinants of yield differentials between sovereign bonds in the Euro area. There is a common trend in yield differentials, which is correlated with a measure of aggregate risk. In contrast, liquidity differentials display sizeable heterogeneity and no common factor. We...

In addition to quantitative assessment of economic growth using econometric models, business cycle analyses have been proved to be helpful to practitioners in order to assess current economic conditions or to anticipate upcoming fluctuations. In this paper, we focus on the acceleration cycle in...

This Paper is an exercise in dating the euro area business cycle on a monthly basis. We construct several monthly European real GDP series, and then apply the Bry-Boschan (1971) procedure. Using this method we identify four business cycles. Studying further indicators of business activity, we...

We study the convergence of European bond markets and the anchoring of inflation expectations in euro area countries using high-frequency bond yield data for France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We find that Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has led to substantial convergence in euro area sovereign...